I have received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Love from Scratch was a pretty cute romcom kind of book. Yes, there were hints of a rivalry on a cooking show but I honestly really liked watching Benny and Reese fall in love. The tension, nicknames, and food puns were worth the drama in my eyes. Even if things were a tad bit overdramatic at times.

I did not like how certain people talked in certain scenes though. It is not the women's place to be in the kitchen to cook and clean. So, I didn't like it when one guy said Reese should clean because it's her place. Like, no sir. Take back those fighting words. Then Benny just kind of stands there and looks angry but says nothing. Not a damn freaking thing.

Other than that, things were assumed and shit hit the fan towards the end of the book. Luckily everything worked out in the end once they both talked but damn - things would have been different if they actually communicated throughout the entire book. Could just be me thinking these crazy things though.

In the end, I'm very happy that I got the opportunity to jump into this book. I look forward to the next one that Kaitlyn writes!

It can be hard for books to navigate that balance between hilarious and heartfelt, but Love from Scratch does it well. A compelling romance and some powerful discussions on misogyny that's very relevant in real culinary workspaces.

First off thank you NetGally for an ARC of Love from Scratch, by Kaitlyn Hill.

I love a good food romance! Reece and Benny are so cute. I read Love from Scratch super fast. If your looking for a super sweet light hearted read I recommend Love from Scratch.

Recent high school graduate Reese Camden has landed a summer internship at her favorite company, Friends of Flavor ( A smaller version of The Food Network). After inadvertently becoming the co-host of a new show, Reese has to navigate her career ambitions, company politics/sexism, the opening of old wounds, and a budding romance with her adversary. Will she stay on her planned path or will new experiences change her trajectory?

This is a cute teen romantic comedy that I think younger readers will enjoy. There are some cliches, and it can be a bit cheesy and convoluted at times, but I think teenagers will find something relatable within the story. Benny, the love interest, is really sweet and charming, and Reese is believably navigating those awkward years of transition from child to adult. A quick, clean read with some humor and a feel-good ending.

Love from Scratch is a super cute YA romance that foodies of all ages will enjoy! Reese and Benny’s chemistry is riveting and will give you all the warm and fuzzy vibes. Reese picked up and moved across the country for an internship of her dreams, where she meets Benny. There’s competition between them for the fall intern spot but that doesn’t stop what’s happening between them!
Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Children's/Delacorte Press for this arc ebook in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own!
I will be posting my review on Goodreads and on Instagram today.

I don't normally read Young Adult books, but I'm a sucker for food centered stories and romance. Plus, the cover art and blurb were too cute to pass up!

It's a YA (that borders more towards New Adult imo) rom-com and is every bit as sweet and cute as its blurb suggests! It's a reverse sunshine vs grump trope - the FMC, Reese, is a little less cheery than others expect her to be whereas the MMC, Benny, radiates so much joy and positivity that it's hard not to smile when he's on the page. The characters are relatable and believable. Readers will empathize with Reese's struggle to find her footing in the world (and her own life) and crush on Benny's cinnamon roll sweetness and impressive cooking skills.

It's a great palate cleanser after dark reads, as well as a cute beach read that'll give you strong cravings and/or possibly inspire you to whip up your own version of every dish the book mentions. I recommend it to YA lovers wanting a cute love story and parents unsure of what to gift their book loving kids - it discusses feminism, internet trolls/hate, abusive relationships, guilt and pressure to rush into sex young, etc. Swearing and two light makeout scenes are the furthest this book goes in terms of a PG-13 rating!

It's a predictable, cheesy but (literally) sweet story and I really enjoyed it!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/ 5

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Children's / Delacorte Press for a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Publication date: May 5, 2022

I was not sure how to feel about this, but I love baking and romance. This was a really great read - I'd classify it more as NA than YA. I liked the use of enemies to lovers. It was a nice read, very comfort food really.

*copy through Netgalley

Love from Scratch is a satisfying rom-com for all ages.

I mean-food, workplace drama, internet trolls, rivalry turned romance-what more do you need in a lighthearted book???

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.

This was so adorable! I went into it expecting an adult book (I have no idea why) but loved the YA concept. I, of course, love that it revolves around food.

I really enjoyed reading about Reese and Benny, they had me laughing and smiling so much.

Overall, this book was cute and sweet and fun.

A feminist rom com set in a bon appetit-style video series kitchen? What more could I possibly ask for???

I had the distinct pleasure of reading an early copy of this book, and I love Benny and Reese an aggressive amount. Reese's voice is so funny and her ambition is incredible (and her rants about sweet tea are very correct). Benny is the absolute sweetest boy the world has ever seen. I want him to make me macarons.

So this was so ridiculously cute that I can't even describe how ridiculoualy cute it was!

I absolutely loved how vulnerable, genuine, and real Benny was. Alpha males are so not at all my thing. Gimme the incredibly sweet guy with a sense of humor and mischievous twinkle in his eye any day!

There were a lot of conversations in this, especially between Benny and Reese. I loved getting to see them actually bond and share their stories and pieces of themselves. This doesn't always happen in rom coms, but I firmly believe that the best romance is between people who TALK.

The only real criticism I have for this was that certain messages got a bit heavy-handed at times. Did we really need a conversation about feminism where Reese is getting solid advice to take a turn to "Check your orivilege, White Girl"? I didn't disagree with tbe messages, but they fell flat because they came out of nowhere. There was also some political commentary that was unnecessarily petty (Natalie has dumped guys for being "Republican'"? Why?).

That said, none of what Reese had dealt with and was frustrated by felt disingenuous. Women shouldn't have to just deal with sexist idiots, but it's just something that happens. Putting a fine point on some of it felt like the right thing to do.

The chemistry between Benny and Reese was sizzling, but very sweet (it's a big deal for Benny to take off his shirt). Reese's hangup with that felt a bit less understandable, but maybe that was also just me wanting more.

All in all, I really enjoyed this. The characters, the chemistry, and tne fun were all so wonderful I could barely set this down.

4.25 Stars
2 Heat

5/5 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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Thank you to the publishers and Net Galley for giving me a copy of this book! This is my honest review, all views are my own.
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Is this what it feels like to fall in love? Love From Scratch has a banter-filled rivalry and a swoon-worthy romance, but it also mentions sexist double standards and the horrors behind internet hate. Not only is it touching in terms of the adorable relationship, but it is touching in terms of the representation of sisterhood and strength in numbers against the rampant misogyny of the company, of the internet, and in general. Love From Scratch follows Reese, the summer marketing intern at cooking channel Friends of Flavor, as she is thrust into the spotlight of a video series competition starring herself and culinary intern Benny. While the competition is meant to be fun and games, the winner is the one most likely to also win the fall internship spot—a position coveted by both parties. Benny seeks to form an alliance with her, but Reese isn’t convinced and tries to keep her distance. She thinks she’s only going to get her heart broken, after all. On top of that, alongside her newfound fame is a barrage of internet hate, and Reese is finding it really difficult to deal with it all.
I could not stop squealing over this book! So, so cute. First off, the writing—I love the banter and the Southernisms, along with all the little details that make the characters feel real. It’s a perfect style for a contemporary novel. The plot itself is pretty simple: The interns do a show on the spot in order to make their bosses happy, the fans then clamor for more, it turns into a competition series (intern VS. intern), and although there is a romance building between the interns, there is a lot of sexism and Internet hate that begins to build as well. I think it’s well paced, as none of the scenes feels particularly over- or under-done. Nothing feels super rushed, even though the pace was somewhat fast. As for the characters themselves: Reese is adorable and deals with so much, and I was super invested in her character. She’s unapologetic, sassy in just the right way, and although she does a terrible job of communicating sometimes (as per usual in a romance novel), she communicates when it counts. Benny is the epitome of a gentleman, and I adore him so much. He can be a bit blind to some of the woes that Reese endures, but overall he really tries to understand and be there for her and I appreciate his efforts.
I just really enjoyed this book! I don’t have too much to say besides gushing over it. I think the plot is great, the writing is great, the characters are great, the romance has good chemistry, and the conflict is resolved well at the end. It’s a very sweet story with some heavier content and some lighter content, and I appreciate it very much. 5 stars.

Buckle up and hold on for a word burst! This cute, hilarious, and sometimes even cheesy enemies to lovers young adult about feminism was just what I needed!

Pitched as a young adult but more a crossover between young adult and new adult (without steamy scenes), and sometimes feeling like an adult rom-com, Love from Scratch is an adorable story. Reese from Kentucky and Benny from San Francisco are both interns at a cooking channel and meet when they have to improvise for a cooking video. When the video becomes a huge hit, people start shipping them both until Reese realizes she and Benny are competing for the same fall internship.

I loved Benny with all his nicknames for Reese and his food puns. He was such a cute bean, a cinnamon roll, definitely the cherry on the cake. I had to warm up a little to Reese, though. Somehow, she felt too ambitious, too driven, too perfectionist. But when I got to know her better, I started to like her more. She had to deal with a lot of misogyny, a boss who looked at her legs and only talked to Benny, people back home who called her a skank, and people online who left ugly comments. How do you deal with those things as an eighteen-year-old?

Love from Scratch is a quick and easy read that will probably captivate many teens. I round my 3.5 stars rating up to four because a low angsty romance like this was, like I said before, just what I needed.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book did some fun things to my stomach, from giving it butterflies, to making it grumble, and I was here for it. I’m also here to tell you that even if you’ve never seen a single episode from the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen (which this books’ Friends of Flavor seems to be based on), you can still thoroughly enjoy it. And then maybe want to go back and start watching Bon Appetit videos.

I loved the characters, the romance, the feminism, and, most especially, the food. Am I going to make shakshuka this weekend solely because of this book? Um… yes. Absolutely. And I’ll likely try to follow it up with a Reese’s Cup cake. Probably an odd flavor combo, but I’m leaning into it.

Read this book if you like:
↝Banter-filled romance
↝Cooking episode style writing
↝Discussion of the workplace and online harassment

Wow, wow, wow, this book reminded me of how happy rom-com makes me. Reese and Ben were adorable, and their relationship was everything. They were open, caring, and treated one another as equals whose work deserved to be valued (!!!)

This book did a fantastic job depicting hateful comments and how they follow you while creating a constant hole of doubt in your abilities. I sympathized with Reese and was so proud of the way she stood up for herself. The problems don’t automatically resolve, but effort and persistence are the way to move forward.

I wasn’t a fan when the writing got a tad repetitive in some spots, but that’s understandable since it’s difficult to create completely different events for the show. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Children for the Earc in exchange for an honest review.

Ya'llllllll it was good 😭

Picture me, not a thought in my head, no attention span to read a simple synopsis, just being enticed by the cover, thinking this was about two regular old dummies (non-derogatory) in a small town who work at a bakery together or something. I genuinely don't know that I ever read what this book was about in any capacity.

Imagine my shock when the main character, Reese, was in Seattle but as Southern as could be, from Kentucky, and the love interest was a short buff Italian from California who is like, about consent and respect and talking about feelings and just the actual PERFECT love interest!!!!! They work at the equivalent of a Buzzfeed cooking channel as interns, separately, and don't even know each other. One day they both have to fill in on the fly and film a quirky ~our dumb interns try to cook~ video together when the regular filming schedule is disrupted. So it takes everyone off-guard when Reese and Benny, the other intern (read: love interest), have great chemistry, are received extremely well by the comment section, and Benny's a pretty good cook, to boot. They start filming their segment regularly.

I was hooked immediately upon figuring out what the premise of this story was. The idea that both main characters traveled for the internship, Reese having done so across the literal country. The idea that they work for the fictional version of cooking channels we've all seen at least a few times on our Youtube home page, even if we don't actively subscribe. Benny interns with the actual cooks, but Reese is a marketing intern. She THOUGHT she'd be doing graphic design and the kinds of things that were in her resume, but what she ACTUALLY does is respond to social media comments all day. It's such a dreamy position for her to have in theory, especially because she and her friends idolize the cooks, but it gives it so much realism for her job to actually sort of suck anyway.

But when I saw BENNY and the way their RELATIONSHIP develops OMGGGG....... it was so GOOOOOOOD

Reese went through something in high school; it's not immediately obvious what it is, but it is apparent that it was some sort of cyberbullying incident, because she doesn't have social media and refuses to get one to help build their segment following or even read the comments on her own videos. There's also hints at slut-shaming and lack of relationship experience in result. It's one of those things you find out the specifics of as you go along. On top of that, she and Benny are both the summer interns, but there's only one fall internship and they're both gunning for it, and word even got around to higher-ups and the competition becomes woven into their Youtube show to increase the stakes.

Between those two factors, Reese really isn't looking for anything more than friendship with Benny. She really doesn't even want to be friends at first. She does judge him by his looks, at first, too, and just thinks he's a bro and doesn't really want to get invested. She's not the type of person to really open up, anyway. But he's persistent. The way he pursues Reese is just so endearing. He really wants her to give him a chance, because he knows she's holding back for reasons other than just not liking him. They do have a conversation about how he'd stop if he knew she wasn't interested. I think that's what makes it so special - he doesn't push, he just doesn't let her get in her own way of what could be a good thing. It doesn't feel rushed; they spend plenty of time together at work and definitely have plenty of moments that are really casual and not romantically charged. I mean, they're all KINDA romantically charged just because of their chemistry and great banter, but you know what I mean!! He likes her but doesn't force anything and it's just really sweet!!!!!!!!

I was also surprised at how... woke this book is? Like, we got old Kentucky-fried Reese who stopped going to church because they shunned her best friend for being gay, her other best friend doesn't date Republicans lmaoo, we've been over Benny a bit but he's so delicate with Reese and open with his own communication, and really encourages her to be open as well. There is a LOT of discussion in this book about feminism, and on the other hand, misogyny. There's Reese's high school incident, of course, but also there's a lot of vitriol in the comments of she and Benny's videos, and most of it ain't towards Benny. There's also uncomfortable comments about her in the other direction - people (read: men) being TOO friendly and acting as if they know her TOO well. She experiences toxicity in the workplace, as well. It's a mostly welcoming and inclusive environment, but the higher-ups are gross men who treat women as lesser and she gets a first-hand experience with them. It's a big enough aspect of the book that I'd for sure say it's part of the plot. (I still haven't read the synopsis so if it reveals this already I'm sorry lmao) But yeah, there was just a really good amount of important conversation in this book applied in a real-world way. Someeee of the wording was a little heavy-handed, but for the most part, it flowed pretty naturally.

The big relationship bad moment that most books have was sort of a miscommunication trope, but Benny fixed his side right away, and it was pretty much just about Reese finding herself and letting herself be open to being seen and known by someone new. It's sad for Reese, because she's a sweetheart, but it was sort of what she needed to finally get fully pulled out of her comfort zone. Their make-up scene was to die for lol

Basically this book is way deeper than I expected it to be, with a sweet relationship, really funny banter, a big fuck the patriarchy, and also the complicated feelings that come along with living an entire lifetime inside the patriarchy. There's a really great and diverse side cast of employees at their job, some cool vacations and other scenic moments, and your face heating up from both the romantic tension and the rage at the audacity of men.

Also, a funny part is that Reese talks about her family a lot but they never speak in the story, and at the end she's like yeah.... I owe my family a phone call or two. It was a cute way to nod at the fact that they didn't get any play time, and also, it's just so 18 year oldish to live a whole summer with an awesome job and a sweet new boy and to not call your mom lmao

Anyway I totally and wholeheartedly recommend picking this one up when it comes out if you're looking for a new kind of setting in a romance, one that's as layered as a cake (pun intended) with sweet romance, overcoming self-doubt, and conversations about being a girl in a world full of men.

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC of this book!

LOVE FROM SCRATCH is a funny, food-filled, feminist joy of a book that centers on Reese and Benny, two recent high school graduates who have their eyes set on working for a Bon-Appetit style company they both intern at. Told from Reese's POV, the book covers important and sadly relatable occurrences for lots of women who find it hard to be taken seriously in the workplace, especially when romance gets involved.
As heartbreaking as it is to watch Reese deal with the men at the company dismissing her worth and viewing her differently from her male LI, it was also rallying to watch her push back and her time with Benny made it even better as the two connected over food puns and being generally adorable.
This book gave me a much-needed escape and left me laughing, cheering, and maybe just a little bit hungry.

*Spoiler free*

I mean, a romcom about two interns at a company that posts food videos online fighting it out for the one job being offered in the fall. Heck yes I wanted to read that book. And the cover is adorable!

I loved this book a lot more than I thought I was going to. It was sweet and tangled and so, so good.

This is weird, but one of the things I liked best about this book was that I was unsure about it in the beginning. I wasn’t sure about Reese. I didn’t know if I was going to like her. She just seemed sort of there and I didn’t feel like I got her. But, I feel like that was almost the point. She keeps everything so locked down and behind walls because that’s what she’s built protect herself. She feels unsure about herself and her place. She is so much more than what she is on the surface, and there is so much in her under the surface. She’s got a lot of tangled emotions, ones that were allowed to be tangled and messy and where one thread didn’t untangle them all. She had to come to terms with her emotions, how she wanted to handle them, how they have affected her. So much about her hit me in my chest. There’s also the fact that she just rocks in general. She’s reserved, but determined. Just, there is so much more to her than there seems and I absolutely love that about her and I love that I was able to get to know her like that.

I felt the same way about Benny. I wasn’t sure I was going to like him. He seemed a bit too goofy, a bit too smooth for my taste. Oh, but how I ended up loving him so much. He is such a wonderful himbo who is so earnest and so ready to care. He feels so deeply, and he’s also someone where there is more to them than it seems. I love him so much.

I also loved the side characters, and I’d totally take spin-offs of Reese’s friends. 

I also loved the whole aspect of the food videos! I thought it was fascinating to see Benny and Reese duke it out and to see the inner workings of the company. And to see how Internet dame affects someone who is more introverted and not at all interested at being the center of attention (I JUST REALLY LOVE REESE AND HER WHOLE EMOTIONAL JOURNEY IT FELT SO SUBTLE BUT SO INVOLVED IN THE PLOT IT WAS SO GOOD). Some made me want to drop kick them (which was the point haha), while I adored others. This setting lended itself so well to the book, and I just found all the food and the passion behind everything so amazing.

Truly, this is just a wonderful book. The way that everything is connected is so wonderful and it feels like something that is so solid, and so well done. I fell completely in love with the characters and everything they did, and there was so much sweetness between them. I love this book so much.

Reese is hired at her favorite food station- Friends of Flavor. If it goes well, she can get a fall position. She finds out that amateur cook, Benny is also a summer intern going for the same position.
When the two get wrangled into a impromptu cooking show that goes viral, Reese and Benny find themselves together a lot more than they planned.
Reese finds herself in uncomfortable situations with the men at the channel, Benny finds feelings for Reese. An endearing experience for both and empowering story for young readers

This book feels like a warm summer day, with the setting, food-centric plot and sweet characters. Our main characters start out as coworkers and fellow interns competitions for a position but end up finding themselves in a whole new situation!

I really liked the messaging and theme around our character’s struggles to manage new found fame - the highs and lows.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy!