Review : Taste Test by Kelly Fiore

Summary (from Goodreads) 

Title : Taste Test
Author : Kelly Fiore
Publication Date : August 27th 2013
Publisher : Walkers Children
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If you can grill it, smoke it, or fry it, Nora Henderson knows all about it. She’s been basting baby back ribs and pulling pork at her father’s barbeque joint since she was tall enough to reach the counter. When she’s accepted to Taste Test, a reality-television teen cooking competition, Nora can’t wait to leave her humble hometown behind, even if it means saying good-bye to her dad and her best friend, Billy. Once she’s on set, run-ins with her high-society roommate and the maddeningly handsome—not to mention talented—son of a famous chef, Christian Van Lorten, mean Nora must work even harder to prove herself. But as mysterious accidents plague the kitchen arena, protecting her heart from one annoyingly charming fellow contestant in particular becomes the least of her concerns. Someone is conducting real-life eliminations, and if Nora doesn’t figure out who, she could be next to get chopped for good.

With romance and intrigue as delectable as the winning recipes included in the story, this debut novel will be devoured by all.


Personal Thoughts

MasterChef is one my favorite shows on TV at the moment and when I learned that Taste Test was actually based on the show, I knew I had to read it. I've come to the conclusion that I should just stick to watching MasterChef on TV and not seek it in books.

Taste Test's main character is Nora. Nora lived with her widowed father and helped him run his barbeque joint. Food has always been her passion and when the chance to participate in a cooking contest for teenagers cropped up, she excitedly took up the opportunity. Nora was at first a likeable heroine. She was a driven and passionate character who knew exactly what she wanted out of her life. she was also the sort of person who was willing to sweat to achieve her goals. In addition, not only could she be witty, but she said some funny things too. However, Nora had a huge character flaw. She was judgmental. She judged every single person she met on the competition and made her own opinion on them without even conversing with them. She came across as rude and annoying to me. She was also prejudiced against those competitors who came from wealthy families and that bugged me so much. It was like if you were rich, then you MUST have had special contacts to actually have been selected to participate in the competition. Rich people don't have talent apparently, according to Nora. By the end, I just wasn't a fan of Nora.

One of the strongest competitors in the contest was Christian, the son of a well-known chef. He and Nora didn't hit it well when they first meet and throughout the book, the cycle was : they bickered, they fought and they became friends. It was frustrating. Christian was no better than Nora either. He was, at times, a complete jerk to her. I'm not even sure how he suddenly turned into a love interest, because he clearly wasn't love interest material. I honestly saw nothing attractive in his attitude. Throughout the book, he and Nora pulled stupid pranks on each other that made me want to cringe. I think they were supposed to come across as funny and entertaining, but to me they seemed childish and completely unnecessary.

According to me, too much attention was given to the antagonistic relationship between Christian and Nora than to the actual competition plot line of the book. I wanted to see more of the actual cooking and the different challenges on the contest rather than Christian and Nora indulging in silly and immature fights. If you watch MasterChef, you know how the competition runs with the additional entertaining drama that comes along with it, which makes the show so entertaining. With Taste Test, it's like Kelly Fiore concentrated too much on the main characters' competitive nature. I also thought the plot twist that came towards the end was just weird, unrealistic and it felt like the author was trying too hard to add some sort of drama to the plot-line.

Unfortunately, Taste Test was quite the disappointment according to me. I had hoped for a lighter and more adorable read. 

Rating

Cover : 3/5
Plot : 2/5
Characters : 2/5
Writing : 3/5

Thank you to NetGalley and Walkers Children for the e-ARC of Taste Test.