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CHOP CHOP

Name: CHOP CHOP
Author: Simon Wroe
ISBN: 978-1-59420-579-8

by Simon Wroe ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 17, 2014

For British readers, David Nicholls meets Guy Ritchie; for Americans, Dave Eggers channels Anthony Bourdain.

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A British university graduate sets out on a journey of self-discovery when he’s forced to break a sweat in an asylumlike kitchen in Camden Town.

Freelance journalist Wroe employs his experience as a chef in an uneven debut novel that tries to shoehorn in a few too many stylistic moods. Our narrator is a recent graduate of one of London’s many English literature programs and believes himself the next wunderkind of the publishing scene. As his hopes are dashed on the rocks of reality, he takes a job as the resident “bitch” in a rough-hewn kitchen called The Swan, where he's quickly dubbed “Monacle” by the crew. This ensemble comedy is the best part of the novel, pitting the sensitive writer against merciless head chef Bob, the aptly named “Racist Dave,” a salacious molester named Ramilov, daft pastry chef Dibden, and a quiet, dark-eyed girl named Harmony who captures Monacle’s heart. After the crew sabotages a monstrous creation similar to a turducken, Bob is ousted and Monacle holds out slim hope of promotion. “No, you’re still the bitch. But a loved bitch,” Ramilov tells him. It’s in the back half that the tale takes a dark turn, interrupted by wearisome meditations from Monacle on his troubled childhood and his relationship with his father, who turns up on his son’s doorstep all too often. Following the arch comedy of The Swan’s kitchen and the familial drama, Wroe finishes his kitchen epic with a monstrous encounter with an unsavory local crime lord that may leave even the most jaded readers a bit shocked. “Then the bad news,” shares Monacle. “I was arrested almost immediately, along with Ramilov, on unrelated but extremely serious charges, the charges that form the dark heart of the story.” Proceed with caution.

For British readers, David Nicholls meets Guy Ritchie; for Americans, Dave Eggers channels Anthony Bourdain.

Pub Date: April 17, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-59420-579-8

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Penguin Press

Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2014

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.