Some of the stuff in The Dos and Donuts of Love SENT me

 

This is one of those books that I have no cutesy way of saying how I found, other than the fact I’d say I’m an Adiba Jaigirdar fan, that’s it. Still, today I’m talking about The Dos and Donuts of Love.

Our blurb says that Shireen Malik is still reeling from a breakup when she hears that she’ll be a contestant on a TV baking competition. As well as the prize money, she hopes the buzz will bring some attention to her parents’ beloved donut shop. But things grow complicated when Shireen learns that her ex-girlfriend, Chris, is also on the show. Then there’s Niamh, a fellow contestant who Shireen finds herself quickly growing close to. As the competition heats up, Shireen will have to put her feelings aside if she wants a sweet victory…

In the first chapter Shireen is in bed with a bunch of donuts, slay, because she’s reeling from her recently breakup, not slay. She ends up video calling her friend, Fatima, who’s gone to Bangladesh, and then by the end of the chapter, she’s been offered a spot on the Junior Irish Baking Show. Fatima does also mention that she knows it’s Shireen’s dream to have a dessert shop and a cookbook. The second chapter is her more or less mentioning that she’s on the show now to her parents, and them just wanting to make sure she’s okay, or going to be okay, and that there’s this thing that happens before they start filming where they get to meet the other contestants and find out who their partner for the first challenge is. And, of course, for the good drama of it all, Shireen gets partnered with her ex.

I was a big fan of the names of the judges. Clearly, the Junior Irish Baking Show was a play on Great British Bake Off, and Jaigirdar just made all of the judges terrible puns/offshoots of Bake Off judges, and then one of Gordon Ramsey.

Let’s talk briefly about second-chance love. I’m very mixed on the trope. The very first thing I feel about second-chance love is that it all depends on context. Why did the couple break-up in the first place, or why weren’t they able to be together in the first place? You find out Shireen broke up with Chris, but that apparently, she broke Shireen’s trust and betrayed her. This is where I mean it’s down to context, because why did they break up? Obviously, I know the betrayal, but what was the betrayal? And was it just going to end up being a misunderstanding or something?

I love a good reality competition show. It’s fair for me to say that RuPaul’s Drag Race is one of my favourite shows of all time, and I also love going onto Wikipedia and looking at results tables of reality competition shows. So I thought it was interesting seeing all of the bits between the actual show and when the episodes were filmed. You see Shireen getting new followers on her blog, all these people paying attention to her that never did before and things like that. I will say, the best frame of reference I have for competition reality shows is Drag Race, so it was interesting that all the competitors were all just let out into the world between episodes. I know for Drag Race, they’re held in a hotel, the whole thing is filmed, and then the competitors are let back out into the world. The competitors also know where they filmed and where they finished and finding out how they’re going to be perceived. I will say, it was odd seeing how short the actual competition was, in terms of episodes. So, they went from 25 or 26, immediately cut down to 12 in the first episode, then down to 10, then from 10 to 5, then 5 to 3, then it was the final. It was very much All Stars 1, UK vs The World vibes with how short it was. I’d be so interested to know how any of the viewers would have been able to have gotten to know the contestants in that short of a time.

In terms of competitors, like I’d expect, since there were so many in the beginning, I knew that we were only going to focus in on a few – which was the case. And since I’ve read a lot of romance books, there was this one girl, Niamh, who was really friendly to Shireen from the off and part of me immediately hit that, “Hmm… this is suspicious” vibe. I would be lying if I said there was a part of me that thought her being so kind was innocent. Since they were all competing in a competition show, there was a part of me that did immediately think that she was doing it for some other reason. Like, somehow, she knew how good Shireen was as a baker, so she was going to make friends with her, just to ruin her somehow. I’m not going to spoil anything, especially since Shireen was in the competition with her ex-girlfriend, so there was also that tea.

You do also find out why Shireen and Chris broke up, and what it was that Shireen considered the betrayal to be. Again, I’m not going to spoil anything, and for me, I can definitely see how what happened was a betrayal, because what happened was terrible, and just a straight up bad thing to do, but there are also worse things that could have happened, so I wasn’t totally against the idea of the two of them getting back together. I did mention that at the beginning that it was down to the context when it comes to second-chance romance, and I think the context for this book was honestly fine. I think, for me, when it’s like cheating, or something truly horrible, I obviously don’t want them to get together again.

It was nice to see the characters being actively flawed. Obviously, with Shireen and Chris being exes, the way they speak to each other isn’t going to be the nicest, and especially towards the beginning, it wasn’t. The stuff they’d say to each other, if you overheard them just as a passerby you’d be sort of like, “Oop, ma’am, what have I just heard?” However, one thing I found myself thinking was that, I think with the nature of the book being a competition reality show, it is going to be difficult to get to know many of the characters, but even with Chris, there was this detail where Shireen mentions she’s more about video games and art than school that came very late in the book, and I wish something like that would have come earlier. I say that since their breakup was a recent one. And I think I only mention this, because I only noticed it towards the end of the book, so it can’t have been that big a deal to me since I barely even noticed it.

Anyway, I really enjoyed this book. I’m a big fan of competition reality shows – even if I don’t actually watch as many as I thought I did – so I thought it was really fun having a book set in one. I’d very much like to read more.

Okay, bye!