The writing has flair, but there's so much dramatic overstatement that I thought it was ridiculous. Bourdain loves to be profane while describing his "adventures" in the cut-throat (as he presents it) business of food. The whole book is like lockerroom exaggeration. And I don't mean he talks about girls. There are no girl characters in this testosterone-heavy memoir; maybe that's why I was losing interest. (His wife gets a skimpy mention at the end). He just presents his world as gritty and sordid and says he likes it that way. There's the occasional nice phrase when he's describing food but not enough of these for me to give it a three star rating.