The Icing on the Cupcake: A Novel by Jennifer RossMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
No one likes to be dumped.
Especially by your fiancée.
But Ansley Waller finds herself dumped, discarded and almost immediately replaced by her fiancée with her sorority sister. What is a girl to do other than pack up for New York City to reconnect with a grandmother she’s never met, start a “cupcakery” on the Upper East Side and try to mend her broken heart.
I’m not a prolific “chick lit” reader – but Jennifer Ross’s The Icing on the Cupcake was a reasonable representation of the genre.
Ansley shows great determination when she arrives in New York by honing her baking skills and putting them to use as the proprietor of her own shop. While living with her grandmother, Ansley helps her navigate the red tape of a potential audit with the IRS, all the while trying to determine if her grandmother’s financial advisor, Thad, is at all interested in her or not.
There is an additional layer to this novel that includes Ansley’s family cook book – a collection of multigenerational recipes from Ansley’s ancestral maternal grandmothers. It is a priceless heirloom, and recipes submitted to this tome are considered sacred. What the reader learns is that it is more than a cookbook – but a history book as well.
And the cupcake recipes included in the book look delicious! I was going to attempt to bake one of the more “simple” recipes but A) Even I couldn’t find potato starch and B) when it’s 101 degrees outside, the last thing I wanted to do was turn on the oven. No way!
However, what was a pleasant enough story ends in a very bizarre, “Fatal Attraction” scenario that comes completely out of left field. It was just plain silly and odd. And that soured the whole book.
Sum it up: If you like chick lit and cupcake recipes, but don’t care about a wacky ending, this is the book for you.
Book source: Thank you to Jennifer Ross for a copy of this book. I was not compensated in any way for my review.
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3 comments:
Oh well that's a bummer because that cover is super cute! Oh well I have plenty of other chick lit to occupy my time the summer. And I can always make cupcakes :)
Have you read "Eat Cake" by Jeanne Ray? mid-life crisis, husband out of work, so she takes her hobby of cooking and turns it into a profession. I liked it! and i wanted to try a bunch of the recipes at the end too!
The ending was really odd wasnt it? The whole thing as I thought about it just didnt make sense.
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