Genre: Young Adult, Love, Teen Romance
“Now a smile, the kind where quick lips plus gleaming teeth plus dimpled cheeks equals hazard.”
Laura Taylor Namey in her novel talks about all flavours of relationships through a perspective of a Miami baker with recipes for all kinds of pastelitos, sweet breads and heartbreaks. You witness the love sweet nothings between two high school best friends, two old lovers, two new ones and between the love past down in a family. Namey’s writing style is super ambient and has a clairvoyance to be metaphorical in substance.
“You are a dangerous human, Lila Reyes.”
“My warning label must’ve rubbed off.”
One of the things that we all cherish from our high school days, are all the playful romances and how they tugged at our heartstrings. The Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow explores just that with its flaky, delicate riddles. It is a wholesome novel baked with teen romance and family love, caramelising now and then on topics like individuality, never giving up and how it is okay to say your goodbyes.
“A pastry never needs to be overly sweet. It only needs to be memorable.”
This novel can be an interpretation of how it would be to see life through pink sunglasses in a poetrical Spanish reality. The narrative flows through the book in sugary harmony, although it dwindles in striking the right chord with the emotions of the reader.
Quotes:
- Here, I’m a figure drawn into someone else’s life.
- If I travelled far enough, I might be able to run right out of my own skin.
- It was as if every footstep I’d left across Miami this afternoon turned back to stomp upon my chest.
- I promised to move on, though forward feels like the last place my feet want to go right now.
- Soon the spell breaks and I’m the me who always remembers too much.
- But I’m not as strong facing memories as I am in front of mixing bowls.
- Traditionally, if you spill coffee, it means a lover is thinking of you.
- I can’t be with a person who’s a second thought.
- And I don’t know what’s worse, not getting to say goodbye, or saying goodbye to a little more every year.
- Orion looks at me like I’m the finest dessert I’ve made yet.
Shelf Love 