The blurb sounds so right up my alley, like I should love this book with everything I am, but the actual writing left something to be desired. Parts feel like an information dump, and I didn't feel like I connected with the characters as we opened the story. Stopped at 6%.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon for the ARC.

I just couldn’t get into this book. I really wanted to and I loved the blurb/synopsis so I thought it would be right up my street. But I found the characters hard to like and develop a real feel for and the pace of the story was very slow.
Not my cup of tea, but hopefully it suits someone!

The List
- Find a sponsor
- Find a suitor
- Don’t drink
- Save £ 20 a day for 64 days
- Cleanse karma and call Ma weekly
- Run to a ten
- Cheat on Wednesdays
- Social standards, abstain or conquer
- Watch live comedy: keep it diverse
- Write a self-help book
- Replace Beyoncé

I picked this up through Netgalley, with thanks to Mimi Deb and Avon Books for gifting me this e-ARC

everyone makes a new years resolution list in some form. a pinterest board. a rushed scribble on a napkin. a bulleted list in the new journal you bought specifically for the new year. so when gia's list ends up stuck to the bottom of a takeaway bag and ends up in the lap of ben, an unlikely frienship occurs through hand-delivered notes.

rating: ⭐⭐⭐

my thoughts: i picked this up, attracted by the idea of becoming friends and finding love through notes attached to a takeaway box, especially since i adored the flatshare series by beth o'leary (still need to read my physical copy of that actually!) but i found it to be a little all over the place. because it is told through two perspectives, gia's and ben's, and then the amount of side characters such as siblings and friends etc i struggled to enjoy and keep myself remembering who was who.

there was a few formatting issues when reading through kindle, with words not where they should be and making it impossible nearly to read 'the list' and the following notes back and forth between gia and ben. i also was thrown by ben's side plot towards the end and made it extremely unclear as to what was going on.

i did enjoy ben's main plotline though, with him coaching a local youth football team and wanting to start up an academy for those less fortunate, but having also recently read my legendary girlfriend which i didn't enjoy much, i also found it difficult to associate myself with this too. in addition, the main conflict of the book is gia's belief that her workplace is setting her up to fail after a single accident at a new years party, feels like a
bit of a mess and something that could easily have been sorted by talking to her boss. i did however enjoy the subtle-ish nods to gia's heritage and also her being on the slightly curvier side, which is something that books always need more of - diversity.

as someone who likes learning more about marketing also, i would have liked to know why ideas pitched to the client in the book focused on dragging in their personal lives because of a newspaper article? it felt very immature, especially since it revolved around drinking too.

i did love the idea behind this, and feel like with a bit of editing that the plot would run a little smoother, instead of jumping around a little bit to the point where all the characters blur into one.

Love On The Menu is such a sweet and heartwarming read. Perfect for Valentine's day but also a great beach read.

While I found the pacing a bit odd, I enjoyed the premise of the book as well as the characters.

I was intrigued by the concept of this book. I love characters falling in love through letters, and I enjoyed the notes Gia and Ben write to one another. Through their communication, you learn more about Ben's family and home life, and you learn about Gia's work struggles. Both characters were fleshed out and had their own sets of struggles and challenges. However, it felt like there was a little too much happening. Many of the side characters felt similar and irrelevant. The two main characters sounded more authentic in their notes than they did in the first-person chapters, and some of the dialogue felt really stilted. That said, the way Gia and Ben supported each other was very sweet, and I liked the relationship growth Gia has with her mom. Overall, this was a nice, light read.

I'm sorry I couldn't get into this book. The synopsis sounded amazing however for me, the pace was too slow, and I couldn't connect with the characters.

Thank you to netgalley, the publisher and Mimi Deb for providing me with an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Full disclosure- I read the reviews before I started this book and was honestly expecting it to be a boring flop but I can honestly say it rose above expectations!

I really enjoyed the style of communication between Gia and Ben, and the takeaway receipts were always a nice touch.

There were a few grammar/sentence structure issues at times but nothing I couldn’t figure out.

The ending however, left me a little disappointed and confused as Ben talked about going on more dates so we didn’t really get a love story between him and Gia

Reviewed for NetGalley:

Unfortunately could not get into this one. I had a hard time pushing through and connecting with any of the characters.

was actually excited to read this book (the cover was adorable and the description sounded rlly good) but tbh I didn’t end up finishing this book because I found the plot pacing to be a little muddled up and couldn’t rlly come to terms with the whole character arcs/development

This is a romance novel that a woman clearly wrote. That isn't such a bad thing. We all know and love other "men written by women." Ben, however, is written like a woman. It's like Mimi wrote the novel as a wlw romance book, then decided at the last minute to change it. Furthermore, it is evident that it's her first book, but her writing style wasn't too bad.

I LOVE the note-swapping, and the basic idea of the novel is pretty great. For a first-time writer, this novel is pretty darn good. However, I did knock off one star because there were SO many side characters just thrown in there for no goddam reason. (and because I hate the plot of "oh no, I got drunk, and now I have ruined every good thing I've ever done").

This one was really good! I love the characters. Gia and Ben are so good together, it's really sweet. The idea is original, I love the writing. It's an awesome book!

This really piqued my interest but sorry to say I just couldn’t get into it. It had so much potential but I found myself forcing myself to read it. I think there is definitely something there but it didn’t hit the right boxes for me

This is the type of review that I hate to write. The premise sounded adorable and I love discovering new authors so I was really excited about this book. Sadly, nothing about it worked for me. I did not like either character and found the plot hopelessly muddled. I was skimming towards the end just to make it to the end.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really wanted to like this because the cover is quite cute and the concept (rom-com + food) had lots of potential (hence my rating), but i’m sorry to say that it just didn’t work for me. I ended up dnf’ing and unfortunately couldn’t get through it, mostly because the pacing of the plot was very irregular and the character profiles and development was quite messy. I’d also say it’s more contemporary women’s fiction than strictly rom-com.

Excellent premise, can really see this as a film! A unique style and easy read, I enjoyed this and found myself thinking about it when not reading. I’ll be interested to see what this author comes up with next!

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book had lots of potential. I love the idea of exchanging notes via takeaway delivery, and I loved the inclusion of multiple cultures… unfortunately, this fell flat for me. This is really not a romance, considering the characters don’t even discuss a date until the last few pages of the book. In my opinion, it was too long, and confusing at times.

Thank you for letting me read this arc. I had a hard time getting into this book. I wasn't a fan of the writing. I can see why others would enjoy this book but it just wasn't for me.

The idea was there but the execution wasn't.

First, I'd seen some other reviews that the formatting/editing was terrible, but my copy wasn't the worst. Sure, there were some grammar or editing issues here and there, and the ebook format I had wasn't the greatest, but that could be due to several reasons.

That said, I found it hard to connect to the characters. We jump straight into the storyline without explaining what is going on and who is who. I spent the majority of the book trying to figure out what, exactly, Gia did for her company, and what that company did in general.

And maybe it's because of the pacing or the way the characters were written, but I genuinely lost interest in them halfway through. After the first few chapters, the already-sluggish pacing stretches to be even slower, until it was practically dragging. And the extensive side cast was collectively forgettable, unamusing, and either confusing/mean/or dull. Jay, for example, was supposed to be Gia's friend? Although they said cruel things to each other at the beginning that were immediately brushed aside, Jay himself was a little rude and was portrayed as the "comedic" character even though he wasn't funny.

Little things like that, as well as the slight disorganization of the plot/what's going on/the characters made it hard to follow and uninteresting. Which is a shame, really, because I was looking forward to reading this book.

thank you Netgalley for the free copy

Love on the Menu by Mimi Deb is a romcom about a woman who makes a list of the things she’d like to do to improve herself after a disastrous night, only to lose the list when it sticks to the bottom of a takeout container. Luckily the guy who works at the takeout restaurant is basically a perfect match for her and so they end up communicating via notes on her takeout recipes. I thought this premise was really cute, but unfortunately the execution was poor. The action took way too long to develop and there were far too many will-they-won’t-they coincidences that ended in the couple JUST missing each other. It felt like both the main plot and several subplots could have been eliminated with one or two candid conversations. Ultimately I really wanted to like this and thought it was cute at the macro level, but didn't love the details and couldn't get attached enough to the characters to justify the pace.

Also worth noting, the formatting on the Kindle download was messed up throughout the book. In multiple cases the words had no spaces between them them or there were carriage returns where I believe there should have been (for example, in the notes). I recognize these will probably be fixed for the final version, but wanted to flag!

Firstly I'd like to say thanks to Avon Books UK and NetGallery for the opportunity to read and review.

I'm sorry to say I didn't finish this book at 50%

It took me 6 days to get to 50%s and I'm a book a day kind of girl.

The concept is great, and I liked the characters but the pace was just far too slow.