Sappy Sweet

* I read this ARC via Star Book Tours.

*Book will be released on May 10. 2011

This book gets 2 gnomes and a gnome hat out of 5 gnomes  for this awesome cover and a story that was good but just went on much longer then it needed to.

I liked the whole premise of a girl who loves to put cakes together.  Anyone who watches all the cake decorating show out there will probably be intrigued by this story.

Throughout much of the book up to about the mid 200 page range I just wanted to slap some sense into the main character, Sheridan aka Cake Girl.  She seems to excel at making poor decisions and acts like a selfish word that rhymes with witch for most of the book.

The story is cute but the I wish that main character was more engaging right from the beginning of the book.  She's the go to cake decorator in town but doesn't have much of a life beyond making cakes.  Then her dad gets a deal for a cooking show and she kind of flips out about probably having to move to New York.

What really bothered me was how much she idolizes her mother and how naive she is at fifteen.  Her mother left when she was eight but she is still looking for her.

Sheridan's relationship with her father is strained but I found myself just wanting to tell her that communication is a two way street.  I hate to agree with a main character's friends but I too think that a teenager would be more likely to be excited about their parent getting a TV show and not angry like Sheridan is.

There's a love triangle in the book between her, her best friend Jack, and Ethan an uber popular guy.  She is a tad bit indecisive about who she should be with.  She falls hard for Ethan and goes out with him even though they've never talked that much before, he is also someone that she has put on a pedestal as being the perfect guy so her going out with him isn’t exactly a sound decision..

Her judgment of people just seems so off especially with people that are trying to help her like her dad (most of the time), Father Crowley and her art teacher.  This character just seems to be a narcissit at heart so it takes quite a while to warm up to her.

My favorite characters were her Grandma who she calls Nanny and Mr. Roz who helps run the bakery.  Nanny and Mr. Roz had some of the best lines in the book and were great characters that tended to help keep Sheridan grounded into the reality of what is important.

I think that the book probably could be 100 pages or so shorter, if it was it would really ramp up the conflict and tension more.  There is to much story in the middle and not enough at the end.  Towards the end of the book I was really starting to like the main character and wonder what she was going to do next.  The ending was pretty good though a tad Lifetime esque, it does make you want to know what happens next to Sheridan and if all her plans will succeed.