I loved this. Loved it. I haven’t read a memoir I felt as compulsively readable as this in a long while. 

Hannah Selinger wrote this book to invite us behind the curtain during the 2000s, when celebrity chefs were everything and the fine dining scene was exploding across the country. A Gen Xer like myself, Selinger thought she would work at night and write by day, because wouldn’t that be the dream? But being single, living in New York, working late nights at busy restaurants, and then going out for drinks with coworkers after shifts isn’t exactly conducive to any kind of morning wake-up call so you can spend some time at the laptop writing. It’s a cycle that sucks you in. 

I didn’t need to read this book to know that you can love the restaurant industry all you like but it’ll never love you back; heck, the service industry at large is like that. Heck, being a wife and mother can feel like that. Service of any kind can feel like that. But the pressure of the restaurant industry is a whole different machine. Selinger writes about her experiences with the kind of candor that only comes from someone who either has nothing left to lose or the kind of confidence that only comes from someone who has zero effs to give. I’m betting on the latter. 

The writing here is witty, honest, emotional, thought-provoking, and deliciously descriptive. I don’t like wine, but I could read Hannah Selinger writing about it for an entire book, I think. 5⭐️

I was provided a copy of this title by the author and publisher via NetGalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: 5 Star Review/Autobiography/Memoir