A review by sterlingisreading
Jell-O Girls: A Family History by Allie Rowbottom

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

Part family history, part memoir, part cultural examination of an iconic American product. In 1899, Allie Rowbottom’s great-great-great uncle bought the patent for Jell-O, making the family immensely wealthy for generations to come. Her mother believed there was a family curse related to the way they made their fortune, leaving the family haunted by suicides, cancer, alcoholism, and mysterious ailments. (I’m not too swayed by “The Jell-O Curse” angle, everyone’s family has some darkness and misfortune. But as a literary device, it works beautifully to weave everything together.) The stuff about Jell-O’s history in American culture was really interesting, the way the marketing was always manipulating women, first to be the perfect little housewife and then decades later re-emerging as a pillar of toxic diet fads. Allie Rowbottom writes about feminism and women with so much empathy and insight, it honestly makes me want to be more gentle with myself and the other women in my life.