Davis, Tanita S. - A La Carte

Seventeen-year-old Lainey already knows what she wants from life: become a celebrity chef, get her own Food Network show, and come up with lots of awesome vegetarian dishes. But she and her best friend Sim have grown apart—he's hanging out with the partiers while she could care less—and to keep him close, Lainey's willing to do a lot more than she thought.

When I read the back cover copy, I thought this book was going to be much fluffier and slighter than it actually turned out to be. Davis manages to keep the voice light and the cooking sequences awesome (do not read while you are hungry) even as the situation grows more and more complicated. I was also happy to see a little role inversion: the good, slightly geeky (about food), sweet black girl and the bad, rule-breaking, drug-doing white guy (at least, I am pretty sure he's white). I was afraid Davis was going to make things too romantic, but fear not.

Although this book isn't amazingly awesome, it's very solid, and I enjoyed reading about Lainey growing up and figuring out what she wanted from life and the kind of person she wanted to be. Plus, it comes with recipes!