This book is billed as a "darkly witty" take on a superstar chef passing her legacy on to her family. Except that there wasn't a lot of dark wit anywhere to be found in the book. I think it might have been intended in some of the interactions between family members, but ultimately it just came off like a lot of pointless family drama as sisters and other relatives bitched at one another. The central "offense" in the book is that the daughter who has been the head chef at the restaurant for years while their celebrity chef mom traveled the world working on her legacy, is passed over for the job of inheriting her mom's empire... and her big offense is that she somehow isn't original enough as a chef, but ALSO gets criticized for not following their mother's classic recipes closely enough when she sometimes adds her own personal touches to the dishes?

I picked up the book because I thought it would be more about the culinary world. Kind of a Succession-type story set in the world of professional cooking. But sadly, the thing the author seemed more concerned about (or at least more familiar with) was petty family drama and really played into that element of the story while leaving the professional culinary elements as more set dressing than anything else. I've made mention of my distaste for family dramas before (who needs to read that stuff for entertainment when there's enough of it in the real world? ), so this one definitely didn't do it for me. I found myself skimming the last half of the book, when I realized that it wasn't much more than a "but mommy loves ME best" bitchfest among a trio of sisters, none of which were particularly likable... and fighting for the attentions of a mother who, if not for her fame and fortune, wouldn't warrant a second thought by anyone.

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Created May 19, 2024 at 1:17pm • Submit your own review...