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Summer means longer daylight hours, trips to the pool, transportive beach reads, and most importantly, cookouts! There’s nothing more delicious than eating grilled food in someone’s backyard, surrounded by friends, family, and neighbors. But if there’s anything that comes close, it’s foodie fiction. I adore books that make my mouth water with enticing food descriptions. If you love reading about food almost as much as eating food, take this cookout quiz to find out which foodie fiction book is your ideal summer read.
Foodie fiction comes in many packages. It can range from tasty literary fiction to sweet romances to appetizing mysteries and beyond. Light and heavy, historical and contemporary, the possible results of this quiz cover a range of genres and cuisines. You’ll be surprised by how your cookout tastes might correlate with your bookish preferences. If you’re looking for more than one foodie fiction book to whet your appetite, you can find a full list of potential book recommendations after the quiz. And if that’s not enough for you, check out Book Riot lists of romcoms for foodies, horror books for foodies, YA contemporary books for foodies, and 100 must-read novels for food lovers.
Now it’s time to grab your sunglasses and a glass of iced tea and head on down to the cookout!
Cookout Quiz
Death by Bubble Tea by Jennifer J. Chow
Two cousins run a food stall at an L.A. night market, and their delicious bubble tea makes them go viral. But when a customer ends up dead, the bubble tea he drank before he died makes them the prime suspects.
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Donut Fall in Love by Jackie Lau
When a handsome actor gets cast on a celebrity baking competition, he asks a local artisan donut shop owner to help him learn to bake. But with their chemistry, they’re sure to mix up more than just batter.
Hana Khan Carries On by Uzma Jalaluddin
Hana is a waitress at her family’s struggling halal restaurant. When a flashy competing restaurant opens down the street, Hana turns to her anonymously run podcast to ask for advice from her listeners.
The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan
In the midst of WWII, the BBC starts a cooking competition to find the first ever woman host of their radio program, The Kitchen Front. Four women with very different lives and relationships to cooking will do anything to win.
Love & Other Disasters by Anita Kelly
London is the first nonbinary chef on America’s favorite cooking competition. Dahlia makes a terrible first impression when she trips and drops her first dish on the show. Soon, the heat between London and Dahlia is hotter than the reality TV kitchen.
Ramón and Julieta by Alana Quintana Albertson
In this Romeo and Juliet–inspired romance, the heir to a fast food fortune falls for the celebrity chef owner of a failing taqueria. Can their star-crossed love survive a fierce food rivalry?
The Rib King by Ladee Hubbard
As a white family’s fortune dwindles, they decide to bottle and sell a sauce recipe created by their Black cook, and use the face of their Black landscaper on the label. When the cook and landscaper learn they won’t get any of the profits, they become set on revenge.
