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A review by trin
Jell-O Girls: A Family History by Allie Rowbottom
2.0
Mystery box book #34!
Half a history of Jell-O, half a memoir about the author and her mother; I found the former much more interesting than the latter, unfortunately, as there is significantly more of the family history. Rowbottom is from a family of Jell-O heiresses (incredible phrase to contemplate), but she tries to to make connections between all the bad things that have happened to her family -- which are bad, but sadly not atypical or even unusual -- and the legacy of everyone's favorite wiggly goo* and the patriarchy in general. Most of these connections feel...tenuous, at best.
Are they? Was it? I am not convinced. Sometimes a Jell-O mold is just a Jell-O mold.
*Not mine; I actually hate Jell-O and have not eaten it in...idk, 30+ years? Oops. Ideal audience.
Half a history of Jell-O, half a memoir about the author and her mother; I found the former much more interesting than the latter, unfortunately, as there is significantly more of the family history. Rowbottom is from a family of Jell-O heiresses (incredible phrase to contemplate), but she tries to to make connections between all the bad things that have happened to her family -- which are bad, but sadly not atypical or even unusual -- and the legacy of everyone's favorite wiggly goo* and the patriarchy in general. Most of these connections feel...tenuous, at best.
All women, [my mother] always said, are privy to a collective female unconscious. The girls in LeRoy [the town where Jell-O was founded and from which Rowbottom's family hails] suffered in particular . . . because they lived beneath the weight of an insular and conservative community, one that was itself colored by Jell-O, which was itself cursed by its complicity in conforming and molding women."
Are they? Was it? I am not convinced. Sometimes a Jell-O mold is just a Jell-O mold.
*Not mine; I actually hate Jell-O and have not eaten it in...idk, 30+ years? Oops. Ideal audience.