A superb disappointment. The premises sounds so promising; in the end, I learned nothing about Helsinki specifically nor Finland so to speak. It might as well be set in America for all I could tell it didn't exactly make a difference.
I admit I'm fooled by the elegant Taiwanese book cover... Had I first encounter the original Japanese cover ( ), I definitely would not have considered picking it up.
I reread aka skimmed it through, for I'm compiling a list of food mentioned in this book for my blog; really, from the very beginning I should have known this wouldn't be a good book... There was no actual description of our main girl's cooking skills, and we were just told that she knew how to do this and that... With absolute no effort on emphasizing the food she supposedly knows how to make... There were no specific "dish" mentioned, just that she learned how to cook "French", "Italian", "Japanese", "Southeast Asian", and "Middle Eastern" cuisines; excuse me for not finding it one bit believable, or that perhaps, sure, she learned the basics, but imo, the writing sure as heck wasn't even trying to convince people that she's a pro.
This book makes me SO ANGRY. I swear, if the number of ratings reaches 100 on GR, I WOULD lower mine to a 1-star. IT'S THAT BAD. It's telling stuff without actually telling me stuff... Like "she bought groceries"... So what exactly did she buy? Dunno. "The market has all sorts of vegetables and fruits"... So what kinds? I don't frickin know. Honestly WTF? Everything was hella vague.