Pies and Prejudice

I know Adams is a big favorite of a lot of booktubers who cover cozies, so I went into this with pretty high expectations and almost DNF'd about 30% in.
The bad: I'm immune to “southern charm” and all of the characters are just walking stereotypes who do exactly what you expect.
Grown women still dealing with mean girl issues.
Ella Mae is really immature.
It's pretty damned sexist toward men.
The good: There is a scene in which all of the LaFaye women go out to dinner and all of their personalities are highlighted and it felt like something special was coming.
I think the device of cooking feelings into pie is pretty great, even though I've run into it in other books.
The reason behind the murders is real (I couldn't believe it and looked it up). There Adams did her research. I spent a good bit researching that and learning some stuff. I'm trying to stay spoiler-free here.
The final quarter of the book kind of exposed where I hope the series is going: more Practical Magic and less boring. Set up books can be like that, and then hit their stride in the second one. I'm hoping that's the case here. I'd be open to reading the 2nd one in the series, or a different series from Adams.