2022 Reading Challenge: a book with recipes in it

[baronessekat]

Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


When much despised food/restaurant critic, not to mention her ex-boyfriend, drops dead in Lila's family restaurant, things get interesting. Worse when it appears that someone is trying to set her up to take the fall.

So, pushed by her Aunties to do some investigating on her own, Lila looks to try to find out who did it.. There is no lack of people in the small town who hated him, it's more a who did he finally push beyond the limit. But every time she finds a new clue, more evidence is found pointing at Lila and her family.

*****

This book kept popping up on GoodReads and Amazon recommendations so I gave in and borrowed it from the library. I am glad I borrowed it as it was not something I would have spent money on. Mostly because I have come to determine that Cozy Mysteries are NOT my thing. I find myself always getting annoyed at the main character (usually a woman who owns a restaurant/cafe, bookshop or some small boutique) who has no business investigating things and causing more trouble than she helps... often putting herself and others in danger.

I can see how others would like this and similar books... it's just not my thing.



View all my reviews

Comments

[mesotablar]

Cozy Mysteries are also so not my thing, but the big question here is did you do any of the recipes? and were they good?

The one Cozy Mystery I enjoyed somewhat was a recipe themed one. It was a Pennsylvania Dutch type theme with three women running a BnB (and it may have been a sarcastic spoof because they were actually sort of funny). But the recipes were bad. bland and boring.

[baronessekat]

I did not do the recipes, though they sounded yummy. The problem is that they are Filipino and had too many things I'm allergic to to be able to successfully substitute.

[mesotablar]

aww, that is like a tease! waving yummy sounding things at you in recipe and embedded in plot (I'm assuming they were also mentioned in plot?). Admittedly the book I read, I couldn't eat more than half the stuff they had because it was stuff I don't eat.

I do wonder who reads these books as their favourite genre...