“THE SECRET INGREDIENT,” by Stewart Lewis, Delacorte Press, June 11, 2013, Hardcover, $17.99 (young adult)
Olivia is your average 16-year-old. School. Work. Friends. Family. But there’s more to her than that. Olivia loves to cook. She even creates a special dish once a week at dad Bell’s restaurant. She has a special gift with food — soothing Bell, Enrique, her other dad, brother Jeremy, and anyone else who needs it, with her inspired cooking.
Everything isn’t perfect, but Olivia and her family are happy. Except things are a little worse than Olivia first thought — Bell’s restaurant is in trouble, and the mortgage is way overdue. There’s only one thing Olivia can do, and that’s get a real, paying job.
It’s summer, and Olivia has her days full with work, cooking, watching out for her brother and discovering who she really is. As the days pass, Olivia realizes how much she misses having a mother in her life. She loves her dads, but there are just some things she needs a mom for.
Without her dads’ knowledge, Olivia sets out to find the woman who gave her life, tracking down her name and address and setting out on an adventure even she couldn’t imagine.
There’s a lot more to “The Secret Ingredient” than the synopsis above — an arrest, a romance, a movie executive — but who really wants to know everything that’s in a book before reading it?
What you do need to know is Stewart Lewis has created an engaging character in Olivia who is complex and interesting. Stewart’s prose is easily accessible, and his story moves at a good pace.
There were a few things, however, that felt off. At times, Olivia is almost justifying her dads’ relationship. At this point, that doesn’t really need to happen. People who don’t want to read stories that contain gay couples, won’t read “The Secret Ingredient.” For those who don’t have a problem with it, won’t have a problem with it.
On the plus side, Stewart does handle Olivia’s longing for motherly companionship well. Many of her feelings would be similar to a child who was born to a heterosexual couple and lost either a father or mother to death or divorce.
The other issue I had with “The Secret Ingredient” came with one of the supporting characters. This character, who is intended to be very important, came across as one-dimensional, with life elements that either weren’t necessary or weren’t fleshed out enough. It left me feeling as if I missed a chapter.
Complaints aside, I found “The Secret Ingredient” to be well-written and likable. My favorite elements took place when Olivia was in the kitchen. The cooking scenes almost sing.
