Ami's Hoard

2.5 stars



It started quite nicely -- I was intrigued with the cooking competition setting of it. I mean I enjoy watching Masterchef Australia (it has LESS drama than the US one) so I was expecting some inventive themes, stress, frustration, and triumph. But it went down the drain as I went further along. I guess I don't like the idea that this kind of cooking reality TV is a set-up for the drama; that the judges have decided who going to win. I don't want to believe that there are no genuine merits that the contestants received.

However, the real problem for me was that the story meandered along the flat line and I was getting bored.

It was said that Kai and Chase had to act as 'foes' in front of camera. The thing is, those scenes were mainly happened off page. I wanted to see some lively arguments, even if they were fake. There were no tension (Kai and Chase hit it off as friends very early on), no fireworks, it was just, well, nice...

The authors did introduce a conflict, but it happened in the last 20% of the book. It was a similar issue that I had with book #1; a 'late' conflict couldn't help the humdrum tone for the previous 3/4 of the book.

The writing was good, the characters likeable. I liked the food references (I ended up googling images of some of the desserts mentioned and they looked mouth-watering). However, if I was able to round up the rating for book #1 (because the macarons recipe were intriguing), this one had too many "sweet desserts" for me. In the end, I need more spice.