Thank you NetGalley for an e-copy for an honest review.

I just binge watched “the bear” last weekend so I was I. The mood for a good Chef story.

I love the characters. I loved the setting (France, restaurant). I loved that our girl Claire was an huge book reader and that our guy James was one as well. There was so sweet moments that I loved (like him taking her to one of the few books stores that sold English books) and how they snuggled on the couch and read in the evenings.
I also loved the side characters (my fav was Theo and James’ sister Evie).
I’m not a huge epilogue person, but the epilogue in this book, I loved. It was perfect!

I really loved this book when a grumpy chef meets a sunshine girl who is also a chef. I can't wait for Christmas now because of this book!

I’m a sucker for good food, and an even bigger sucker for hunky chefs, so I was eager to read this book. I have to say I was pretty disappointed in it. Although the food preparation and restaurant scenes were descriptive and interesting, the FMC was pretty dull: just as an example, on three separate occasions in just the first 40% of the book she refers to sex as “you know what” and uses “dadgum” at least that many times, This is billed az a romcom, yet the “quips” and jokes the FMC attempts do not land. At more than halfway through the book there have been very tired plot devices including both of MCs misinterpreting involvement with others (one a decidedly stalky but definite ex, one a sibling), the FMC becomes ill & the MMC looks after her while she recovers, etc., all played out.
I received a free Advance Reader Copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book because it was a slow burn romance that kept me reading until the very end. This book absolutely blew me away. The author's work will definitely be on my reading list in the future. Check it out for yourself as well.

WHAT!? I have never randomly found a 5 star book on NetGalley until THIS ONE! When I tell you, I am so incredibly shocked by how much I love this book, believe me when I say it! If this is Waitlyn Andrews’ debut novel, I will be sitting right here, patiently biding my time until her next novel! 🙇🏻‍♀️

Thank you to NetGalley & Waitlyn Andrews for my ebook of Yes, Chef! That being said, all opinions are my own.

Waitlyn Andrews’ debut novel, Yes, Chef, is set mostly in Paris where sous chef, Claire Richards 👩🏻‍🍳, has found her own independence far away from her family and her cheating ex back in California. She knows it’s only a matter of time before her restaurant, Teaks, is awarded a Michelin star, and she loves being part of the hustle for it. Her concentration has yet to be divided even though the new head chef, James Sullivan, is now running the kitchen at Teaks. Not to worry! Aside from refusing to engage in a workplace romance, it seems the only times James addresses Claire is to critique her every move at work. So there’s no temptation at all in the dating department. Right? 😉

Wowowow. Listen, I am not a slow-burn reader. I like the action, the drama, and the spice fairly early in the book (within the first 10 chapters 😅). So imagine my surprise when I was sucked into the Yes, Chef universe in all its sweet slow-burn, closed-door, and comforting glory! 😱

I also love love love dual pov stories, but this book’s single pov worked so well in my opinion!

I, personally, never got bored reading Claire’s journey of overcoming her fears and taking on new challenges. This novel is not only a love story between two people, but it is a love letter to food, to enjoying life, to taking back one’s self and independence, and to friendship and family.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 to Yes, Chef! 🤗

P.S. I ran (well, I opened the app) straight to my Amazon wishlist and added this to it. I WILL have a physical copy of this one day, and IT WILL sit on my shelf as a comfort read forever. 🥰 (lol @ my manifesting)

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of Yes, Chef to read and review.

I really enjoyed the first half of this book. The premise was fun, and I LOVED the restaurant setting. The slow burn between two chefs. The details of the farmers market shopping, prepping the food and working for that Michelin star.

Where it lost me was the backstory on Claire, and her take on not having sex (again) before marriage. While I think that is very much a personal preference in books, it felt like it drove every part of the last third of the story, and in effect, cheapened it a bit.

Ultimately, this one wasn't for me.

This was the cutest book with all my favourite things! Food, Paris, food, cute family dynamics, witty banter, food, Paris, cute romance, a strong FMC, and more food!

It‘a such a cosy cute read, perfect after a long day at work to unwind with a few chapters 💕

So happy I got an eARC from NetGalley. Looking forward to the next book!

I first wanted to thank Waitlyn Andrew's team for the opportunity to read an ARC of Yes, Chef. This slow burner did not disappoint.

Claire's journey I deeply related to. She found herself half a world away from where she was comfortable and doing something to better herself.

James played the perfect grumpy character in the beginning but just swept me off my feet in the way he cared for Claire and showed her what a true gentleman was like.

I enjoyed the immersion of fine dining not knowing what that looked like and the author describing it in a way that someone who didn't understand that world would.

This book was a very cute book and a great pallet cleanser. Characters contained depth but I really enjoyed the way the characters got to know each other before getting involved.

Thank you, NetGalley and Waitlyn Andrews, for the ARC.

A sweet book, but despite the chemistry between the leads, the plot moves at a glacial pace. I enjoyed the chef parts a lot but at the same time, I wished the story had more action. The leisurely pace that the romance unfolds at is something that readers are no longer accustomed to, but overall it's a genuinely lovely book.

I wanted to read this book because of the show The Bear. Yes, Chef is a phrase they use and I grew to love it, so a book with this title was right up my alley. This was such a great book! This was funny, lively, and swoony! I absolutely love chef/foodie/cooking romances and this delivered. There was undeniable chemistry and I loved our main characters. It's a slow burn, but so worth it. There was so much comedy and funny moments. The storyline was fantastic as well, with the plot really giving me everything I wanted. It painted a beautiful picture of Paris and all of the food sounds so delicious. It made me super hungry!

**Thank you to Waitlyn Andrews for an ARC of this book. These are all my own thoughts and opinions**

I am so glad that I ventured out of my typical genre for this book. The fact that this is a debut novel has me SO excited for this author.

This story was sweet, cozy and cute.

I love the setting of France and the sweet romance that slowly buds. The fact that James is so patient and kind is what every girl wants in a significant other.

I loved Claire's character. I love that we get to see her grow and work through her struggles. She is not the perfect woman and we get to see her battles. For that, I was grateful.

the book touches on mental health and how to work through past hurt and breakups. The family dynamic was also perfect to behold. I love getting the example of a healthy one and not so healthy one. And who doesn't love a couple that chooses to break cycles?

So sweet! And I look forward to reading more of her work. Highly recommend.

I was excited to read this book from the second I saw the cover and read the title, because I could immediately tell what I would read and it sounded lovely. Paris in the background, two young ambitious cooks, sexual tension you could julienne seasoned with some competitive bantering: perfect. Was this a sort of predictable, already-seen-it-before setting and plot? Of course. Especially considering I read more manga than I read books and let me tell you, the "cooking" genre on any manga shelf is filled with my fingerprints. But I don't mind reading books that I can pretty much predict the ending (HEAs, usually) as long as the ride to get there is fun. Journey over destination etc.

However, the ride was not really fun at all, and above all because of our main character and narrator, Claire. It would've been hard for me to relate to a person who feels ashamed of enjoying "My Humps" by The Black Eyed Peas anyway, but that ended up being just a speck of dust compared to the most pronounced trait of her personality by a mile: hating women. There's not a single woman in this book who is not mistreated and cussed out, and with the exception of Claire's mother, who is comically stereotypically motherly evil (which I can forgive because, come on, where would literature be without awful mothers), all the hatred is either largely unwarranted or at least greatly exaggerated. A cute waitress is called a bitch on every opportunity, her sister is a dumb spoiled brat, the only other woman who works with her is frigid and intimidating and they barely interact at all, the forceful Youtuber client is a literal prostitute, and every woman that walks within breathing radius of James, the male lead, is an overall whore. It is so tiring to read, especially when from the first chapter, immediately after James's introduction, Claire is a quintessential pick-me girl, and every single paragraph from then on is an in-depth analysis of how much she wants this man's attention, but she speaks of herself as this independent, focused, not-like-other-girls girl.

Which leads me to the zero charisma and zero chemistry of the main couple. James is introduced immediately in the book, which I disliked because I got to know so little of Claire before I was already thrown into the dynamic of their inevitable and very obvious relationship; but like I said, it's about the journey, not the destination. The thing is that their relationship arc is incredibly dull and done in a nearly teenage fashion. Claire spends page after page being purposefully unpleasant and rude to James because he doesn't fall at her feet fawning from the get-go. She overcompensates being immediately attracted to him by being cold, and she wonders time and time again why he isn't warm. Literally nothing happens to actually justify her constant irritation at him other than the fact that he is not particularly friend to this woman he just met who won't stop going against him and sneering at him and acting like his very presence is an annoyance to no end, and even when James does start to show some affection and friendliness, she continues to be turned off at the slightest turn of head or tone of voice, always convincing herself that, once he starts being nice, he's just doing it because they're co-workers, for self-serving purposes. And you'll never guess what happens to make her believe that he is actually a nice, kind and awesome dude: he rejects another woman who is a slut and a bitch! Yay! James is finally cool because he also hates promiscuous young women! And I'm not overstating it: the entirety of the build of their relationship happens in Claire's head without any consideration for his actual behaviour. While he's kind but understandably distant, he's awful, but the second he shows no interest in some bimbo with nice tits, he's a hero.

While this is a romance, and romances do tend to go down clichés, this story felt like checking boxes on a list of common events from a teenage manga, and almost all of them included some sort of chivalry, of Claire being saved or cared for or protected by - or, way too many times, dwarfed by - James, while the discourse coming from Claire about Claire is that she is a tough badass woman who needs no man, but the opposite keeps happening: she is always talking about how big he is and how petite she feels next to him, she's constantly in some sort of physical predicament that requires his care, she's always needing him. And I don't mind that, I don't mind when a female lead likes to feel like she's a precious little thing being cared for, but it's no fun at all when the female lead keeps acting like 1. that isn't happening 2. she wouldn't allow for it to happen, because she doesn't like that, and 3. she's so not like other girls who like that, because they are all sluts.

Apart from that, the shift in their relationship which turned them into lovers also felt disconnected from the actual story. It was like an on/off switch between them, with very little actual build-up or arc: again, much of it only being justifiable if you play into stereotypes of straight relationships, because it all happens inside Claire's head rather than in a palpable dimension of events. While it is obvious from James's actions right from the start of the book that he is into Claire, her behaviour towards him changes not through a nuanced development but, like, because she chose to. She decides at one point that she's gonna accept that she's into him, and that's all it takes for their thing to flourish. It just happens.

The highlights of the book for me were basically everything that didn't involve their relationship, which in a romance is not a good sign. I liked how the story was infused with culinary and Parisian trivia and I felt like that could've been even bigger, but even that felt like I was reading from the perspective of someone who spent a lot of time touristing around Paris rather than the perspective of someone who was living there and immersing themselves in the city.

Overall, I got bored, rolled my eyes a lot, couldn't root for the main character or the main couple and honest to god I think James Sullivan (which is Sully's full name in Monsters Inc, a fact that never escaped my mind while I read the book) could have done a lot better. I still don't know what he saw in Claire to fall so deeply in love with her; I couldn't, even after over 300 pages of her.

I hate when authors reference something that happened before the book in a mysterious way. When it clearly affects the main characters actions in a huge way, but it is always referred to as “the incident”.

There’s a scene where the characters go to a club and the main character refers to anything any other woman does or is wearing as slutty which makes me uncomfortable.

This book was fine until the last ~30% or so. There was a weird element of insta love where the couple went from kind of friends to literally married in roughly one and a half months.

Andrews has a way with words. You can vividly see what is happening. This is a cute read that the second follow is just as great. Andrews is a genius.

Yes, Chef was a wonderful debut novel by Waitlyn Andrews. It was a light romance based in Paris, and with chef MCs, trying to maintain professional distance. Which proved to be a bit difficult for both parties, of course!
I often find books like this lack depth but Yes, Chef was cheeky and cute, involving characters with interesting backstories and appreciated depth.
The food descriptions were to die for and I was rooting for a happily ever after ending the entire time!
Highly recommend this one to light romance lovers in need of a cute read! And have those snacks handy because your stomach is going to be grumbling!

Thank you Netgalley and Waitlyn Andrews for a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review!

tbh i was really skeptical about this book during the first few chapters but omg this book was so good 😔👍 life would have been really nice if people like theo weren't just fictional 🫂🫂
Full review will be on my Instagram account!!

I want to do 3 and half stars for this but half stars are not an option. In the end I did end up liking the book but it was a climb at the beginning to get me there. I loved the addition of food facts at the beginning of each chapter. My favorite part of the relationship though was that they didn’t rush anything and took the time to get to know each other and learn.
In the end I do wish it wasn’t such a struggle to get into the story but I’m glad I did stick it out

A very cute and easy read except for one annoying thing from the James, the male lead. Calling Claire baby at the weirdest times and just over and over again, ugh. It’s such a juvenile behavior that I can’t take a grown man who does this seriously in any book. It always seems so smarmy and ick. To call your partner baby every once in awhile is cute, but to slide it in nearly every sentence is not my cup of tea.

For being Andrews first novel, she does a good work setting the story up, building characters and making the chemistry feel between them, my only problem came with how she introduced the characters, i wasn't that excited by it, So it took me a little to warm up to them. I liked it.

This was such a fun read- it was a rom com and foodies’ dream intertwined! I really enjoyed the build up of the relationship of Claire and James. Reminded me of something I would stumble across on Hallmark.