Book Club May 2023- The Golden Spoon
By: Jessa Maxwell
Published Year: 2023
Publisher: Atria Books
Pages: 288
Summary (Provided by Goodreads): For six amateur bakers, competing in Bake Week is a dream come true.
When they arrive at Grafton Manor to compete, they're ready to do whatever it takes to win the ultimate The Golden Spoon.
But for the show's famous host, Betsy Martin, Bake Week is more than just a competition. Grafton Manor is her family's home and legacy - and Bake Week is her life's work. It's imperative that both continue to succeed.
But as the competition commences, things begin to go awry. At first, it's small acts of sabotage. Someone switching sugar for salt. A hob turned far too high.
But when a body is discovered, it's clear that for someone in the competition, The Golden Spoon is a prize worth killing for...
What I thought
When Steph picked this book, she said that it had been described as The Great British Bake-off meets murder mystery. I was immediately intrigued. I also liked that it was less than 300 pages.
This story follows 6 bakers through a reality baking competition called Bake Week. It’s pretty much GBBO. They stay at a manor, they film in a tent with pretty colored tables and mixers, and the hostess is a grandmotherly figure loved by America. The difference is that someone gets murdered.
I’ll start with a few things I liked about this book before I get into my issues. I think the characters are fun and this was a super easy read. The audiobook is narrated by multiple people and I do wish I had listened to it rather than read it. I think it would’ve made the characters really pop off the page. I didn’t mind the concept of the story. I do think it was helped by being short, meaning it didn’t wander off to too many side stories. I think I appreciated that the most. Sometimes with stories that have multiple characters like this we get side tracked with their backstories that are unnecessary and it didn’t happen in this story.
What I didn’t love was how predictable this story was, while also being a little vague. I think it could’ve done with a better editor as there were some inconsistencies that hurt the story. But overall, I could’ve told you almost every aspect of this story after the first few chapters. Because of that, this mystery lacked exactly that. Mystery.
I also watch a lot of GBBO and this felt like such a knockoff. It wasn’t even a tribute to it, it was as though she just copied the entire show but decided to have 6 bakers compete over the course of one week rather than 12 over the course of a few months.
It wasn’t a bad book, but definitely a solid 3 stars. I am curious to see how this plays our as a TV series. I think it could be fun if they leaned into the campy-ness of it, but if they try to make it dark and serious I think it could fail.
What book club thought
Some of the book club members found it to be less predictable than I did but we all enjoyed it overall. We appreciated that it was relatively short and did talk about a lot of the craziness. Something they pointed out that I didn’t realize is that Betsy’s chapters were told in 3rd person whereas everyone else is in first person. We discussed why we thought that might be but weren’t too sure. I wouldn’t say it was the greatest book club book for discussion purposes, but it was a fun read. If you enjoy light mysteries, fan fiction, and short reads, I would recommend checking this out.