Its called Flavor of the Week and with a title like that, I thought it was about a cute lil' alt-y girl who worked in an icecream shop and somehow made the flavor of the week tie into her problems every single week of her life. And I figured the cover would be really sweet and somewhat Dali-esque, sort of like this:
"The dark chocolate ripple was sweet and savory, blending beautifully with the perfectly white vanilla. Just like Davon and me!"
And it ends when she quits and decides to be a vegan.
Is that too much to expect from a teen novel? I guess so, because Flavor of the Week was epically terrible. Heres the cover, which isn't bad but sort of disappointed me cuz of its lack of cute lil' alt gals and icecream and interracial love:
The book is about a fat kid named Cyril Bartholemew. Cyril is freakishly good at cooking and thats pretty much all he does. He doesn't really have a personality. He's just a fat version of Gary Stu. Or maybe he ate Gary Stu. I dunno. Heres Cyril.
Anyway, as our story begins, Cyril is baking cookies and daydreaming about this hippie girl that he's in love with, Rose. Rose is a vegetarian and listens to the Grateful Dead stone cold sober and is ridiculously boring and Cyril won't STFU about how beautiful she is. He seriously keeps daydreaming about cooking for her. He planned out a meal and everything. Its one part sweet, two parts pathetic. Heres Rose.
Anyway, Cyril is baking cookies for Rose's friend Jamie's birthday party. Cyril doesn't like parties, but he's infatuated and full of estrogen and so he just does whatever he thinks will make Rose happy.
Jamie is actually pretty cool. She drives fast, sleeps around, wears funky leotards, and actually eats. She is the only character in this book that I would voluntarily hang with.
I want to party with Jamie. Anyway, convieniently, as it is with shitty books and shitty indie novels, something convienient to a generic plotline happened. Cyril's old bestie Nick moved back from New York. (Say Nick from New York three times fast!) And guess what! Nick is generically DREAMY! And guess what ELSE WHAT! He and Rose LIKE EACH OTHER!
Nick is somewhat morally....off. I think we're supposed to attribute this to the fact that his parent's are divorced and that his mom is a druggie? Great characterization!
But Nick is insensitive to Rose's bland emotions! And also, Rose likes dudes who cook for some stupid random reason! So Insensitive Hunky Nick gets Cyril to cook delicious, delicious things for his Darling Rose and let Insesitive Nick take credit for it! OH NOES! HOW COULD THIS POSSIPLY END?
If you've ever seen a Rom Com or watched the season finale of a teen sitcom or read a book of this nature or lived in western civilization long enough to cohesively construct abstract thought, you know how this book is going to end. But I sort of hoped it would be moar dif'rint. I sort of hoped that Cyril would lose some weight, get some new friends, get a therapist, develop a personality, and meet some other girl with a tie dyed chef hat and sad, lonely eyes. Hope was for naught. Heres what happened in between the beginning and the end of this book:
*Cyril talks about his girl problems to his only other friend (that the book mentions, maybe?) who is some random lady that owns a gourmet cooking store. She actually seems kind of cool, I wish there was more of her in this book.
*Nick gives Rose a cake that Cy baked and then expects her to fuck him, even though they've only known each other for three days. Of course she doesn't, of course they both bitch to Cy about the incident.
*Rose is chilling and thinking how great it would be to live in the 60s. Then she sees Jamie and thinks that she would be totally out of place cuz shes wearing a leotard or something. And I just want to jump in there and be all, Rose, you realize all they did in the 60s was drop acid and fuck, right? And all you do is sulk around thinking to yourself how hipster-riginal you are? Sure, Jamie would be out of place.
*Between being awesome and making me question my heterosexuality, Jamie figures out whats up (Like its hard?) and tells Rose. Cyril should've seeked out Jamie's help in the first place, but I have a feeling it would've gone something like this:
*Rose doesn't believe him until Nick bats his eyes at Cy, making him prepare Rose a dinner of aphrodisiacs. Nick's dog jumps on the table and eats a plate of food, Nick runs after it to make sure it doesn't die or something, and Cy came over to creeper stare at Rose. He sees her alone in her hippie-mazing-ness-ness-ness, and decides to bust a move.
*Rose like, flirts with him to get him to confess, but he just goes all Michael Cera and sits there blushing and trying to hide is woodie. Then Nick comes back and accidentally confesses. Rose flips out on both of them, needless to say.
*Jamie is totally a nicer, smarter version of Jennifer from Jennifer's Body because she keeps screwing these guys that never get mentioned again.
Don't cry, babez. I still wuv yew.
*Cyril has this cooking audition thingy and totally fails it because all he thinks about is ROSE ROSE ROSE.
*In the end, Cyril makes Rose some chicken soup without chicken in it that makes her fall in love with him. And his cooking store bud, Alice, gets him another audition which he wins. And Jamie and the Handsome One end up together. Cyril is still boring. I was bitching to my mom about how lame this book was, and she told me that it was ment to be beautiful because Rose ends up loving Cyril even though he's flawed. Cyril didn't really do anything but pine over her the entire book, so thats sort of stupid. He didn't talk to Rose or Nick about his feelings except for a random confession to Nick that he loved her. He just sort of went with it. Cyril's fate was not his own, and I doubt he'll be very happy for long. Seriously, Cy! Get some therapy! Get some real friends! Eat a salad!
Happy ending. Happy happy happy ending. And I saw the author's picture on the back cover. I assumed it was somewhat autobiographical, and he would be this nerdy guy who never got the hippie chick back in high school and decided to unleash his pent up agression and sperm into a novely thing. But no. He's kind of hunkalishious.
Kinda.
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