Reviews with content warning for Drug abuse - Sweetbitter

The pace and plot of this book were too slow for me, and in saying they were too slow, I mean to say that they were nonexistent. Danler's writing was gorgeous, but I couldn't care less about Tess, or her relationship with the intellectual bad boy, or with the snobby mother figure in this book. I didn't mind reading about her story, per se, but I was left thinking, "what was the point?". I would pick up another work by Stephanie Danler, since I liked her writing style so much.

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kenziemac92's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

It was a fine book. But it really lost me at the end. I didn't like the ending at all.

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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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beanie_bob's review against another edition

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reflective slow-paced

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

3.5

I started reading this because I needed a follow up to season one of The Bear and this was the only novel I knew of set in a restaurant.

It’s almost a Sad Girl Book but the main character is too…naive to be a sad girl. I do like the all vibes no plot feel of the story but at the same time a lot of moments seem to happen just so the characters can wax poetic, or so Tess can practice her new, refined way of thinking.

I wanted more scenes in the restaurant but I understand that’s my bias, since I’m searching for restaurant books.

The Jake, Simone, Tess triangle was interesting but even in the end there were no real answers. There are vibes but they’re always obscured, abstracted, etc.

There are no lessons learned.

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tamtamslibrary's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.0

“They don’t remember, nobody remembers what it feels like to be so recklessly absorbent.”

The story builds slowly but that’s the point of the theme. For the MC, life is both fleeting and stagnant, and the author pairs this nicely with her youth and the MC’s over-absorbency of emotions. It’s a coming of age story in the sense that lessons are bitter but with time they sweeten. At times you’ll find the characters cringy, but aren’t we all at one point in time? How human it is to be a “sponge.”

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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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chloeplatt's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

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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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