Review: Lasagna Means I Love You

Lasagna Means I Love You
By Kate O’Shaughnessy
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2023. Fiction. 360 pages.

Mo is an eleven-year-old foster girl who stumbles upon a cookbook filled with homemade family recipes. After making one of the recipes, she begins asking everyone she knows for their family recipes. As she collects the recipes, Mo builds a website to share them, secretly hoping that a relative will find her website and adopt her. But Mo encounters several struggles, both personally and in her quest to find a forever home. Will she ever find the family that she's looking for?

This book was so sweet and tender. I loved the idea of food being a message of love, and the story does an incredible job of tying together family recipes with traditions, feelings, and memories. I also thought it did a decent job of using letters from Mo to her Nan as a storytelling tool, although it's usually not my favorite. Overall, this book was amazing. A definite favorite for anyone who loves cooking, found family, and a determined female character.

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