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thebacklistbook's review
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
2.0
I first came across Fatima on her season of top chef. She was tenacious and more than a little pig-headed based on how they edited the show. I read this book because it was honestly a gut punch to learn that she had died of cancer. She was so young. I can't help thinking, if she had chosen to make her career in a country with universal health care could it have made a difference?
This book takes you through her short life from soup to nuts. Or from dahl to sushi. I listened to this on audio because I knew I wouldn't get through it as a physical book. As it is I spent months listening to the audio. It contains both her perspectives and her mother's on key events from her life.
This book takes you through her short life from soup to nuts. Or from dahl to sushi. I listened to this on audio because I knew I wouldn't get through it as a physical book. As it is I spent months listening to the audio. It contains both her perspectives and her mother's on key events from her life.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cancer, Pedophilia, Rape, Homophobia, Medical content, Child abuse, Death, Drug use, Grief, Medical trauma, and Terminal illness
jasbeingjas's review against another edition
emotional
slow-paced
2.5
I received a free copy of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I really really wanted to like this book, but it took me months to get through because of how repetitive the writing was. This is in no way a judgment of Fatima Ali or her accomplishments, or the tragedy of her death from cancer. But this book is not well written. It easily could have been a hundred pages shorter and just as, if not more, meaningful. The majority of the book felt just like an info dump about her life without any significant reflection. The repetitive romanticizing of becoming a chef and food was so frequent and almost copy paste that it made the book feel even longer. There were so many parts of Ali’s identity or life that were important but any writing about it felt incredibly surface level. Often times it even felt like there were conflicting views within the book, but with out any kind of connection to piece together the change or growth. The two chapters out of almost fifty that actually stood out to me were actually written from her mother Farezah’s perspective. There were also heavy topics such as child abuse and sexual assault that should have been noted as content warnings.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual assault, Child abuse, Cancer, and Death
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