THE THICK AND THE LEAN

Two young women living on a distant planet are linked by an ancient book whose protagonist serves as a role model as they struggle to overcome their individual circumstances.

Born into a cultlike community known as Seagate, 16-year-old Beatrice Bolano wrestles with her illicit fascination with food. Seagate is run by the ALGN Church, a sect that extols starvation as a form of worship. Followers refrain from eating in public, take appetite suppressants, and exile people who aren’t skinny enough. When Beatrice decides she's ready to take the enormous step of fleeing Seagate, a kindhearted black-market cookbook dealer helps spirit her away. Interwoven with Beatrice’s story is that of Reiko Rimando, a talented artist from a poor family who wins a full scholarship to college. Over time, Reiko becomes disillusioned with academia, realizing her classmates are mainly rich kids who couldn't care less about hitting the books. Jettisoning her aboveboard professional ambitions, she puts her youth, beauty, and intelligence to work as a con artist until a love affair threatens to shatter her hopes of making a financially independent life for herself. Both Beatrice and Reiko eventually find their ways to a centuries-old book called The Kitchen Girl, an autobiography by a woman named Ijo, that ends up shaping both of their trajectories. Chapters from The Kitchen Girl are interspersed throughout the novel but don’t appear frequently enough to comprise a complete narrative thread. While engrossing, the novel is hampered by weak dialogue and a thinly drawn setting. Occasional references to multiple moons, airships, and a race of Indigenous residents known as the Free-Wah aren’t enough to make the planet Beatrice, Reiko, and Ijo inhabit come alive as a fictional world with its own history, culture, and place in the cosmos. Rather, their planet feels like a facsimile for modern Earth that serves as a staging ground for an exploration of real crises: climate change, income inequality, systemic racism, corporate dominance, religious fundamentalism, the outlandish cost of higher education, and more.

An enjoyable novel that deals with timely issues but falls short in complex worldbuilding.