The Main Dish: A Novel

Victoria Kimble has another winner with The Main Dish. In a world where a “me first” attitude prevails, the main character of The Main Dish learns a valuable lesson about putting others first.

Scarlet has just finished her sophomore year of high school, and she desperately wants to be the youngest violinist ever chosen for the Summerset Festival orchestra. She makes it, and thinks her future will now be golden. She'll be one of the “cool” orchestra kids. But her dream is derailed when her sister Sadie is chosen for a young chefs cooking show - and the show will be filming during rehearsals for the festival. Scarlet's parents make the choice to put Sadie's competition first and to take the whole family as a vacation, seeing it as a “once in a lifetime” opportunity, telling Scarlet she can try out again next year. Scarlet doesn't take it well. And when they come back home, everyone is talking about Sadie, Sadie, Sadie. What will Scarlet do to change the topic of conversation?

I liked Scarlet. She was a real teenager. Sometimes kind, sometimes goofy, and sometimes self-centered spoiled brat. Her relationships were realistically written, and she was sometimes a delight to read about, sometimes cringeworthy (because we can all remember when we acted poorly as teenagers, and it's kind of embarrassing in retrospect!).

I love Kimble's books because they're entertaining and engaging without stooping to being trashy, and there's a good lesson in each story without it becoming preachy. If I had tween/teen daughters, I would be thrilled for them to read Kimble's books. And even though I'm not the target demographic, I enjoyed the book myself. Hope to see more from this author in the future!

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary advance copy of this book from the author. All opinions here are mine, and I don't say nice things about books I don't like.