Week 23: Mostly Mediocre

In reverse order: Koko Be Good; Blood, Bones and Butter; We Can Fix It; The Killing Moon; These Days.

Koko Be Good was a throughly mediocre graphic novel. Leaving it there. 

Gabrielle Hamilton’s Blood, Bones and Butter is a chef memoir for people who are tired of chef memoirs. Honestly, I’ve been avoiding the genre entirely for about 4 years, since the celebrity chef phase hit and everyone published their own history. Unlike most chefs, Hamilton is actually a writer - she received an MFA in writing before opening her restaurant, Prune. Because of that, this book is amazing. It’s a well told personal story that deals not just with kitchen stardom but with family, professional pressure, industry sexism, catering, and everything in between. I really can’t recommend this enough.

We Can Fix It is another graphic novel, this one from Jess Fink, who published the amazing and super NSFW Chester 5000. Unfortunately, We Can Fix It is not as good as her online work. The basic premise is that Fink goes back in time to fix all of the mistakes her younger self made, mixing humor with a message about self acceptance. However, it mostly just falls flat.

The Killing Moon is by NK Jemisin, and though I didn’t enjoy it as much as I enjoyed The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, I think the world is super interesting. I look forward to the rest of the series.

I read These Days as part of 24 Hour Book Club, and man, did I have all the mixed feelings. I really enjoyed some parts of the story, and definitely felt that Jack Cheng handled the discussion of the role of technology in our lives with ease. However, the main female character starts as a manic pixie dream girl and never gets too much better - the main elements of her conflict with the male character are based on a tragic romantic backstory, which I found really hard to swallow. That being said, it’s still a good book, and I was hugely impressed by Jack’s willingness to Google Hangout with a bunch of us readers and hear our thoughts on his work.