Salty, Bitter Sweet is more of a coming-of-age story than a romance, although romance plays a large part. This story involves a self-absorbed and privileged narrator and is told in first-person-present-tense. It also involves food, women learning to support each other in a male-dominated field, and a multicultural group of characters. Also a dog. So . . . kind of a mixed bag.

Our story revolves around Isabella Fields, an American seventeen-year old who has recently moved to France. She is obsessed with becoming a Michelin Star chef. I say “obsessed,” because for most of the book, Isabelle isn’t just driven to be a chef, or a good chef, or someone who makes great food. She sees the star as her only source of validation and is fixated on winning that star and eventually having a restaurant with three stars.

Isabella’s parents recently divorced and she moved to Paris, where her Cuban-American father and his very new, very pregnant French wife now live, so that she could participate in a summer cooking course that might lead to an apprenticeship under a three-star chef. She is grieving the loss of her recently deceased Cuban immigrant grandmother and is still reeling from her parent’s messy divorce.

Diego is the stepson of Isabella’s stepmom. I deeply dislike any hint of romance between step-siblings, but given the multiple levels of relationship removal and the fact that Isabella and Diego meet for the first time during the story and have never lived as siblings, their relationship is low on squick factor. This is a hate-at-first-sight romance (on Isabella’s part) since Diego wolfs down her food without “properly” enjoying it, argues with her, gets in her way, and distracts her with his sexy abs.

Everything is told from Isabella’s point of view, and Diego serves primarily as a character to challenge her ideas about working to the exclusion of any other life. He also helps her develop more empathy, as hearing about his life helps her understand that she is not the only person on earth with a complicated and confusing family. Isabella’s character development is what’s central to the story, not the romance.

By far my favorite thing about the book is its cultural and ethnic diversity. Diego is French and Catalan. One of Isabella’s friends is also from Catalonia. Isabella, who has struggled all her life with feeling “other” no matter who she is with, describes her origins as “Kansas farmer falls in love with a Cuban immigrant, they have a mixed-race baby who later marries a French girl, and voila, here I am.” All this diversity in ethnicity and culture and language is celebrated through food. Isabella’s Cuban immigrant grandmother, Lala, taught her to cook and taught her that preparing and serving food is an act of love and service. A lot of Isabella’s character development comes from Isabella reconnecting to that idea.

I also enjoyed seeing Isabella learn to value other women. Because she never met anyone as passionate about cooking as she was, she decided that she was “not like other girls,” a phrase she actually uses. There are two other teen girls in her summer cooking class and they encourage her to be friends, pointing out that in a male-dominated profession, it’s especially important that women support one another. Isabella’s teacher is female and through her the reader learns about sexism in the food world and the importance of women mentoring other women. Sadly, this is undercut by some slut-shaming and bad behavior on Isabella’s part, for which I thought she was forgiven far too easily.

The truth is, I disliked Isabella, who is myopic, self-centered, prone to jealousy, and just basically immature. However, Isabella is immature at least in part because she’s seventeen. In the immortal words of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “I am immature. I’m a teen. I have yet to mature.” Isabella grows up a lot during the story and it’s rewarding to see her change some of her preconceived notions, especially those regarding friendships with other young women. However, some of her development seems unearned because she’s forgiven so easily for her various wrongs. Diego says that Isabella is a caring person because she likes to feed people, but this is not illustrated in the book. She likes to watch people enjoy eating her food – there’s a difference. She needs affirmation. We never see her cook selflessly except when she cooks for a boy whose parents work on Isabella’s family’s farm. Yes, Isabella matures, but she has a long way to go, and just saying that she’s suddenly super caring doesn’t make it true.

Neither the start-of-book Isabella nor the new-and-improved Isabella won me over, which makes for annoying reading since she narrates the whole book. I also found the romance superficial – Diego exists because his character furthers Isabella’s growth.

Still, I can’t say enough about the quality of the food writing here. You will be so, so hungry if you read this. I also liked the emphasis on food as a source of community, the cultural aspects of food, the emphasis placed on women mentoring and supporting each other, and the affirmation of different goals for different personalities. It’s not that ambition and dedication are placed as unimportant or bad – one character thrives in the high-stress world of the world-class restaurant. It’s more that there are multiple ways to approach life and to evaluate success – a good lesson for us all. Now I have to go eat.