Reviews with content warning for Toxic friendship - Sweetbitter

Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler follows Tess, a newcomer to New York City, as she begins working at an upscale restaurant learning all that the job entails. While there, she becomes closer and closer to her coworkers, in particular Simone, who acts as an emotionally removed mentor, and Jake, the bad boy bartender she wants a relationship with. Simone and Jake have an extremely close relationship that is mysterious to anyone outside of it, yet it fascinates Tess, who works to ingratiate herself to them.

The writing style is unique and unexpected. Different sections of the novel employ what appears like a blank verse poem using snippets of chatter at the restaurant, passages jam packed with sensory imagery, and descriptive prose. I overall found the writing style to be very effective in that it elevates a service profession to a living art, something that I definitely did not feel in real life while working at restaurants; hence, very impressive.

While I appreciate the overall prose, I'm not fully convinced by the dialogue of the characters. The characters, specifically Jake and Simone, talk in a philosophical way thats sometimes difficult to understand because it feels like they talk in riddles; but maybe that's the point, because they try to be impressive people to others.

This is probably one of the darker "coming-of-age" stories I've read. Tess, while if she tried to reflect on her life more could have seen the red flags in all her interpersonal relationships with her coworkers, really gets a rude awakening at the toxicity of her situation and the behavior/habits she's fallen into. She definitely grows, but in a very difficult way. Because of this though, this book will likely stay on my mind for a while.

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cheskann's review against another edition

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reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

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lyleelou11's review against another edition

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2.25

A really weird want to be Glee x Euphoria type of book.

The MFC tries way too hard to be Rachel Berry.

Her co-workers make their job site seem like the Euphoria set.

There was a decent amount of good language, and it made me crave coffee, red wine & dark chocolate.

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mattiestayreadin's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

I got through 75% of this and hated myself for continuing just to see how the nonsense ends instead of walking away before it was too late.

This might be one of the most frustrating and infuriating books I’ve ever read. It genuinely made me mad. I wanted to like this book so badly because I worked in the same restaurant group this book orbits around and perfectly understand the culture within that company, but this just was not it.

Tess started out as expected. Young, naive, blah blah blah, but she got increasingly less sympathetic with every “season” that passes. She really started to lose me

with the drugs, fucking one of her very few friends, and then really lost me when she licked the blood off her very toxic love interest’s arm out of the blue (at work!) and then turns around and let’s him finger bang her in a cab right after he called her a whore. I accidentally discovered an event that happens towards the end (she sleeps with her boss that is twice her age) and that was the knockout blow that made me drop it for good.

I was in my 20s when I worked within this restaurant’s sphere. I am very familiar with the chaos, messiness, and the drama of it all. But Tess has got to be one of the most pathetic characters I’ve read in a long time. I almost hesitate to even say so because this book is basically the author’s autobiography of this period in her life, but somehow she is the most awful character in her own story. I should’ve put it down and left it alone earlier (like Tess should’ve done with Jake), but I was halfway in and just started to hate-read it instead of enjoying it.

One star because she does world build the city and the restaurant culture really well, but that’s the beginning and end of my praise. If you want to read a great book about restaurant culture, read Kitchen Confidential (or probably anything else) instead. It focuses more on back of house than front of house, but you will not want to claw your eyes out from reading it like this one did for me.

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reginahafner_'s review against another edition

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

i hate you jake.

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time_travel_tragedy's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This is like one of the most depressing books I've ever read. She goes to New York and we find out way later she was supposed to be pursuing creative aspirations but she spends the entire book drinking and doing drugs, and overall wasting away. Even the ending, when she realizes the reality of her situation, she doesn't make it better, she does something in line with all her other self destructive actions and then the next day it's like on to better horizons. The ending could have been uplifting, but this character was broken in so many ways, and we get no glimpse into what her future might hold. I needed something a little more at the end to believe there's hope for the character after the novel ends.

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sleeson's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I didn’t really understand it. Graphic sexual content but not in very romantic way. More so, working in a restaurant hookup kind of way. Lots of swearing.

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janice_sumka's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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