Thank you to Delacorte Press and NetGalley for providing this book as a digital galley in exchange for an honest review.
One-Sentence Summary:
When marketing intern Reese teams up with the culinary intern to make a video for her bosses’ cooking channel, she deals with rivalry, romance, and the troubles of being an online presence– especially as a woman.
My Review:
I didn't only adore Love from Scratch, I loved the experience of reading it. The characters in this book are absolutely amazing and nothing if not sweet. Honestly, "media personas who get shipped by everyone" is one of my favorite tropes, especially amongst secret relationships. Reese, our lovely POV MC, is a marketing intern at the Friends of Flavor cooking channel before she makes a video with the culinary intern and their vast public support leads the Friends to give them their own channel and make it into a competition to see who gets the fall internship position. Reese is such a powerful character and a great role model. She's so persistent, but also vulnerable, but she's never portrayed as weak. Meanwhile, Benny is incredibly sweet and supportive for Reese and in general. I loved seeing them and the other (non-sexist) characters in this story and they made it so fun. I really loved how Hill did the relationships in this book. Although the main point is obviously Benny and Reese's romance, she shows that there's a lot of importance in friendship between women, both in Reese and her friends back home and her colleagues. Going back to Benny and Reese, their relationship was SO CUTE. While they were competing, that didn't stop the two from being incredibly supportive of one another and so loving. However, their relationship isn't shown as perfect! It showed that support includes speaking up, regardless of past teachings and normalized negative behavior. Their dedication to one another was too cute and so powerful. Reese's friendship with the other women at Friends of Flavor, especially standing up against sexism together, was so beautiful to see. As I mentioned before, this plot as two purposes: Our lovely romance between the nicest people ever and calling out sexism in internet spaces and harassment. There was a perfect balance of "Look at how cute!!!" and "Men with bigger platforms could be doing more." Between the rivalry, romance, and outside factors, I can't really say anything about this plot other than how good it was. I couldn't help but be so happy and so sad at the same time when reading. I would absolutely recommend this book to contemporary and romcom fans. It's cute and funny, but also relevant in such a digital age where people with experiences like Reese's both with the Friends and in high school are there witnessing and being victims of cruelty. I absolutely loved this book. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
The Fiction Feature 