DNF'd on: July 20, 2019
DNF’d on: page 50

Sweetbitter is the kind of book that makes me never want to step outside my reading comfort zone. I’ve always known pretentious literary fiction wasn’t for me but this book just solidified that fact.

Sweetbitter follows a young woman escaping her small town to become somebody. She quickly finds a job as a waitress in an upscale restaurant filled with pretentious staff.

This book couldn’t hold my attention for more than 5 minutes at a time, and I promise I was really trying. I read 50 pages and didn’t even know the narrator’s name. Despite being the main character of the novel she faded into the background. I didn’t understand her motivations and didn’t really care to.

I used to love books set in the hustle and bustle of New York but this book captures the city at its most unpleasantly pretentious. The narrator’s musings on the city were so cliche with lines like “Does anyone come to New York clean?". The side characters that are supposed to make up the flavor of the city were so vapid and catty.

The writing grated on my nerves. It was just too pretentious for my tastes. The story was taking itself too seriously. Nothing felt genuine or real. The characters in this book spoke like this:

“Appetite is not a symptom,” Simone said when I complained of being hungry. “It cannot be cured. It’s a state of being, and like most, has its attendant moral consequences

It was so eye roll inducing.

Overall this book felt dated and not for me in every way. I couldn’t stomach the thought of continuing on with this book for another page.