Review: The Sweetest Thing by Christina Mandelski

Title: The Sweetest Thing

Author: Christina Mandelski

Hardcover, 352 pages

Published May 10th 2011 by EgmontUSA

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I don't know what I expected when I first read this book's synopsis. No, wait, I do know. I thought it was gonna be just about food. So I wasn't so sure about it, but since I won it in a giveaway, I thought well let's give it a try.

Dude! I was so wrong!

Turns out I didn't have to worry, this book is indeed about food but it is SO not the focus of it. It goes way deeper. I loved it from page 1 to page 330!

This is the story about a girl who LOOOVES to decorate cakes, her name's Sheridan and she's kinda like a teenage Buddy from Cake Boss (I love that show!) very talented but also completely absorbed by it. The cake decorating, I mean. It's just that she feels closer to her mom while doing so, her mom was a great decorator herself, back when she still lived with Sheridan and her dad, before she abandoned them for another guy.

Only Sheridan doesn't think she really abandoned them, she feels like her mom didn't want to leave her, that if Sheridan finds her (she went traveling the world with the other man) she will come back. So with the help of her lifelong best friend Jack, she starts to track her mom down. There's a problem though, her dad, who is a chef, has been offered to have his own cooking show but the catch is they will have to move to New York to shoot it, and Sheridan doesn't want that, especially not now that she has found a huge clue to her mom's whereabouts and the most popular, most handsome boy in school wants her. Clock is ticking, she must do something. Lots of stuff comes up and Sheridan grows up while learning there's always another side of the story, one she might not want to hear.

Sheridan was stubborn. That's the first word that comes to my mind when I think back. She was stubborn and naive but somehow I liked her pretty much all the time.
Although it was pretty annoying that she couldn't decide who she loved, Mr. Popularity or Best Friend Jack, but I get it, being invisible all your life and then suddenly a
gorgeous boy gives you his full attention, I can definitely understand she would be starstruck.

There was also the issue of her mom, Sheridan looooooved her mom, even though she hadn't seen her in eight years and the only memory of her she has is of her decorating cakes, that's why she does it all the time, literally, she was so caught up in her own baking world that she stopped seeing reality as everyone else see it,

• her dad looooves her to death,
• her best friend is in love with her,
• her mom doesn't want to go back,
• the citizens of her town don't hate her,
• her past friends didn't abandon her,
• she was the one NOT paying attention to the world outside the bakery.

I ended up loving this book, really I can't wait to Winter break (yeah, I'm back in school, so not much time for pleasure reading) to re-read it. This is story is literally delicious. It warms your heart and fill you on the inside. And even though there's a bittersweet ending, I know in my heart everything works out for best. Allow yourself to take a bite of this yummy (yet fat-free) read. Won't dissapoint! It takes it name seriously, you know!

Perfect for Sarah Dessen & Cake Boss fans!

4 hearts <3