Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.49 AVERAGE
4.49 AVERAGE
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
emotional
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
sad
fast-paced
emotional
inspiring
sad
fast-paced
Oh man... I went back and forth between reading this and listening to it, and I'm not lying when I say I listened to the whole last hour through tears. It's a terribly sad, but wonderfully moving memoir of Fatima Ali, who was clearly such a force of joy, honesty, passion and goodness. If you spent even a moment watching her on Top Chef, you would agree she had a magnetism about her and that she was an exceptional and determined chef. As a Top Chef super-fan, I went into this already knowing what was coming, but it didn't make it any less heartbreaking. The writing is well done and beautifully mixed with her family history, specifically her mother's life and how her mother shaped her. I can't deny there were a lot of triggering and tough parts to read through, but it was so incredible to learn more about Fatima and the way she looked at life and living. If you love food, memoirs, and books that wreck you, add this one to your list!
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
When I picked Savor as my book for the "Food" category of the Nonfiction Reader challenge, I thought I'd be reading mostly about food. I knew the author, a talented young chef, died far too early, but somehow I thought that before that point, the focus would be on more cheerful and tasty things.
I was wrong. Yes, this is a book with some fantastic descriptions of food, and of one woman's journey toward becoming a great chef, but it's much more a book about life and death and love and family and trauma and healing. It's about the quandary of being caught between two cultures, and the excruciating pain of being betrayed by the people who should have been protecting you. It's about ignoring things you don't want to see, until it's too late, and dealing with the consequences. It's about the cruel callousness of our modern medical system, and about the human connections that can still heal in the midst of evil conditions. And in the end, it's about going through the dark night of the soul, feeling abandoned by God, and the spiritual awakening to divine love, which enables us to forgive and be forgiven, trusting in whatever may come after the apparent end of life.
Not quite what I expected, but I felt humbled by Fatima's courage, vulnerability, and honesty in sharing her story. She had wanted to write a different kind of book, one about traveling the world in her last year of life and sampling all the incredible food she had not yet tasted, but her body derailed that dream. Instead, she typed and dictated her story for another writer to assemble, also incorporating articles she'd written for Bon Appetit on learning her diagnosis. The two worked together for just one week before Fatima's death. Her mother (who should really be credited as a co-author) then filled in more of the history from her point of view. This required courage and vulnerability on her part, as well, and although it was sometimes a bit jarring, and I wished for more of Fatima's dynamic, authentic voice, the collaborative effort gives another flavor to the project -- in some ways more fitting than if Fatima had been able to write it all herself. No one survives alone, no one is alone, even in death. The creation of our lives takes place in relationship, as cooking is also a creative engagement with many elements in relationship with each other.
So many things in Fatima's story went against the expectations of her Pakistani heritage, and her mother and her family had to struggle toward acceptance, sometimes causing her and each other even greater pain. It was not usual for a woman to want to become a chef, a restaurant owner, a TV personality. It was not acceptable to resist the expectation of conventional marriage with a Pakistani man, still less to openly embrace romantic relationships with people of any gender. It was taboo for girls to speak up about experiencing sexual abuse. She did most of those things, and many more, a living challenge to the voices saying "you can't do that." And those around her were changed by the encounter, in ways that will continue to reverberate, her legacy living on.
Fatima had huge dreams about helping the hungry, supporting people marginalized by gender and culture, changing the image of Pakistan, sharing the food she loved. She didn't get to do those things in the way she'd expected, but she did create this book. I think she has done her part in changing the world, by being herself, by speaking up, embracing life and entering death with a whole heart. Any of us can only aspire to do the same.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual harassment
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
The audiobook production for this book was one of the best I've experienced.
emotional
reflective
sad
Reading and eating are two of my favorite things. So, put them together and what do you have? A recipe for success!
I went into this book blind, assuming I was going to read a lot about food, but it was SO much more than that. It was a heartbreaking, vulnerable, and honest memoir about Fatima wrestling with being pulled between two cultures. She and her mom wrote of life and death, family and trauma, love and loss. I bawled big, ugly tears.
This is another one of those books that is best enjoyed as both an audio book AND an ebook/physical copy.
I went into this book blind, assuming I was going to read a lot about food, but it was SO much more than that. It was a heartbreaking, vulnerable, and honest memoir about Fatima wrestling with being pulled between two cultures. She and her mom wrote of life and death, family and trauma, love and loss. I bawled big, ugly tears.
This is another one of those books that is best enjoyed as both an audio book AND an ebook/physical copy.
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced