Had every reason to love this, as a child of immigrant parents who lived in the Washington, DC area who loves food (view spoiler)[SERIOUSLY, I LOVE BRHad every reason to love this, as a child of immigrant parents who lived in the Washington, DC area who loves food (view spoiler)[SERIOUSLY, I LOVE BRAZILIAN FOOD AND CAN COOK A COUPLE OF DISHES BUT I WAS LEFT UNMOVED. If you know me, my not obsessing over the food is a big fucking deal. (hide spoiler)], and has planned many large-scale events. And I love the enemies-to-lovers trope when it’s done well. But somehow, this just lacked...spark. Spark between the characters, in the many dishes described, and just plot-wise in general.
The best thing about it is that the event stuff has good detail and people behave reasonably when you don’t expect them to and Lina and Max are perfectly...fine. But hardly the stuff I wanna swoon over. ...more
Meh. Had its moments, but the author’s previous EILEEN is a much better—and less predictable—character study. (There’s also a strangely negative slantMeh. Had its moments, but the author’s previous EILEEN is a much better—and less predictable—character study. (There’s also a strangely negative slant towards Asians, which came up repeatedly. I’m too fucking tired and worn out by 2020 to think about this atm.)
On the one hand, I’m surprised to find this lauded as “hilarious” (I mean, it’s cynical and fitfully mean-funny, but not the kind that sends you into gales of laughter or is specifically...witty?) and to see so much praised lavished upon it. But it also seems very much in the vein of SWEETBITTER and the performance art featured in this book—just enough of the high life and pretentiousness in its characters to be a critical darling. I found the horrible people and messy, awful, everyday settings and situations in EILEEN much more interesting....more
Wendy Darling
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Books:
read-2020
(3)
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