On finding out that the author has a PHD that examined food writing and fiction, this book made a lot more sense. The descriptions of food in this book are spectacularly detailed—which can derail your enjoyment of the story if you don’t enjoy them. But I do enjoy them! And I thought they were particularly good at conveying the mood or tone of the scene as welcoming, grotesque, content.

What was the problem for me was that the pacing of the book was very uneven. This may have been intentional to create the feeling of obsession and tension, but it did become tedious. The chapter in which she assembled her croquembouche is painfully long and the same sense of manic frustration could have been achieved with a more edited section.

The book also seems to be wanting to make a point about female desire and about saying yes to the things you really want. It also seems to be saying things about disordered eating. At the same time, is the messaging about greed and class consciousness?

I think the answer may be a little bit of all of these things. But the messaging or themes are a bit muddled. At times it seems like all you can ascertain is “this IS something the author wants to talk about.” Maybe the murkiness was the point, but I felt like with a little more refinement and specificity things would have been stronger.