A Taste for Love

Gr 7 Up– Determined to push back against the traditional values held by her Taiwanese immigrant mother, Liza Yang constantly battles against the model minority student image that her mother tries to mold her into. Different from her over-achieving older sister Jeannie, one thing that Liza and her mother have in common is their love for baking. Once she has agreed to help Mrs. Yang at their family bakery’s annual baking competition, Liza finds herself surrounded by contestants—all from well-off Asian families—that her mother has picked for her to date. Attracted to hot contestant James Wong, Liza finds it hard to fight her feelings for him and for approval from her mother. She is destined to try her own recipe for love. A plot-driven romance with a happy ending, Yen’s debut is filled with mouth-watering descriptions of jelly cakes, egg waffles, matcha cookies, boba tea, and char siu bao. Yen, a child psychiatrist, writes with a great deal of insight into the adolescent mind. This spotlight on a tight-knit Asian American family and community is ripe for a film adaptation.