Review: Bacon Pie

Bacon Pie by Candace Robinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Having read and enjoyed Candace Robinson’s earlier work – Quinsey Wolfe’s Glass Vault, Hearts Are Like Balloons, and The Bride of Glass – I was interested in seeing what her next book would bring. As soon as I saw the synopsis and cover of Bacon Pie my mind decided this was going to be one super cute read.

Despite how cute it seemed, I had my usual moment of tentatively regarding a cowritten book. Most cowritten books I have read have flowed really well together, but it’s the bad ones that stand out to me – due to this, I always fear the worst. Add in the fact I have never read a Gerardo Delgadillo book before and I was doubly nervous. What would I get from Candace Robinson working with an author I have never read before?

Turns out, it was yet another of those cases where the prior bad left me with unnecessary worries about the good. Candace Robinson and Gerado Delgadillo work really well together, leading to a story that flows wonderfully as we make our way through the story. It also left me with the desire to jump into other Gerado Delgadillo books.

I will be completely honest, I wasn’t completely sucked into this one at first. It took me a few chapters, where I was interested but not crazy in love, before I finally fell into the rhythm of this one. This may be a reflection of how I’m not the biggest reader of young adult contemporary. I enjoy young adult novels, but I lean more towards fantasy and science fiction for the genre; I enjoy contemporary, but I lean more towards new adult and adult contemporary over young adult. Thus, it’s a bit of a grey area for me – something I pick up occasionally, but not something I spent a lot of time reading. I think it just took me a while to organise my mind so it recognised I was reading something I do not read all that often.

Once I was sucked into the story, though, I could not put this down. It quickly became a book I was happy to sit and read in a single sitting, curious to see how everything came together. Being a book that covered so many important topics, I was unable to turn away until I knew how every detail played out. When I say it deals with important topics, do not worry about a book that preaches or shoves far too much in your direction – it subtly deals with the topics, making them important points of the story without waving a giant flag that says ‘this is something you need to keep in your mind in everyday life’. It’s wonderful when young adult books are able to incorporate such things, especially when it is done so in a way that it does not feel forced, when it feels completely natural within the story.

The storyline itself was a lot of fun. There was plenty of drama and entertainment throughout, the story having enough to keep you turning the pages. There are some of the usual things you find in young adult contemporary novels, but there’s also plenty to make this book unique.

The characters were also enjoyable. There was one side character I really wanted to strangle – not one of the troublesome ones, either, one of the important ones. However, by the end of the story he had grown on me and I could deal with him in small doses. That in and of itself is an amazing feat – to turn a character from someone I could not stand to someone I could deal with in so few pages.

Overall, I had a lot of fun with this one. It’s certainly worth reading if you’re a fan of young adult contemporary books, if you enjoy drama, romance, and bacon. Even if you’re not a fan of bacon – or, like me, you’re indifferent and cannot understand the obsession – it’s worth the read for the entertainment the bacon aspect of the story brings.

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