All’s Fair in Love and Cupcakes

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.
Never judge a book by its cover. How many times do you break this rule? I do all the time. I did for this book too. The cover was too cute to pass up. And when I read the synopsis, I was hooked. Small town cupcake baker meets Hollywood cupcake reality show. Yes please!
Kat lived in the shadows of her pageant beauty sister and wanted to break free of a life on her own. She didn’t know how. Until her BFF secretly applied her to be on the reality tv show – Cupcake Combat – and she was accepted. Could this be her ticket out of small town living and in to the big world?
I really wanted to like this book – for all of the reasons that I mentioned above, but it just didn’t hook me like I wanted it too. Her BFF is a male. She selects him to be her assistant for the show. They travel to Hollywood together for a week. Then we come across the clichéd “Can a boy and a girl be best friends without one of them having stronger feelings for the other?” And then the “What do you risk if you make a move and the other isn’t interested in taking things to the next level?”
Kat goes through all of these internal debates through the entire book. There was so much repitive internal dialogue that it was easy to skim without missing anything major. I wish I could give this book 2.5 stars, but I will give it 3 because the marketing was great to hook me in!

A delightful story. With Great British Bake-Off fever around us all at the moment this was a lovely story to fill in during the week gap from our favourite baking show,

Kat is a baker working in her Aunt's bakery, she's starting to feel a little bored and stifled making the same old vanilla, strawberry and chocolate cupcakes. When she's home her mind is full of wonderful, crazy combinations of cupcake delights which she enjoys trialling with her best friend Lucas.

Lucas is a coach for the local school soccer team. He and Kat have been friends in almost forever however, his feelings deepen for Kat and he wants the best for her and for her to realise her dreams. He therefore, secretly enters her into the TV show Cupcake Combat competition.

Kat is thrilled and nervous when she realises she is picked as a contestant.

This story follows Kat and Lucas as they travel to LA to compete for Cupcake Combat as a team. However, they are both fighting more than platonic feelings about each other and it takes a while and plenty of cupcakes for them to realise.

A lovely, sweet story.

Best friends Kat and Lucas are a bit of trapped in-between phase from friendships to loveship and neither of them know how to approach the other one anymore. Kat is deeply insecure, wounded by ex-fiance attempt to cheat on her and being at shadow of her younger sister´s beauty for all her life. She feels unappreciated and unworthy as the thing she knows best how to do is baking cupcakes. She fears of being trapped in the small city bakery and predictability for her life. Lucas, trying to let Kat know her worthiness and talent, applies secretly for Kat to enter the Tv reality show Cupcake Combat. But what will happen between them as Kat is dangerously close to reach her dream and all the changes it will bring? And what are their dreams, really?

I like the "best friends in love stories". So I was truly prepared to love this book - and I still sort of love it. I must honestly say I would love it far more if the miscommunication stuff gets shortened by one third - now, I truly understand that insecurity runs deep and that it is quite difficult to learn to value oneself. But insecurity and following difficulty to discuss the issues gets really dragged here.
On the other hand, I quite like the dynamics between the couple within the TV reality time - it feels like they both adored each other before, but the safe way and truly not knowing each other - and the Cupcake Combat time allows them to develop, change and react to changes in the nature of their relationship and within themselves. They find both themselves and each other to react differently, to think differently - and this feels very realistic. This is the way to go, Betsy!

As fot the plot - I like the Tv reality reality :) I also like the Piper angle, I think it was played well. The plot itself was quite predicable, but feels nice, so no problem with that. Also I like the supporting characters and/or the way they are written - so I am very curious about the Stella, Kat´s sister story!

Sweet as sugar! Enjoyable, fun read!