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Rubi Ramos’s parents (especially her mom) have made it clear what is best for her future: go to college at Alma University and become a lawyer. They’re both immigrants from Cuba and they’ve worked really hard running their own bakery for years. Rubi’s success in the white-collar world will be the culmination of all they’ve worked for.
The problem is that Rubi isn’t completely excited about law. What does thrum in her blood is baking: just what her mom and dad want her to get away from having to do.
So her mom (aka “the Boss” to Rubi and her dad) instituted a Baking Ban so Rubi would focus on debate team at school and getting into Alma.
She’s just a few months away from graduating high school, and just as she gets a letter in the mail from Alma, she finds out about a baking competition in Orange County, where she lives. It’s all she can think about. So she decides to go for it: in secret, of course.
At the same time, she meets a cute guy, a surfer who goes to another private school near her. Ryan is yet another distraction, but she can’t resist him either. He’s kind and supportive of her dreams — and cute.
Of course, the distractions do get distracting, and life gets complicated. Rubi has a lot of talents and a lot of dreams. Can she actually make them all come true, or will she have to disappoint either herself or her parents?
Rubi Ramos’s Recipe for Success seems to be one of a crop of recent YA books focusing on teens whose parents are immigrants to the US. Those parents have big expectations based on what they feel is success, while the teens just want to follow their own path. Each has its own merits while having similar stories. Here, I liked Rubi and her family, and the resolution works nicely. There’s not too much angst but things aren’t super-easy. It’s another window into the experiences of immigrants and their American-born children, which is always valuable.
Rated: Mild. Profanity includes a couple of instances of moderate profanity, 30 uses of mild language, and 5 instances of the name of Deity in vain.
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*I received an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
