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A review by justie
Savor: A Chef's Hunger for More by Fatima Ali
5.0
I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
So here's the thing. I am (always have been, always will be) drawn to books that fully gut me. The ones that I casually think about for weeks after finishing reading them, and feel the waves of pain over and over again. Is this because I'm actually a robot and this is the only instance in which I feel human emotions? Perhaps. We can only speculate.
Having watched a good amount of Top Chef in my day, I can confidently say that Fatima was immediately one of my favorite from the second she stepped onto the screen, and remains in my opinion one of the best people ever to have been on the show. She had such a magnetism to her, that I knew would translate in a book written by her. Her story is, of course, gut-wrenching. She was able to express it in such a way that you really could put yourself in her mindset as she lived through these vastly different chapters of her life. And the descriptions of food throughout the novel, by both Fatima and Farezeh, had my mouth watering the entire time I was reading. There's nothing like a really vivid description of specific plates and flavors... except, I guess, actually getting to experience those things in real life.
This was an exceptionally written memoir, and though I definitely came into it expecting to have my heart strings tugged upon, I didn't think it would hit me quite in the way that it did. In particular, Farezeh's telling of her point of view was really just a semi truck to the feels. My tiniest nitpicks are that I think some of the arrangement of chapters could have been manipulated so that we weren't repeating time periods quite as much, but it was still not difficult to follow along with the timelines of events.
I also typically don't read the acknowledgments at the end of books (tsk tsk, I know), but Mohammed did such a great job on that. It honestly was just as touching as the rest of the memoir was.
If you love food novels, and aren't too scared of having a good cry, I would highly recommend picking this one up as soon as humanly possible.
So here's the thing. I am (always have been, always will be) drawn to books that fully gut me. The ones that I casually think about for weeks after finishing reading them, and feel the waves of pain over and over again. Is this because I'm actually a robot and this is the only instance in which I feel human emotions? Perhaps. We can only speculate.
Having watched a good amount of Top Chef in my day, I can confidently say that Fatima was immediately one of my favorite from the second she stepped onto the screen, and remains in my opinion one of the best people ever to have been on the show. She had such a magnetism to her, that I knew would translate in a book written by her. Her story is, of course, gut-wrenching. She was able to express it in such a way that you really could put yourself in her mindset as she lived through these vastly different chapters of her life. And the descriptions of food throughout the novel, by both Fatima and Farezeh, had my mouth watering the entire time I was reading. There's nothing like a really vivid description of specific plates and flavors... except, I guess, actually getting to experience those things in real life.
This was an exceptionally written memoir, and though I definitely came into it expecting to have my heart strings tugged upon, I didn't think it would hit me quite in the way that it did. In particular, Farezeh's telling of her point of view was really just a semi truck to the feels. My tiniest nitpicks are that I think some of the arrangement of chapters could have been manipulated so that we weren't repeating time periods quite as much, but it was still not difficult to follow along with the timelines of events.
I also typically don't read the acknowledgments at the end of books (tsk tsk, I know), but Mohammed did such a great job on that. It honestly was just as touching as the rest of the memoir was.
If you love food novels, and aren't too scared of having a good cry, I would highly recommend picking this one up as soon as humanly possible.