A Cyrano de Bergerac story with cooking instead of letters--it should have been awesome.
It was not. ( )

Flavor of the Week is about a kid named Cyril. He is in love with one of his best friends, Rose. Cyril loves to cook. His best friend from two years ago moves back for good. Rose immediately falls in love with him. Cyril's friend likes rose back. He asks Cyril to help him get the girl of his dreams by cooking for him for her. So Cyril helps his friend get the girl of his dreams. Cyril has been waiting to get an "interview" from the AICA. He finaly got in for an interview and he blew it, but his friend that works at the AICA got him another interview by giving one of the judge's an expensive bottle of wine. He got into the AICA and Rose found out that Nick (Cyril's friend) wasn't the one cooking for her that it was Cyril. So Cyril got his dream job and his dream girl.

Cyril Bartholomew is in love with his lab partner, Rose Mulligan. However, Cyril is a little on the heavy side, and Rose only sees him as a friend. Cyril’s chubbiness also causes him to keep his love of cooking a secret. Then, Cyril’s best friend, Nick, moves back in town after two years. Nick woos Rose with Cyril’s kitchen-sink cookies and claims that he made them. Before long, Cyril is creating gourmet meals for Rose while Nick takes all the credit.

Story-wise, Flavor of the Week is a pretty ordinary novel. Shaw takes a typical loser boy, a typical pretty girl, and a typical best friend to create a love triangle. Nothing special, right? However, the inclusion of food in the novel created for a fun and pleasant read. Before I start, I might be a little biased because I love all things food, but I found it to be a creative add that, frankly, saved the novel from being a complete bore.

My favorite inclusion of food was Cyril’s audition to the American Institute of Culinary Arts, but even that was slightly predictable. Another thing I liked was that a recipe was included at the end of chapter. While most of these recipes were not simple, I think a teen could prepare most of them. Personally, I want to try to the kitchen-sink cookies.

While Flavor of the Week was a predictable read, I still enjoyed it. At 200 pages, with many of these pages consisting of recipes, it is also a quick read, so what have you got to lose? ( )