Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to be able to read and review this book!

This is a great YA novel!

This was a cute YA novel of a Korean American girl Jackie Oh that is following in her own path to become a chef! Her parents are not supportive of her dreams but she tries out the cooking competition where it tests Jackie Oh’s limits and her relationship with her parents as well as issue of her brother serving time in Rikers! It was quirky and fun and loved the competition! My only complaint is that the ending seemed rushed because of the brother situation didn’t get flushed out a little more for it to be a full circle moment unless that was the goal from jump was to show the continuation of them trying to get to a better place!

Thanks to Ms. Patricia Park, and NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Jackie Oh is a normal high school teen just trying to survive to graduation. Although her parents have extremely high academic expectations for Jackie, her passion is more into cooking, than academics.

This is a sweet, funny, beautiful YA novel that follows a teen girl and her passion for cooking while trying to convince her traditional parents that she was born to cook!

Very very very very fun little work. I felt that the characterization was sometimes a little bit weak, but in general cool little YA

I liked most of this book! It was a quick read, and though it dealt with a dark subject (AAPI hate and violence,) the cooking aspect was really fun. I’m a big fan of cooking shows, so I enjoyed reading a book based around one. The only thing I wasn’t a fan of was the ending. It was very abrupt, and didn’t feel very complete.

Thank you to Net Galley for this ARC and amazing book! What’s Eating Jackie Oh? Is a heartfelt feeling novel that dives into the pressures of cultural expectations, and she wants the need to change between recipes The artwork and illustrations on the cover capture Jackie’s journey, adding visual depth to her culinary dreams. I agree and recommend this book to anyone who loves stories about personal growth, ambition, and the complexities of balancing family tradition with individual desires. The artwork perfectly complements Jackie’s journey as she competes on the teen cooking show Burn Off—a world full of snarky judges, microaggressions, and her struggles.

This is a cute coming of age YA that takes place on a reality cooking show. All Jackie wants to do is cook but she finds herself dealing with all the behind the scenes drama. Thank you netgalley

This was a really sweet YA novel with a reality cooking show element. I loved the perspective from a Korean American.

Jackie Oh’s parents are overachievers—former straight A students at Ivy League schools who have high-paying jobs in law and private equity. Naturally, they expect Jackie to follow in their footsteps, attending hagwon in the afternoons, earning straight As at her private school so she can head to the Ivy League, and landing her own corporate job.

Jackie, however, is not interested in this path. She spends every free moment she has working at her grandparents’ New York deli Melty’s or watching Burn Off! with them and coming up with their own creative versions of the cooking show’s challenges.

When Jackie skips her world history final to audition for a teen version of Burn Off!, her parents are, let’s just say, not happy. But recognizing that a reality TV win could be the stuff of college application essays, they grudgingly allow her to head to LA to compete, where Jackie’s pitted against food influencers, child TV stars, and teens who are well-versed in the latest culinary trends.

We adored Jackie—her voice is an utter delight—and while there’s plenty of escapist fun behind the camera of a cooking reality show, there are also deeper threads. Jackie has the opportunity to reflect on her relationships with her family and friends as well as her insecurities and passions, understanding herself (and others) much more fully. And Park uses the narrative to explore important issues of Asian-American hate and the damage the model minority myth can cause, issues that are too infrequently discussed in the public arena yet all-too-real for many of our students.

Thank you NetGalley, Random House Children’s, and Crown Books for Young Readers for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are our own.

*Review will be posted at https://threeheads.works/category/blog/ya-books/ on October 30, 2024

What's Eating Jackie O? focuses on a Korean American sophomore at Bronx Science in NYC, who works at her grandparents' restaurant "Melty's" and dreams of becoming a professional chef. When Jackie is scouted there for a competitive teen cooking show, "Burn Off," she is thrilled. Dodging her parents' ivy league dreams for her and making it through the initial cookoffs, she finds more obstacles ahead. The judges expect her to create Korean dishes, whereas she prefers to combine cuisines. She must also navigate subtle layers of microaggressions against minorities, shame and sorrow over her older brother's imprisonment, and a romantic attraction to a fellow competitor, as she competes for the opportunity to realize her unconventional dreams. Recipes are included!

Super cute YA coming of age story that is also a behind the scenes of reality tv story and a look into racial issues. I adored this story so very much. Thank you Netgalley for the arc!

What's Eating Jackie Oh? Is a beautiful, funny, emotional story of a Korean American teen who wants nothing more than to cook. She desires to be a chef but her strict traditional, "ivy league" Korean parents are not interested in that for Jackie's future.

Jackie spends her time at school, a job at her grandparents deli, studying French and well cooking in lieu of homework. She comes across an opportunity to cook on a reality TV competition show for teen cooks. Jackie learns about the true realities of show business and finds herself just wanting to cook. Jackie's parents find themselves trying to accept their daughters passion amidst of the TV contest.

Read this sweet, funny, beautiful YA novel that follows a teen girl and her passion for cooking while trying to convince her traditional parents that she was born to cook!

This was a fun read and I always love a book with recipes and food. This was a great palette cleanser for me. Cannot wait to read more from this Author.

Ughhh!! This reminds me so much of Elizabeth Acevedo but in a good way! Thus book had me laughing, crying, and cheering for Jackie all in one sitting. I especially loved her grandparents too!! Patricia Park writes the best books and handles sensitive topics with humor and grace.

I really enjoyed this YA novel about a Korean American high schooler, “Jackie Oh”, who is more obsessed with cooking than academically over-achieving. Which does not sit well with her ivy-league educated workaholic and demanding parents. Fortunately Jackie Oh has loving grandparents to fill the emotional void and provide a soft, culinary landing at their sandwich shop.
YA novels provide literary relief from gratuitous sex, language, violence and general deviance that are selling points in current entertainment. Even so, What’s Eating Jackie Oh? Provides plenty of opportunity to experience economic and educational bias, cultural prejudices, and other social anomalies, which enables this tasty story to have some real texture.
I found the exploration of Korean and asian-American culture and POV to be very educational, and the family and friend interaction was deep and emotional,, often touching.
I devoured this book, I found it entertaining and engrossing, however I did feel that it ended somewhat abruptly - perhaps there will be a sequel?

I liked how this story was really well paced and the author did a good job at showing the difference in how parents approach raising their kids especially when the grandparents are involved. I did love the cooking aspect within this story and I liked how the author would name the chapters so it made easy to follow the plot of the story. I will say that I do think it is such a quick read so I’m grateful that I was able to read the story on NetGalley rather than buying it.

My Heart! All the feels whilst reading Patricia Park’s YA Novel, WHAT’S EATING JACKIE OH?, I laughed and cried—Highly Recommend!

‘Jackie Oh is done being your model minority.’

‘She’s tired of perfect GPAs, PSATs, SATs, all of it. Jackie longs to become a professional chef. But her Korean American parents are Ivy League corporate workaholics who would never understand her dream. Just ask her brother, Justin, who hasn’t heard from them since he was sent to Rikers Island.’

Reading Age: 12 – 17
Grade Level: 7 – 9

Thank you, NetGalley and Crown Books (Random House Children’s Books), for providing me with an eBook of WHAT’S EATING JACKIE OH? at the request of an honest review.

I loved this sweet, romance work. I was cheering for Jackie Oh!! I would definitely recommend this book.

Jackie Oh is a Korean-American sophomore at Bronx Science, living in Queens, NYC, who loves French cooking, and who dreams of becoming a professional chef, and who works at her grandparent's midtown Manhattan Korean deli Melty's on saturday's Her strict workaholic corporate Korean parents have other things in mind for her. Their dream is that Jackie has the perfect GPAs, PSATs, and SATs and that Jackie follow in their footsteps into a prestigious Ivy League college. They don't understand her dream, and rather see that Jackie studies hard instead of working at the deli on saturday's.

They put a lot of pressure on Jackie's shoulders to succeed, because her brother Justin messed up his life and was sent to jail on Riker's Island. One day, a tv scout sees Jackie working at the diner and invites her to go to a casting day for the new teen version of Burn Off! A tv cooking show she watches with her grandparents every week.
Jackie has an important school exam on the day of the but secretly she goes to te open casting day for the tv cooking show Burn Off! , accompanied by ger grandmother and she gets in. When her parent's discover this they are furious. but after Jackie promised to get good grades and to study hard, she flies with her mother to Los Angeles for the show recording days. There she enters a very hard competition, and finds out that not every contestant in the show is into cooking as much as her. The judges are another problem; they expect her to cook typical Korean foods, not the French cuisine Jackie is specialized in, and she has to convince the judges to not judge her on being Korean, but on her cooking talents. But then her mom gets a call from home; Jackie's beloved grandfather is seriously injured in a racial attack against Asian people and is in the hospital.. and then Jacky finds out that family is more important than winning.

I loved Patricia Park's previous books and altough this new book is very different then the previous ones I truly liked it. It had a little less depth than the previous books, but the storyline was very entertaining with a nice cast of characters. I really liked Jackie's littlebit rebellious character and how she refused to be the ''model minority'' and went her own way, instead of what her parents expected of her. The cooking show parts was very realistic, I just could imagine it in tv and these parts where highly entertaining. The love for her grandparents plays an important part in the book, they where so sweet and it was so sad when Jackie's grandfather was the victim of an awfull anti-Asian hate attack, and it was also sad to read about her brother Justin, and because of shame and keeping up appearrances, he never was visited by his parents, but this changes in the story.

Overall a very good book, very original with a perfect mix of fun and more serious parts, which is why I recommend reading What's Eating, Jackie Oh? !

This one was average. Jackie Oh's family story was more fleshed out than she was. Her grandparents' story of running Melty's. Her parents expectations of her. Her brother in prison and disowned. Her "declining" grades and the drive to cook rather than go to Ivy League schools. Jackie's story was second. The food show which was a significant chunk was a lot about the cultural food and maneuverings, again, not much about Jackie herself. She was (pun intended) lost in the sauce.

So I'm sad not to love it more because the cover, color scheme/design, and concept, while in a heavy category of identity/coming of age/food stories, outshined the actual story itself. And from the author's note, one of the pieces Park wanted to touch on was AAPI hate and even that when added felt crowbarred, not natural and still displacing Jackie's story.