Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

I absolutely loved this book! I remember liking the movie when I watched it when I was a lot younger but didn't remember a ton of specifics about it. This book tells the story of a small town in Alabama over a several decade time span, focusing in mostly on one specific family, the Threadgoodes. The story is told in a very nonlinear fashion so you have to pay attention to the dates at the beginning of each chapter. I could not put this book down though. I love Idgie and Ruth and the whole town of Whistle Stop. There were definitely parts of this that were hard to read but I loved every second of it. This is definitely a new favorite.

This book counts for Popsugar 2022 for a book with a recipe in it and for Bookland for January 2022 for a fiction book that has been translated to the screen.

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reflective slow-paced

3.25

Fried Green Tomatoes reminded me of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, in that the pace of the plot is slow, if there even is a plot. The emphasis is on the charming characters across generations, and a kind of nostalgia for the early 20th century. It's a cute little story, worth reading but not very exciting or memorable.

It's flagged as "LGBTQ+" because it prominently features a committed relationship between two women, and no one in the novel is ever weird about it. Racism and sexism are strong themes, but there is apparently zero homophobia in Whistle Stop, Alabama. It's honestly kind of refreshing, but also confusing. Everyone treats this couple like they're married, but they're described in really vague terms, almost like a "Boston marriage" romantic friendship. It's like the opposite of The Price of Salt.

The way racism is depicted is particularly interesting - the novel features the Ku Klux Klan and an old white lady with a mild discomfort around black men and everything in between. It's difficult to tell which mildly racist opinions are the author's and which are just the characters'. The N-word and the word "colored" are used with abandon. The novel also makes a big deal out of colorism among the black characters.

One of the characters, Evelyn, an older lady in 1986, goes on a whole journey about how sexism has affected her life - and her story concludes triumphantly with her at weight-loss camp, and losing a significant amount of weight is one of her victories. Unironically. Evelyn's relationship with Ninny makes it seem like the story is about to take a strong body-positive stance, but it's a total bait and switch.

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