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ohclaire's review
3.0
While I am very interested in both food and history, the super specific biographical focus of this book lost my interest halfway through. I powered through and finished, but this felt more like 6 biographies than 6 food essays.
roseleaf24's review
4.0
I really enjoyed this book. It was an interesting way to learn about some of the women I hadn't heard of before, and new insight into the ones I had. I listened to this on audiobook; the narration was really good. I did struggle a bit with the section on Helen Gurley Brown, just because her views on food and womanhood are so contrary to mine, and I found it really irritating.
rachelellyn's review
4.0
I wavered between 3.5 and 4 stars, so I bumped it to the 4.
Let's say I liked it, but I didn't love it. Maybe I expected more. I'm still debating my felling on the stories, but I found the lives of Eva Braun and Helen Gurely Brown to be my favorites.
Let's say I liked it, but I didn't love it. Maybe I expected more. I'm still debating my felling on the stories, but I found the lives of Eva Braun and Helen Gurely Brown to be my favorites.
sarahanne8382's review
4.0
This was something I probably never would have picked up unless I'd had it recommended so highly by another inveterate audiobook listener. During #quarantine2020 I've been having trouble getting into much of anything in print or audio, but the six stories told here were just interesting enough and just right length to keep my interest. It doesn't hurt that I also love history told from an odd angle. Those looking for a coherent reason why these six women's food histories were chosen to be told together will be disappointed, but the stories themselves are wonderful on their own, so I'm glad she collected them together into one book.
tessisreading2's review against another edition
I got through the first two stories - Dorothy Wordsworth and Rosa Lewis - and enjoyed them, but found them less enjoyable than the author's note; and generally, while the conceit is interesting, there were moments where I disagreed with the author's interpretations or wondered what on earth she was basing them on. In Rosa Lewis's case, it doesn't seem that she left her own papers, so the author is left to reconstruct her from other people's anecdotes and Lewis's own newspaper interviews - which Lewis disavowed afterwards. In Dorothy Wordsworth's case, there were times when it seemed Shapiro was really stretching to find meaning - Wordsworth had some sort of irritable bowel problem, had been taking opiates for years (which affects the digestive system), are you so sure that her complaints about food are all emotionally-based or might she have been feeling genuinely physically ill?
I didn't really have any interest in listening beyond those two - there are plenty of excellent and far more comprehensive biographies of Eleanor Roosevelt, I have zero interest in learning anything about Eva Braun, and Helen Gurley Brown doesn't seem to have been very interested in food - which actually raises a question for me, because Roosevelt and Braun weren't big on eating either, which makes the choice of them as subjects here somewhat odd. (The author's note also said she didn't enjoy writing about Braun. So... why did she?) Overall this was just a big "meh" for me, unfortunately. Too speculative in some respects and a poor choice of subjects in others.
I didn't really have any interest in listening beyond those two - there are plenty of excellent and far more comprehensive biographies of Eleanor Roosevelt, I have zero interest in learning anything about Eva Braun, and Helen Gurley Brown doesn't seem to have been very interested in food - which actually raises a question for me, because Roosevelt and Braun weren't big on eating either, which makes the choice of them as subjects here somewhat odd. (The author's note also said she didn't enjoy writing about Braun. So... why did she?) Overall this was just a big "meh" for me, unfortunately. Too speculative in some respects and a poor choice of subjects in others.