What a fun book this is! Following Hope Crumble and her family, Café Crumble - the family business - is trying to keep it's head above water. Trying out new ideas and like any family business, it comes with it's own mixture of personalities, wild ideas and even wilder decisions!

I loved Rita, her ideas made me smile, Grandma Margery is a gem and Leila is a friend that is a keeper! The moral of the story is to look after yourself, others abd treat others how you want to be treated yourself. Money shouldn't be a factor when it comes to friendships. Skyla's interactions were a bit hard to read as it brought back memories of my own school days being bullied but for different reasons.

The themed nights sound a lot of fun!

I loved Katie Abey's illustrations in this! super CUTE, COOL and WILD!!

Catherine Wilkins' latest is an absolute DELIGHT crammed with a cast of characters by turns hilarious, endearing or infuriating. Hope's parents run a small cafe which struggles to survive. While her mum tries to balance the books, her grant whisks up new cakes in the kitchen, her stagestruck sister tries to turn the cafe into her personal small theatre and her cousin swans around waging war on quiche, Hope starts to feel a bit lost, navigating the social rules at her new school and the appearance of an old enemy - and then her aunt Rita appears to bring even more chaos.

This is a laugh-out-loud read as Hope's family try to save the cafe, dragging Hope into. live poetry readings and wearing ice cream cone outfits outsider her school. Caught between her dramatic sister, Stacey and her condescending cousin, Connor, Hope's attempts to escape the drama and just have five minutes to herself to learn a new magic trick are frequently foiled in hilarious ways.

At the heart of the comedy, though, this is a story about family, and about pulling together to save something that matters. The Crumbles may bicker and disagree on how to save the cafe, but the clear love for one another shines through and makes this a thoroughly engaging read.

I really enjoyed meeting Hope Crumble and her family. Her parents and older sister Stacey plus her cousin Connor. They all live together in an apartment above the family café, Café Crumble. The name of the café and the family’s surname, is a great play on words given the theme of food. It’s an excellent word choice.

I found Hope’s grandmother kind, loving and generous. Her aunt Rita is really eccentric. What will happen when she ends up living with the family for a while?

Hope has just started secondary school and I’m glad her best friend Leila is going to the same school as I’d have loved a friend like her.

Skyla is a realistic nemesis.

Café Chaos: My Family Is Not a Piece of Cake is fun, real, realistic and funny but there’s also a serious undertone to it with themes of things sometimes not going economically well at the café. I loved the meeting the family had about that because of the original ideas they came up with.

It was great to witness life in this close knit family. I even felt part of the family. I loved this book and I wish it could have been part of the book selection when I was Hope’s age. It would have made a great book to have had read to my class by our teacher. I think it can teach everyone a lot about life.

It resonated with me on so many levels: memories of school, trying to make friends, experiencing a change in school uniforms and school food as well as new routines.

Because of the great visuals and attention to detail throughout the book, I felt completely involved in Hope’s life, whether that was at home, at the café or at school. I also loved the mention of Leila liking fashion and makeup and Stacey using Impulse Vanilla body spray. I’ve always liked fashion and beauty and I remember buying the same body spray.

I liked all the characters except Skye.

I highly recommend this book and it’s very entertaining, enjoyable and memorable. It’s good for children and adults.

Thanks to Catherine Wilkins and Nosy Crow for my eARC in exchange for an honest and voluntary review

5 stars

Thanks to Nosy Crow for allowing me to read this book.

Fun, family and friendships (and the not so friendly) all combine to make this a good read.

Hope Crumble lives in a flat above her family's café, Café Crumble. She lives with Mum, Dad sister Stacey and cousin Connor.

Hope and her friend Leila are starting their new High School. Thankfully, the girl that was horrid to Hope at Primary school is not attending their High School. But on that first day....oh no!
Skyla though soon finds out that being rich isn't teh cool thing at High School, and that Hope isn't seen as weird. She seems to have a new plan though...to make it look like Hope is the rich one, and begins to bully her again. With the others taking her side against Hope.
But while helping her parents try to save the family business Hope and Leila also work out how to deal with Skyla themselves.

Really enjoyed the ideas the family came up with to help the business. Hope and Leila were really good characters, their friendship is genuine and based on their care for each other. Skyla is the child no one wants to be friends with really.
Very good, might have to see if I can get a copy for school. (ask head nicely?)

I would like to thank the author, the publisher and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read an ARC of this book. I thoroughly enjoyed it, it touched on quite a few subjects and showed how they can be resolved, I will be recommending it.

This was real fun! Think my Y6 girls are going to enjoy this - friendships, finding yourself and family! Loved the illustrative details too!

Review to come in March on blog/other places.

I received this book from the publisher/Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.

I found out about this book from a book blogger friend of mine and was excited that I was able to read it thanks to Netgalley!

I have to be honest and say that I was THIS close to DNF-ing the book at around 67 pages in because of two certain characters, I will talk about them in the later part of my review. I am glad that I pushed through because in the end this was a fun read!

😍 Loved the MC! Despite everything she never gives up even when things look very sad and not so good. I love that she embraces her weirdness and I was delighted that she was practicing to do card/magic tricks and even had a couple she was really good in.
😍 Loved the café and wish I could visit it! It sounds like such a fun place to just hop by and get a tea and some snacks. I also love the name of the café + their logo!
😍 Stacy, the sister + Margery, the grandma, these two were my favourite family members. Stacy because she was sweet and fun and I loved how she did her best to help out her mom and dad with the café but also holding on to her dreams of acting. And Margery because she is a sweet grandma and loves to bake.
😍 Leila, the best friend. Or I should say, the bestest of friends because she sticks with Hope. I have read a few too many books with kids going to a new school and friends just ditching friends, but no Leila stays with Hope and thought up an epic plan to stop the bullying once and for all. And come on, a friend who wants to wear the same mascot outfit as you to help out and make it more fun? That is the best friend.
😍 The illustrations + the cover! They were so much fun and I love the style.
😍 I loved seeing how they all tried to save the café and came up with some fun ideas. Like a poetry night. Or fortune telling. Or ice cream. They all worked so hard and I loved that despite how hopeless it seemed at times they just kept going.
😍 I loved how the bullying was handled and solved. I am not a fan of bullying and definitely not a fan of how it goes these days (with everyone having to forgive that poor old bully) but instead it was solved in a fantastic way that had me laughing and cheering.

😕 But Connor can just FUCK off. For real. He acted more like a 3 year old, maybe 9 year old at times. Mansplaining shit, constantly trying to change words when someone had an idea to make it seem like he had the idea, sexism ahoy, that slow clap thing of his and that applause as well, and I could go on. I wanted to punch Connor so many times throughout the book. Sexist little shit.
😕 And then there is Rita, who just expects her family to magically have a room in their already small apartment for her. And who doesn't seem to understand how life works in general. She frustrated me a lot. How she had NO respect for Hope's stuff or furniture and when Hope was saying no Rita just went to Hope's mom aka Rita's sister. What the actual fuck. Are you an adult or a fucking child? I guess it explains a lot on how Connor is.

So yeah, I am glad I pushed through and this was a lot of fun in the end, but I am not sure if I will continue reading if there is another book about Hope. I would really have to see if there isn't too much of Rita and Connor in it. I have had my dose for life.

As the name implies, we have a chaotic family in more chaotic situations.
Hope’s family run a cafe. She deals with big school life, crazy cousins and aunties and close family members. They are all distinctive, quirky and funny.
Excellent middle grade book. It is evident that Wilkins is a comedian. She is also a great writer.

Having grown up living above a shop, I was keen to see how life in the Crumble family's café compared & read this in one sitting. I enjoyed the lively illustrations dotted throughout the text, which made every page a pleasure to read.

Café Chaos is a witty story with an interesting array of characters and enjoyable plot. The lead character, Hope, is intelligent, likeable & funny. She has to cope with a chaotic home life, where everything revolves around the family business, & the challenge of starting a new school with her best friend...and some familiar faces from her old school she was not expecting to see again! When her aunt unexpectedly arrives to stay, making things even more cramped at home, everyone has to pull together to try to improve the café's profits. But no-one notices how Hope is doing, as her mum is always too busy serving the continual flow of customers. Will she fit in and make friends at the new school? Does she ever get time to learn any new magic tricks? Can she manage to make her hard-working mum laugh?

A great read, that I'd thoroughly recommend. I can't wait for the next one in the series! Thanks for giving me the chance to enjoy a preview copy.

Hope has it tough. She's loved and looked after, but no-one at home seems to have time for her. Everyone is busy trying to make their cafe make a profit, and then Auntie Rita appears and is dumped in Hope's room. Luckily, she has a fantastic best friend who helps her deal with Skyla, the bully that has followed them to Y7. This is funny abd heartwarming, and there's lots of cake!

This is a surprising find for me. I have always seen funny books set in the current world are more "reading for pleasure" materials, but this one actually has a lot of things that I can use as hooks for teaching. The voices of the characters are very authentic and you can picture the chaotic scenes in your head just by reading it. It is also very refreshing to read a book for this age group that is not about magic or super power.