Eliza, From Scratch coming May 13th, 2025 from Quill Tree Books; 320 pages
Content Warning: Death, loss of a loved one
About the Author: “Sophia Lee grew up sharing her love of books on the internet but always wanted to write her own. Her passion for stories led her to study film and medical humanities at Vanderbilt University before earning her medical degree at UT Southwestern. A Corpus Christi native and Texan at heart, she currently lives in Washington, DC, as an OB-GYN resident with dreams of being a lifelong storyteller and empathetic health care provider. Eliza, from Scratch is her debut novel” (Bio from HarperCollins).
Find Sophia Lee on the following platforms:
Eliza Park’s plan for a perfect senior year and MIT acceptance is derailed by a sudden schedule change that places her in culinary arts: the one class that isn’t a guaranteed success for her. Suddenly, her salutatorian title is threatened, and Eliza finds herself, for the first time, floundering in a class. To make matters worse, Eliza is paired with her cocky and incredibly skilled classmate, Wesley, whose talents in the kitchen are rivaled only by his talents for getting under Eliza’s skin. As the semester progresses, Eliza begins to learn from (and even, perhaps, like?) Wesley, and her culinary knowledge is enhanced when she reaches out to her grief-ridden mother for help learning more about the Korean recipes that played an integral role in her mother’s life. Once despised by Eliza, cooking soon becomes a tool of connection for her, both with the important people in her life and her cultural heritage. Over the course of one fateful semester, Eliza learns lessons that go far beyond the kitchen, discovering things about her relationships, her culture, and herself.
In her debut YA novel, Sophia Lee crafts a tender tale of grief, loss, culture, and navigating change. The relationship between food, language, and culture we see play out through Eliza’s experiences in her class and in her home kitchen tell an important and nuanced story about the way in which we communicate about grief and other seemingly impossible subjects. I loved every scene where we, and Eliza, got to see her mother or Wesley come alive in the kitchen, expressing feelings they couldn’t outside of that environment. Lee seemed to balance so many complex subjects throughout the novel that sometimes I felt as overwhelmed as Eliza just by reading about them. From trying to reach across cultural and generational distances to navigating college decisions and academic elitism, it was hard to keep track of all that the characters had on their plates (pun slightly intended). However, I think Lee did an excellent job crafting nuanced and realistic characters that handled these situations with (at times) grace and (at other times) a sense of frustration and difficulty that made them feel all the more authentic. At different times heartwarming, overwhelming, and moving, Eliza, From Scratch is a beautiful debut work that demonstrates the power of the YA genre as a tool for examining important themes and delivering crucial lessons.
Pine Reads Review would like to thank NetGalley and Quill Tree Books for sending us an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Any quotes are taken from an advanced copy and may be subject to change before final publication.
Sam Parker, Pine Reads Review Social Media Manager