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Continuing my weekend binge of Jackie Lau's Baldwin Village series, I immediately jumped into book two, Ice Cream Lover. Jackie Lau is an author I always go to when I need something feel good and Baldwin Village is my favorite of her series so far. Update: I applied this to the prompt of LGBTQ+ for the 3rd board of Summer of Swoon.
Here we focus on Chloe, the owner of Ginger Scoops, an Asian inspired ice cream shop. She's very much the sunshine and loves unicorns, pink and rainbows. Oh, and ice cream. She's struggling a lot dealing with grief from her mother's passing and her identity. Chloe is not only bi-sexual, but also bi-racial, Caucasian and Chinese. After her mother passed she's lost contact with her aunt, the only remaining family she has on that side. She struggles with feeling like an outsider, both in her own family as well and in general. One day she meets Michelle, a 6-year old foodie that's requested her Uncle Drew to take her to the shop. Drew was left at the altar and afterwards his ex-fiancé wrote a self-help book about "finding your inner ice cream sandwich." Since then, he can't stand ice cream.
This was another fun reread and I feel like if I were to be super picky, this would be more of a 4.5-star rating rounded down to 4. This is such a great version of the sunshine-grumpy trope. Drew is a grump but it's completely relatable. I also loved how even though Chloe is naturally a sunshine personality, she feels comfortable with Drew to not force it if she's not in the mood. Their banter and connection is super sweet (once again) and I couldn't get enough. This is a little more steamier, but it's fun because it includes the use of toys. I haven't read very many romances that include toys, let along that includes it in a good way.
Where this book falls short with me is the deal with his ex-fiancé and her book. It's a fun element that's unexpected, but I didn't like how he was portrayed in the book within the book and to the followers of his ex. It was a little weird that only two people out of those that read it really see that there's more the story than shared. I get that the point was to have him doubly hurt by it, but I just felt like the ice cream sandwich book plot line was just a little overdone. The culmination of this leads to the "3rd act breakup" and it was resolved a little too quickly for my liking.
I still loved this book, it's just hard to usurp The Ultimate Pi Day Party as my favorite of the series and of Jackie Lau period. I'm excited I decided to pick up this series and really enjoyed rereading Ice Cream Lover. I once again made me crave ice cream and I wish there was an Asian ice cream shop near me. If it's not French Vanilla, my other go to flavor is Green Tea. I also had sakura and taro ice cream when I was in Japan and loved it. I want to try all these other flavors, even the durian!
Have you read Ice Cream Lover?
Bookishly Yours,
Stasi🍎
STATISTICS: Ice Cream Lover, Jacki Lau, 4-stars, 0 days, eBook, 234 pages, published in 2019
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