Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop

This sounded like a fun, easy read. The problem was this book couldn't decide what it was supposed to be. A romance? Family drama? Magical realism? Food centered story? It was all too much and as such the story suffered. No one part was able to establish any footing. Instead it felt like a series of story fragments and events that just followed one after the other. And the ending felt too “tie it up with a happy rainbow”. There were some glimmers of good story telling - I enjoyed Vanessa's relationship with Evelyn - but it was covered up by all the over the top foodie meal descriptions. And I'm never a fan of insta-love stories (never mind the taking back the guy with the huge gambling problem because he might go to counseling). Basically, while it wasn't bad, it could have been a whole lot better.