Page 6 of What I Like About You

“Come on, the boys are all outside.”

I follow my mother’s footsteps out the back door. Mom referring to Dad, Gramps, and Ollie as “the boys” gives me flashbacks to sand between my toes and the smell of hydrangeas in bloom. Summers were always for Middleton. If we weren’t on location, we were here. But now it’s August, and there’s a whole year here in front of us.

Dad pulls me into a hug as soon as I reach him. We don’t say much, but we don’t need to. Dad isn’t a man of many words. Mostly, he speaks in cupcakes and cinematography. I can’t wait for the pictures I know he’s going to send me from Israel.

“Take care of Gramps,” he whispers in my ear.

“I’m not going to cry. I’mnotgoing to cry,” Mom says, then smushes Ollie and me together into one giant group hug and promptly bursts into tears.

There it is. We’ve been waiting for it. Mom always cries in threes, and she cried twice during the road trip to Middleton. It’s like three-act structure is built in her DNA.

On that note, Gramps turns around, Scout in his arms, andretreats inside. It’s the firstGrampsthing that has happened since we’ve arrived, him running away from Mom’s tears. He kind of always has.

Mom wipes her eyes. “Okay, well.” She looks back and forth between Ollie and me. “I love you. We love you.”

“We’ll love you more if you win an Oscar,” Ollie says.

“No pressure,” I say.

Mom rolls her eyes, but she’s laughing. Ollie always knows what to say like that.

“Okay, one more hug. Then we’ll go—I promise!”

After a final round of hugs, Mom and Dad get in the van and they’re off to JFK. Then onto a plane. Then halfway around the world.

I don’t realize I’m crying until they’re already gone.

One True Pastry—three years ago

Debuts You Should Be Reading / Cupcakes You Should Be Eating

FIREFLIES AND YOU by Alanna LaForest

Okay, here we are. #50. The post I’ve been teasing on Instagram all week.

I can’t believe I just typed #50.Fifty reviews.Fifty recipes. Do you have any idea how many cupcakes that is? I can’t even tell you, because my brother always starts eating them all before I have the chance to count. Thankfully. If you were worried about food waste, rest assured, these cupcakesnevergo to waste.

Today’s recipe is lemon cupcakes with lavender frosting, topped off with gold glitter. Inspired by my new favorite book you probably haven’t read. Which is absurd! So I thought,How can I get this book on YA Twitter’s radar? Ican write a glowing review (see below!)—but I know way more people are engaged with my #CupcakeCoverReveals on Instagram.

So I turned thirty-six cupcakes into a book cover cake.

Fifty cupcakes recipes later, and I havefinallytaken #CupcakeCoverReveal literally. You’re welcome.

These cupcakes taste like spring and are the perfect pick-me-up to get through this endless winter. Which, evidently enough, is how I feel about FIREFLIES AND YOU. If you asked me how many times I’ve read this book, I’d say two.

I’d be lying. The answer is three. I’ve read this book three times and I am the definition of book hungover!

So, what’s the book about, Kels?

FIREFLIES AND YOU is the YA contemporary book of my dreams—one where the romance elements are squee-worthy as anything, butnothingcompared to the core of the story—a friendship so complicated, so codependent, you never know whose side you’re supposed to be on.

Every year, Annalee waits for the fireflies. Summer is for swimming, working two part-time jobs to save up for college, kissing Jonah Beckett, and fireflies. It’s a phenomenon that marks her small town outside of Baton Rouge. No one can explain why the fireflies keep coming back. And when they do, so does Maisy Daniels, Annalee’s best friend, and everything is perfect.

Except this summer, Annalee and Maisy arebroken and barely even speaking. Annalee’s POV is in chronological order and Maisy’s is reverse chronological, both intricately woven together leading up to the night they fell apart. It’swild, butsoworth the ride, figuring out what happened.

With that, I will say no more about plot because spoilers!

But in terms of feels, the thing I loved most about this book was the moments of levity. It sounds heavy, reading a book about a friendship breakup—hoping Annalee and Maisy will figure it out and find their way back to each other. Parts of itare. But it’s also a lot of laughter, a ton of atmosphere, and the best depiction of summers in the too-hot South I’ve ever read (speaking as someone who’s lived there!).

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