Kat's Reviews > Love & Other Disasters

You know how when you taste a dish, and you can immediately tell that it’s missing the most basic spices? That’s how I felt reading Love & Other Disasters.

Recently divorced and on the verge of bankruptcy, Dahlia Woodson is ready to reinvent herself on the popular reality competition show Chef’s Special. London Parker, on the other hand, having just announced on live tv that they’re non-binary, is here to prove their father and the haters wrong. They CAN win this show. Neither London nor Dahlia plan to let anything other than their veggies get steamy, but when they begin to slowly get to know each other, it seems like their steaks aren’t the only things starting to sizzle.

Let’s be real, when you pick up a book that centres around a highly competitive cooking show, you probably expect some tension and lots of drama. Who is gonna win? His custard is too thin, and the time’s running out! Oh God, did she really think she could get away with pairing a lemon meringue pie with raspberry banana flavour?

I’m not a fan of cooking shows but come on, that’s what we’re here for when we plop down in front of our screens and watch very talented people create mouth-watering food, right?

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Love & Other Disasters didn’t deliver. There was barely any tension. Half or more than half of the face-offs and cooking challenges were told in retrospect. So often, it was just like:

“At yesterday’s competition, Dahlia made fourth place” or “throughout the entire day of filming, through another Face-Off […] and another Ingredient Innovation, Dahlia kept looking at them” or “they had worked together on a special group challenge, along with the other remaining contestants, cooking a meal for the Chef’s Special crew”.

Okay, so let the readers be part of those challenges. 😐 Otherwise, the characters’ anxiety and sense of urgency of absolutely having to win this thing just won’t come across. I simply didn’t care who won or lost because there was no real sense of dread of Dahlia or London getting kicked off at any moment.

So that was lame. Even lamer was the fact that the supporting characters were just? so? flat? We have Barbara, another contestant, who is just the helpful grandma who gives Dahlia vital tips like “believe in yourself!”, “don’t let London get away!”, “you’re a beautiful person!” Now, if I wanted to read basic ass inspirational quotes, I’d go on Pinterest.

We obviously also need a villain, and that would be Lizzie, the mid-western suburban transphobic housewife. Nothing against portraying Karen figures as transphobes. Having a transphobic character in a book starring a non-binary character makes sense to get across just how difficult daily life can be for enbys when surrounded by bigoted assholes, but there was nothing to Lizzie. Her only character trait was being transphobic, and she had very few lines.

The other contestants were apparently so unimportant, they are mentioned by name only. One is Ahmed, he is nice. Another one is Cath, she is a lesbian. They were less than flat; they were basically non-existent if it weren’t for the fact that a cooking show obviously needs more than a handful of contestants. I hate it when characters are put in a setting that is then barely explored or when side characters are treated like NPCs. 🥱

Dahlia’s trans brother Hank and London’s family were handled better. Hank doesn’t have much page time (literary version of screen time), but I appreciated the rep. I think the relationship between London and their father was also handled very well. He is unaccepting of their pronouns, and their encounters are rocky and difficult. While the subject of a parent actively rejecting their child’s chosen pronouns can be potentially triggering, it’s important to showcase that family members can be just as transphobic as strangers. How London handled the overall situation was well-written.

What wasn’t well-written, however, was the dialogue:

“Are you serious ?” she boomed, shoving London in the chest. It hurt a little. “You eat Brussels sprouts when you’re sad?”
“Yes,” London said indignantly, rubbing at their chest. “You roast them with garlic and butter until the leaves turn brown, and then they’re so crispy and—”
“Rice Krispies treats!” Dahlia shouted, so loudly they stared at each other in shock for a second. And then they both started laughing.
“Rice Krispies treats,” Dahlia repeated between laughs. “I make Rice Krispies treats when I’m sad. That is an acceptable answer.”

I don’t know why so many authors think that teenagers or young adults speak the way we texted in 2016. MAAYYBE, that’s how many of us communicated on Twitter and Insta about six years ago, but who talks like that nowadays?

I also had some problems with how the food was described in this novel. I’m not talking about the characters’ kinks involving food but how the actual food they cooked on the show was talked about. Early on, Dahlia talks to her assigned rainbow trout, saying, “I’m sorry I’m going to slice through your anus and tear your guts out through your throat.”

Disgusting. Though if you eat fish, you should know how it is produced and prepared before you buy it at the supermarket. Overall, the novel lacked delicious, mouth-watering food descriptions. Where is the flavour???



Based on the above quote, you can already guess that, of course, Dahlia is super QUIRKY 😜😜, she is SOOOO CLUMSY 😩😩 but ADORABLE 🥺 while falling on her face 😰 during – I kid you not – her first day on set. It’s 2022, and I’m still reading about clumsy female main characters. Dang, is that shit boring, but I guess that when you want to include the grumpy x sunshine dynamic in your book, your sunshine character needs to be a little silly. 🤪

London was way more interesting as a character. The sex they were assigned at birth wasn’t disclosed until 1/3 into the book, which I thought was a great way to stop the reader from thinking about them as “previously a girl” or “previously a boy”. Whenever someone (like Lizzie) misgendered London, the misgendered pronouns weren’t mentioned. It was always more in the style of “except Lizzie didn’t say ‘they’” or something along those lines. You can tell by how purposefully London’s identity was handled that the author (who goes by she/her and they/them) knows what they were doing. This showcases once again that the authors most qualified to write about LGBTQIA+ characters are LGBTQIA+ members themselves.


I overall loved the trans and non-binary rep, especially because I’ve never read a book with a non-binary main character before. It’s something I want to work on, not only because I’ve noticed that reading about the “they” pronoun being used for a single person still throws me off. In direct speech, I use “they” for individuals all the time, but I still need to get accustomed to seeing it written down and reading books about people using they/them pronouns is a great place to start.

While I disagree with other reviewers saying the toe sucking scene was disgusting-

“They brought her big toe into their mouth. ‘Fine,’ she said, breath hitching. ‘You are very much sexy, and I am incredibly attracted to you. Better?’” -that’s the whole scene, and believe me, I’ve read so much worse, this is fine?? Idk, have you SEEN “Call Me By Your Name?”

– I agree with them about how white the whole thing was and that for a cooking show, they only focused on American food like tacos, barbecue, chicken… So you write a book about a cooking show, and they cook the most boring-ass food? Okay…


I so wish I could have given this a higher rating. I seriously debated giving this a three-star rating because of its awesome non-binary and general LGBTQIA+ rep but I know I will have completely forgotten about this novel in a few months, so two stars it is.

Bonus gif of London doing Dahlia: