Review: Cute Little Romance
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 18, 2013
Bree is stuck in a rut; blah job, blah apartment and blah relationship.  Her beloved Maw Maw dies (even the description of the grandmother's death had me grinning), leaving her house and a large chunk of change to Bree.  Bree quits her job and dumps Jared, the blah boyfriend.  In cleaning out Maw Maw's house, Bree finds a journal, which includes several recipes, prompting Bree to take a beginning cooking class; the class is taught by the hot hunk, Simon.  That's our story in a nutshell (without the spoiler, of course).  Along the way, however, is a cute little story.Ms. West had me laughing at so many scenes -- possibly the hardest at the clear reference to bad writing in 50 Shades!  Bree and Simon's rapport was easy and fun.  Simon is a really nice hero.  He wants to support Bree (in the way her horrible family doesn't) and to help her grow as a person.  And believe me, Bree does need to grow.  I have to admit, I have a hard time reading about a heroine whose mother is this horrible to JUST ONE of her three children.  I was blessed to have the most amazing mother in the world, and as a mother myself (who loves each of her children more than they understand), I can't imagine raising a child the way Kitty has raised Bree, and the way Emily (Bree's sister) is raising her own son, Ethan.I enjoyed reading as Bree learned to cook and grew more confident, and would have liked to see more of that confidence spill over into other areas of her life sooner.  Bree allows her mother to treat her so poorly, and as a result, she questions, doubts and second-guesses herself in every aspect of her life.I do wish Bree had been a little more developed -- I mean, what did she do all every day while waiting for the next cooking class, and later the next date?  But that wasn't a deal-breaker for me.  I mean, come on, it's a romance, not War and Peace, right?There are sex scenes and some language in this book.  Overall, I enjoyed Baking Bree.  If Bree had grown a little more, I'd have given it five stars.