Review: The Ingredients of Us

Title: The Ingredients of Us

Author: Jennifer Gold

Release Date: July 1st, 2019

Rating: 3/5 Stars

Synopsis from Goodreads: From debut author Jennifer Gold comes a delicious novel about the sweet and sour ingredients of life and love.

Elle, an accomplished baker, has a recipe for every event in her life. But when she discovers her husband’s infidelity, she doesn’t know what to make of it. Jam, maybe? Definitely jam.

Fed up with the stale crumbs of her marriage, Elle revisits past recipes and the events that inspired them. A recipe for scones reminds her of her father’s death, cinnamon rolls signify the problematic courtship with her husband, and a batch of chocolate cookies casts Elle in a less-than-flattering light. Looking back, Elle soon realizes that some ingredients were missing all along.

After confronting her husband, Elle indulges her sweet tooth in other ways, including a rebound that just leaves her more confused. As secrets from the past collide with the conflicts of the present, Elle struggles to manage her bakery business and maintain the relationships most important to her. In piecing her life back together, will Elle learn to take the bitter with the sweet?

My Review: No matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t sink into this book. Firstly, I didn’t like the main character. She struck me as immature and a bit ridiculous. I also did not like the way the storyline jumped around. Every chapter begins at a different point in the main characters life, centering around when she found on her husband was cheating on her but the timelines seem to be completely random. This made reading it a little tiresome, having to make sure that you knew when in the story you were at each chapter. I did like the recipes in the story, though not technical recipes I felt like they were what an actual baker, who may not need a true recipe, would follow. They were meant to convey Elle’s feelings while making the recipe and I liked that addition to the story. Though this book wasn’t for me it was well written and I’m sure many other readers will enjoy it.

*I received this book from Lake Union Publishing in exchange for an honest review*