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A review by jaclyn_sixminutesforme
Jell-O Girls: A Family History by Allie Rowbottom
3.0
🌟🌟🌟 💫
This was a memoir fused with a social history, and for me it was a fascinating concept that didn’t deliver. I think it perhaps overreached in terms of what it tried to cover, and it just didn’t work for me. The social history was quite heavily integrated early in the book, but dropped off considerably as the book progressed (it would have been more effective to have kept it as alternating chapters alongside the memoir aspect).
I must say I was more drawn in by the history of jell-o in the context of feminist history particularly, I find the postwar period really fascinating in terms of the way food products are a lens for what was happening domestically in the US in terms of gender relations. This side of the book was fascinating, and having studied this significantly as a history student I was surprised the author didn’t discuss Elaine Tyler May’s theory of domestic containment at all.
This was a memoir fused with a social history, and for me it was a fascinating concept that didn’t deliver. I think it perhaps overreached in terms of what it tried to cover, and it just didn’t work for me. The social history was quite heavily integrated early in the book, but dropped off considerably as the book progressed (it would have been more effective to have kept it as alternating chapters alongside the memoir aspect).
I must say I was more drawn in by the history of jell-o in the context of feminist history particularly, I find the postwar period really fascinating in terms of the way food products are a lens for what was happening domestically in the US in terms of gender relations. This side of the book was fascinating, and having studied this significantly as a history student I was surprised the author didn’t discuss Elaine Tyler May’s theory of domestic containment at all.