Congrats for Goodreads Choice Awards nomination! This book is freaking gem!🥳🎈🍹Oh no! I’m literally craving for more this fantastic Filipino family adventures! Why good things end so fast!!!Let me introduce you the stars of this journey briefly: The threatening, tough grandma Lola Flor, sweetest Tita Rosie, entertaining and smart Calendar Trio(sharp tongued April, negotiator May, smart June) our witty, brave, kind hearted, stubborn, tough heroine Lila who has impressive investigation and culinary...

Well. This was disappointing.The best part of this book is the cover. That is an amazing cover.Well - and maybe the opening page. That was pretty engaging. After that, expect it to go downhill.I know - I know, that's mean and as an aspiring author myself it's a bit rude but I can't help myself, this just didn't shake out. Let me point out a few key things that really grated for me:- The concept of grief in this book is really, really appalling. None of the characters have feeling. None. They som...

This book hits the exact right spot, in my opinion. I love mysteries and whodunits but in the past few years, I’ve grown weary of all the violence and anxiety that accompany a lot of true crime or murder mysteries. Somehow—I still don’t quite know how??—Mia P. Manansala manages to create a murder mystery where nothing is too horrifying and you know everything will be okay in the end. And because of that, you just get to go along for the ride of trying to figure out what really happened when Lila...

***ARC provided through NetGalley***I'm gonna chalk this one up to a good old case of "it's not you, it's me" because while I'm glad to see so many people are enjoying this book, it was doing next to nothing for me. The writing and characters felt juvenile and the plot was often sidetracked by everyone sitting around at different restaurants, describing what they were eating in excruciating detail. Rather than a way to enhance the story, it felt like the focus on food was a way to fill space unt...

I feel like I'm being kind by giving this 2 stars. I don't think the author had ill intent. But the diabetic representation in this book angered me. I am speaking from personal experience, so I recognize that I am a sensitive party in this discussion, but I do not appreciate when a diabetic character dies and every other character thinks it's their business to say he deserved it because he was eating dessert. Insinuating that he asked for it. SO many of the characters mention that he was in ill

Not as substantive as I would have liked it to be and could be kind of cringey at times. At the beginning, it seemed like part of the narrative would be the main character exploring her identity as a second generation Filipino in the US, but that didn’t pan out. I feel like my brain was in “editing” mode the entire time I was reading. There was a lot of dialogue and description that was very very cheesy and many scenes that I think could have been parsed way down and still gotten the same point

This was really cute, and I loved the family in this book and learning more about the Filipino culture and the food, but I don’t know if cozy mysteries are my thing. I loved everything about this book, except for the mystery aspect of it, I just couldn’t get invested. Here’s the reading vlog where I read it: https://youtu.be/ByZvXPeSUB4

Arsenic and Adobo is a great start to a new Culinary Cozy Mystery series. I am definitely here for the long haul. Keep 'em coming, Mia P. Manansala!!!Following a bad breakup, Lila Macapagal moves back home to lick her wounds and try to put the pieces of her life back together.Additionally, her family needs some help. Her Aunt's restaurant is floundering. Even though the food is incredible, the business-side is tanking. Her Auntie never focuses on those details. Lila knows she can turn it around....

this was such a fun small town cozy mystery!! can’t wait for the rest of the series

A light, fun, humorous cozy mystery featuring descriptions of yummy Filipino dishes and warm family moments. I did feel like I had a few unanswered questions regarding side plots and characters, but I'm hoping those are addressed in future installments. I appreciated the dash of romance and the delightful banter involving the aunties, and look forward to the next book in the series!

Warning: Do not attempt to pick up this book and read it if you're hungry, or even if you simply haven't eaten in the last few hours. I had to set it down to google if I had any Filipino restaurants near me that would deliver because this book made me so damn hungry and in the mood for some lumpia... That said, the food descriptions were unfortunately the best part. I would absolutely follow a food blog if this author were to create one. And I plan to make the ube crinkle cookie recipe that is p...

This was kinda trash, but it still entertained me and was really messy (so points for that)

The saying "do not judge a book by its cover" must have been tailor-made for this book, well the cover and the synopsis. I was basically lured by those two things to start this book and oh boy what a mistake it was.This book, to put it simply, sucks. It reads as some 14-year old wrote it. I would say it reads like a fan-fiction, but that would be an insult to all the well-written fan-fictions out there. This is nothing but the writer's self-insert fantasy with ham-fisted food reference thrown in...

I know this is ridiculously petty of me, but I just couldn't take the book seriously after reading this paragraph:I sighed and nibbled on an ube crinkle, so lost in thought I couldn't even enjoy how the light coating of powdered sugar gave just enough sweetness to the subtle, almost vanilla-like flavor of the purple yam. It all turned to sand in my mouth.Like...please don't tell me a character can't concentrate on something and then proceed to describe it in detail, especially in a first-person

berkley, hear my filipino american prayers. also this is 100% without question going to be my lola's fave read of 2021. blessings all around and my heart is so very full! <3 Blog | Instagram | Youtube | Ko-fi | Spotify | Twitch

3.75. Finally a cozy that I really enjoyed !I finally got to this one and very excited for the next one. Lila is back home in small town Shady Palms after living in the big city of Chicago. She went home to help her family with their restaurant- Tita Rosie’s Kitchen. Her ex boyfriend is a “food critic” who has been writing nasty reviews about their restaurant and others and during his latest visit to Tita Rosie’s Kitchen, he dies after eating their food. Ruh roh, the police think they did it. On...

This was a pretty quick read but I hated the writing style and I thought it felt like both everything and nothing was happening at once. The food descriptions were the only substantial thing in the book and now I know I don't care about food descriptions.

If there's one thing Filipino people are good at, it's showing up for other Filipinos' achievements. That's essentially why I jumped to get a review copy of Arsenic & Adobo, Mia P. Manansala's debut installment to a cozy mystery series featuring Filipino protagonists and food. Cozy mysteries have long been a genre I wanted to get into, but all of these factors and more were what really made me stay for the rest of the book. The things I liked:✓ So much diversity; our main character, Lila, is...

3.5 starsThis was such a pleasant reading experience. I absolutely love to see food highly featured in fiction and to pair it with a cozy mystery? A delight. The best things about this work are the smooth reading experience, the bright and vibrant details and characters, and the humor. There were a few of things that kept it from being perfection for me: - There were times that the food details did go a little overboard, mostly because it felt like there were placed funny in certain scenes. It w...

This was my first time reading a cozy mystery!!For one... I am obsessed with the cover. I absolutely loved the town of Shady Palms and Miss Lila Macapagal. This was quite the cozy mystery that stands out for the importance of family, full of heart, and tons of delicious food that I wanted to eat right out of the book.What I absolutely loved? The Filipino culture!! And the cast of characters just absolutely loved. But, I have to say my most favorite is the dachschund Longganisa. Gahhh soooo cute!...

I will say this is a very personal and highly biased review, since there is a lot more joy than I would have guessed in seeing your cultural experience take priority on the page. Like Lila I don’t speak Tagalog fluently, so to still recognize the phrases and comfort foods from my childhood in the text was extra heartwarming. Are all lolas the same?? How oddly reassuring.

Much better than Dial A for Aunties. Amir gave me hot brown lawyer vibes, e.g. Last Tang Standing. Jae Park gave me k-pop vibes.Also, I'm hungry.rep: Filipino-American, Korean-American, LGBTQIA+, Pakistani-Americantw: cheating, death, domestic violence, drugs, evidence planting, fatphobia, police intimidation, racism(24/50) Popsugar 2022 / A book with cutlery on the cover or in the title

I really wanted to like this book and was really excited when it was offered by BOTM. I was born in Manila but lived in a Chicago suburb as a child. I then went back to Manila for high school and college, after which, I came back to live in Chicago. I now live in the Chicago suburbs. It was exciting to have a mainstream book that reflected the culture in which I was raised. I have to give the author props for attempting to incorporate Filipino cuisine into the story and weaving cultural concepts...

It was okay, and mostly enjoyable. But, the author seems to have some prejudices against diabetics that were upsetting to read.1. Diabetics can eat desserts. It doesn’t mean they’re not taking care of themselves. The character seemed to be insulin dependent, so they just needed to take some insulin to cover the dessert. 2. Ending up in the hospital with diabetic ketoacidosis doesn’t make anyone an “idiot” ever. There are a thousand reasons why things can go wrong and you need to go to the ER. Ma...

A cute, cozy mystery with lots of food descriptions. The perfect rainy day read 👌🏻

I'm really not getting along with the writing or the storytelling. I mean...(view spoiler)[the main character gets slapped with bogus drug charges?! I literally looked up Illinois law to see what police need to prove 1) possession and 2) intent to sell and they had neither. The drugs being in her locker when other people had keys to it probably couldn't even prove constructive possession. And INTENT TO DISTRIBUTE? The evidence is...where? They don't even say what the drug is and whether it's bee...

Lila is helping out in the family restaurant when her ex-boyfriend dies of what looks like poisoning. Lots of Filipino food and family, and some secrets only known to the people who have stayed in the small community. I hope we see more in this series because there are some unresolved relationships at the end of this! A few recipes in the back, which will send me on another hunt for pandan leaves.I had a copy of this from the publisher through NetGalley.

I was lucky to get a sneak peek at this terrific debut cozy mystery. What a terrific new series! A full review to follow shortly.

Delightful, fun, and humorous!This was an enjoyable cozy murder mystery that was a fast read and held my interest right from the very start. I absolutely love a good culinary cozy that is set in a small town, and what is even better is the included recipes of all the mouthwatering dishes mentioned in the book.The glossary in the beginning of the book was greatly appreciated by this reader. I was thoroughly entertained and loved the cultural aspect of this novel, and learning more about the Filip...

That was DELISH!!! This was my first cozy mystery & I devoured it, not just because of all the yummy food but also the Filipino family dynamics & culture along with the compulsive need I had to figure out who was behind the madness. I am so happy this is a series, I want MORE!