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carolineinthelibrary's review
3.0
This was not the story I was expecting but I didn't hate it. Being from an area very close to LeRoy, NY, I was interested to read a book about the impact that Jell-O had on this small town. Rowbottom really focuses more on her family and the effect silence, cancer, and mental illness had on them and that they just so happened to be so closely associated with the Jell-O fortune.
My biggest critique is that up until nearly the end of the book, it's hard to know who Rowbottom is talking about because her voice seems SO far removed from the story. I wasn't sure who Mary was until about book two because I had forgotten that she very briefly mentions Mary as her mother in the beginning of the story. It feels like Rowbottom is intentionally removing herself from a story that is just as much her own as it is her mother's.
My biggest critique is that up until nearly the end of the book, it's hard to know who Rowbottom is talking about because her voice seems SO far removed from the story. I wasn't sure who Mary was until about book two because I had forgotten that she very briefly mentions Mary as her mother in the beginning of the story. It feels like Rowbottom is intentionally removing herself from a story that is just as much her own as it is her mother's.
audiopepper's review against another edition
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
2.5
Much more of a personal family based memory than a book on the dark side of the jello empire. Well written, albeit very sad.
cherriani's review
4.0
I feel like this book speaks beautifully to trauma, grief, and how deep the roots of patriarchy run in American society. The storytelling is gorgeous and the informative pieces peppered in between narrative chapters ties everything together.
erincataldi's review
3.0
Beautifully written, albeit a bit meandering. This family memoir (memwah) is written by the daughter of a strong and spirited mother and grandmother. Born into the Jell-O money, they may not have wanted for material things, but their emotional and physical lives were never bettered by their family's wealthy legacy. Allie recounts her grandmother's tragic life and how it influenced her mother's and her own unconventional upbringing. Peppered throughout, is the story of Jell-O and it's deep ties with women, motherhood, and domesticity. Not exactly an uplifting read, but still an interesting one. The author then compares her tumultuous life with the girls from LeRoy (also ironically her mother's AND Jell-O's birthplace) who found their limbs inexplicably freezing up in 2012. Parallels are drawn, connecting her family history to Jell-O and the mysteriously frozen young women. It's an interesting and intense read.
haley_s's review
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.0
This story weaves together the development of Jell-O with women's history to tell the story of how one product helped contribute to the suppression of women and their voices. Through her story and that of her mother, the author describes how these repressed emotions lead to serious health issues both for her and girls and women elsewhere. This is not what I expected from this book, but it made me think about the ways in which society never moves away from history, but finds ways to keep itself alive.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness, Death of parent, Alcoholism, Cancer, Eating disorder, Medical content, Sexual assault, Terminal illness, and Sexual content
falana's review
3.0
If you’ve ever had a sick parent then skip the the last quarter of the book, major trigger. I enjoyed otherwise.
karen62's review
1.0
One would think that a book about jello and the family that started the jello dynasty would be cheerful and funny, like jello itself. One would be wrong, very wrong. This is more a book about the author's mother and her sad life with a little jello history thrown in randomly. Not what I expected at all.
mhadfield's review
5.0
This book isn’t so much about jello-o, it’s more about how a mother and daughter processed their own grief and trauma. This book wrecked me, in a good way. Watching my own mother slowly die from a terminal disease in my twenties has allowed this book to resonate with me in a way that it won’t with others. It was a relief to read Allie’s story and know that the way I feel experiencing something as isolating as watching a parent die is felt the same way by someone else. I know that no two experiences are the same but this story made me feel like I’m not alone during mine. I do hope that the author knows that I wish she had a book like this when her mother was ill and that her story is helping others.