Love Sugar Magic: A Dash of Trouble (Love Sugar Magic, 1)

Meriano’s literary devices leave you hungering for more in this sweet read about a young bruja learning her way with cooking spells. Leo, the 11 year old protagonist is a bit maddening with her stubbornness. But, a great cast of well laid out characters supports her well as she grows through some fun and some shocking magical endeavors and mistakes.

I’ve been struggling mightily with this review because the only way I can adequately convey the ineffable joy and warmth of Anna Meriano’s story is to hand you the book and let you discover its wonders on your own. But since I can’t afford to buy all of you a copy of this delightful book, I’ll do my best to convince you to buy, borrow, or check out a copy for yourself.Leo Logroño is a sweet and curious eleven-year-old. As the youngest of five sisters, she constantly feels left out and babied by her family. When she’s excluded from a gathering at her family’s bakery — Amor y Azúcar Panadería (Love and Sugar Bakery) — she sneaks in to spy on her mother, aunt, and sisters to find out what secrets they’re hiding from her. To Leo’s shock and delight, she discovers that she belongs to a family of brujas. Though Leo isn’t supposed to practice magic yet, she just can’t help herself; armed with the revelation about her magical destiny and a stolen spellbook, Leo begins practicing in secret with increasingly unpredictable and hilarious results.The warmth, love, and sweetness of this book wrap around you like your favorite blanket, making you feel peacefully at home in a way that few books do. It’s an ownvoices story that will speak to Latinxs (Mexican-Americans in particular) and a universal story that will speak to kids who long to grow up and be included. Filled with humor, joy, and wonder, Love Sugar Magic: A Dash of Trouble is the perfect beginning to a sweet middle grade series about the bonds of love and family. Anyone looking for a little magic in their lives will find it here.

Every now and then a book comes along that is just so purely delightful that you can't help but grin while you read it. Anna Meriano's debut novel, A DASH OF TROUBLE, is 100% one of those books. Leo and her large, loving, wonderful family are characters that I already miss, and who I can't wait to meet again in the next book in the series. At times funny (I laughed out loud a TON as I read), at times heartstring-tugging, and at times tender, the voice and the plot in this book perfectly capture what it feels like to be in that awkward time between childhood and teenagerhood, desperately wanting to be treated like a grown-up when everyone around you seems bent on continuing to see you as a little kid.If you're a fan of Stephanie Burgis's KAT, INCORRIGIBLE series, you absolutely must not miss Anna Meriano's A DASH OF TROUBLE. I can't wait to see what comes next in the LOVE SUGAR MAGIC series!!!Also, I now need to go bake myself some gingersnaps.

My granddaughter selected this for our book club. I am always happy to share books with her but was particularly delighted by this book. As a Texan of Mexican heritage who is fluent in both English and Spanish, she finally sees herself. Since my Spanish es no bueno, she was thrilled to translate parts of the story for me. Thanks to the author for a fun and meaningful series.

I’ve really enjoyed reading all of Love, Sugar, Magic books with my 7 year old. The combination of the baking and recipes and the descriptions of the family life and the magic are all fantastic and so much fun. And she loves the mention of foods that she has eaten!

I loved this book so much. I love the idea of culinary brujas, but it was the relationship between the five sisters that made this book feel really special to me. Leo is so relatable, and her troubles are the kinds that one would expect an eleven-year-old girl to experience. She often feels left out, and sometimes her emotions make her act irresponsibly. A Dash of Trouble perfectly captures what one would expect an eleven-year-old magic to feel (assuming she didn't have a dark wizard out to kill her, anyway).

This book was so great! I very much enjoyed following all of Leo's hijinks and learning the rules of her family's sweet, loving magic. Honestly though, my favorite parts aren't about magic at all though: they're all of the interactions between Leo's family. Each of her 4 older sisters (and her parents) has her own way of relating to Leo and making her feel loved. Add to that the Mexican-American culture and the mouth-watering descriptions of baked goods, and you'll understand why I would recommend this book to anyone!

I love a good middle grade and this one was a delight. Leo and her family are brujas who own a bakery and bake magic into sweets. She’s eleven and wants to do all that her sisters do, there’s a good bit of snooping and sneaking around and accidental spells. All of it was fun and sweet and I love that there are recipes in the back. It gave me Coco vibes with the family element and both are set with Mexican main characters. It’s adorable.

This book was such an adorable and fun read! I loved the family dynamic between Leo, her parents and her sisters, it was so sweet to read about. Magical baking is also such a delightful concept. The flying pig cookies were way too cute and also hilarious, and I really want one! Leo’s magical disasters were just really fun to read about, even though they weren’t exactly fun for Leo herself. Throughout the book, Leo struggled with issues of self esteem and felt that at times she wasn’t good enough in comparison to her sisters. This made her feel like such a relatable character to me and I loved her development. I also just really love Marisol and can’t wait to read about all of the characters again when I read the next book

This was a very short and cute story following a Spanish/Mexican trouble maker. I mean, they're witches that own a bakery, the perfect place to make spells. The first half kind of dragged a little because it was more about getting to know the characters and sort of "world building" rather than anything actually happening and I'm not used to middle grade doing that, I'm used to middle grade jumping right into it. Otherwise, it was very good and I'd recommend this to both children and adults.

For a 10 year old, I would say that the book Love Sugar Magic is very gripping. Eventhough it has a predictable story line, the way it is presented is very interesting. Leo, a girl who has four elder sisters, would also wanted to be treated like them. By writing about magic it makes the story unique. This book reminds me about Harry Potter as it includes magic and how to solve problems with it, except this is about baking! It is a must read debut novel by Anna Meriano.

Loved loved loved.Some of the funny moments reminded me of one of my favorite tv shows when I was growing up: Sabrina the Teenage Witch.I loved everything about this but specially the relationships between all the sisters. And the magic! MAGICAL BAKING! I adore this concept.

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