REVIEW for The Sweet Life of Stella Madison

A big thank you goes out to Knopf Delacorte Dell Young Readers Group from Random House Children's Books for sending me this book!

TITLE: The Sweet Life of Stella Madison

AUTHOR: Lara M. Zeises

GENRE: YA

RATING: 4 Stars


This book had all the ingredients (no pun intended) to hook up from the first sentence. First off, its a YA book, which is always a huge plus for me - secondly, it talks about food (yum!) in great, great detail and thirdly, it was fun and entertaining to read.

The Sweet Life of Stella Madison is all about food and growing up - in that order.

We meet our main character Stella. She is almost 18 and dating Max. Stella's parents are both involved in the food industry - her mom has a great restaurant featuring different chefs and her dad is a well known chef. While her parents are no longer together, they have not yet divorced and still work closely together.

Stella is longing for a car and although she works at her mom's restaurant, she basically gets dropped, on her lap, this wonderful internship at a magazine - writing about! what else!!!! food. At the same time, her boyfriend Max is starting to use the L word which is freaking Madison out AND to top it all off, there is a cute new guy in the picture - oh wait! there is also the fact that both her parents appear to be dating other people and neither bothered to mention it to her.

Yes, there is alot going on in this novel but I have to say that the author, Lara Zeises makes it work. At times, I felt as though things were going just a little too well for Stella, but towards the middle to end of the book you realize that things are not that easy for Stella and I started understanding the message behind this book.

Also, I like the way the author has presented Stella and her views of guys. She has a problem with saying I Love You and as i read on, I discovered why and it made perfect sens. Yet, at the same time, she was a typical teenager, crushing on another boy. There is absolutely no sex in this one which is a nice change of pace and Stella is actually a very bright and fun character.

As she interacts with the various people in her life, she discovers opportunities for growth (even if she does not want to) and I liked this alot about the book.

I felt her parents could have treated her a little bit more as an adult, which they were not doing in the first part of the book, but the relationship she has with them sounded true to me.

As for the food, OMG I was salivating at some of the food descriptions in this book - that was a huge drawing card for me - if I can't eat it, might as well read about it!!!

I really thought this book was fun and a great, great read.