Arsenic and Adobo

It's an okay mystery novel. Not too complicated, in fact the investigation seemed to get sidelined a lot, regardless of possibly high stakes for the MC.

I think the book suffers from a lack of focus because it tries to be multiple things at once. It's supposed to be a cozy murder mystery with a dash of romcom but IMO, it fails to grasp both because of the main character.

Because, I swear, the main character annoys me so much. She comes across as self absorbed, unnecessarily antagonistic and highly suspicious where she doesn't need to be and too careless when she needs to. And unfortunately, to me, she had little redeeming qualities by the end aside from, having a conscience. Her inner monologues are so aggravating with a constant effort to seem quirky and different. She also has a weirdly nonchalant reaction to all the violence surrounding her while her reasons for being distrustful of police and resentment of people involved with drugs is glossed over. Giving the character that depth, would probably help her be more sympathetic

The mystery...gets solved, but not by excellent amateur sleuthing but a conveniently timed clue drop from another source. I maintain that it was Adeena who solved the mystery. It was also disappointing to guess the killer right, because of minor political commentary that just led me to believe, none of the POCs are suspects for sure. Instead of well set up reveal.

Still, this is a cozy mystery after all and for what it's worth, it is a cozy read. The descriptions of food was honestly making me
hungry, too bad it's interspersed by Lila's gripes and honestly, I think she'd rather focus on the food rather than oh I don't know, finding clues to clear her name, her family's name and get their business back. For how much is at stake, she definitely was at her leisure while trying to solve the case. Which makes me think, cozy mysteries probably work better if the sleuth is not the suspect at the same time.

As it is, as much as I marginally like some of the characters, I dislike the MC too much to bother reading the rest of the series. It would be a good read if you're looking for something relaxing and if like Lila, you don't really want to take the murder mystery too seriously.

About the romance, I secretly hope none of the guys end up with Lila bc oh boy, she gets weirdly hostile towards Amir, who has been helping her out (They didn't say if they were actually paying him for his services, likely not) only for her to say that they actually like each other then suddenly seem to pin their reluctance to be together on Adeena. And her attraction to Jae seems to be on the shallow side. Too bad, because both boys seem nice. Also, why does it seem like everybody is just SO in love with her? I fail to see why based on her characterization.  Let's just hope Lila actually feels pressure from all the murder, despite continuosly forgetting calling or meeting with people with info that could help her, and that would explain her scattered emotions about these two. It would have been better if the book just totally commits to the absurdity. Similar to how the old Clue movie was a comedy murder mystery, characters still feel the gravity of the situation, panic, investigate, makes mistakes and in fact blunders their way through as the murders pile up and manages to stay funny simply because of how absurd the situation is. Another example is an old filipino film called Cross My Heart, where the cozy vibes of filipino food is maintained but moves away from that a short while when things became semi serious and the main cast gets kidnapped, where because of established characterization, the humor and absurdity carries throughout the movie until its conclusion.