Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC from netgalley in exchange for a review.

An anthology speculating on the future of food in this world. From the death of bees and what comes after, over sentient lab-grown meat, to droughts and cannibalism there is a lot of potential futures in here. Most of the story focus on a dystopian view set somewhere in the future, but some are closer to our current reality than others, which was interesting and made the stories feel more different while reading. There is a some repetition, especially with the idea of “food – or a part of food, like vegetables, fruit or cows – has gone extinct due to drought/fungus/pollinator death/plagues/GMOs, how would that look like?”, which made some of the stories feel a bit repetitive after a while, but there where quite a lot of stories I enjoyed and that still made this anthology feel intriguing, such as Succulent, which is told entirely in dialogue, Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions, which features an etiquette for dinner parties of the post-apocalyptic kind, Marianne Is Not Hungry, which is set in the rather near future and features a disordered relationship to food that is not part of any other stories here and Recipe From The Future, which sticks out for its intriguing and weird writing style.
There are also three stories with LGBT+ characters (one lesbian MC, one gay MC and one nonbinary MC for each), which I enjoyed, but I want to give a trigger warning for the story with the nonbinary character as their story is mostly focused around being sexually exploited, misgendered and reduced to their genitalia, which I didn’t find that great to read and for which I chose to lower my rating from 4 stars to 3. I don’t mind sexual violence or transphobia to play a role in a story (look at the world we live in!), but I do not really care for it to be treated to flippantly and without any form of resolution as it was in that story.
All in all, this is an intriguing anthology idea, featuring some great writers and some great ideas and if you enjoy reading about speculative dystopian ideas on our future food this could be an interesting read for you.
As always, you can now find short notes on all the short stories featured, including summaries, some notes on my thoughts and trigger warnings beneath:

*FAV* Pleased To Meet You by Catherine Bush: This is a really fascinating short story about a world of lab-grown meat developing sentience. It is unsettling and really well written, horrifying in a much too realistic way. I loved it.
I Want Candy by Dina Del Bucchia: Restaurant reviews in the future split between one reviewer of high-end restaurants and a reviewer, who cannot afford to dine at any of these places (or actually any places at all). Wonderful illustration of class differences in the future and the author really made Jenny, the rich reviewer, so deeply hateful, it was great to read.
TW: death by fire
*FAV* Succulent by Elan Mastai: A world in which meat is produced from celebrity genes (yum!?) centered around three roommates and their struggles. Told only in dialogue, this is a really fascinating short story and I really liked it. It is messy, it is weird, it has capitalist cannibalism, relationship drama, I adored it.
*FAV* Pollinators by Carleigh Baker: Scientists are trying to find a way to transform farming after bees have disappeared suddenly. Really interesting idea and with a lot of fascinating worldbuilding, this is a short story I really liked.
Time to Fly by Lisa de Nikolits: A post-apocalyptic world where a few rich people survived the atomic world destruction on their cruising yacht. Very emotional and heartbreaking, I really enjoyed the way it dealt with loss and grief through memories of food.
TW: drug use, mass death through nuclear war
A View Worth All the Aqua in the World by Anuja Varghese: A world ravaged by droughts where the survivors earn aqua by scrounging for treasure in the underground. A mother finds an oldtech artifact. A rather typical dystopian sci-fi story, but I liked the main character and her voice, so I liked this short story well enough.
TW: dehydration, mass extinction
You Need A Licence For That by Sifton Tracey Anipare: A woman attends a dinner party in a world where calories are rationed out and pregnancies are something you need to pass an exam for. Very interesting concept and I really enjoyed the uncomfortable party setting here.
*FAV* Novel Suggestions For Social Occasions by Ji Hong Sayo: Set in world where elaborate dinners often end in slaughter, framed by a rule book for proper etiquette for Ladies, this is a really fun story, with lots of fighting. I really enjoyed it!
TW: murder, violence
*FAV* Just A Taste by A.G.A. Wilmot: In a cyberpunk world, where cows have long gone extinct, a woman, who steals and sells memories for the right price, finds herself up against a very powerful man with a seemingly impossible request: Find a memory that contains a burger. Very fun, very messy, very enjoyable!
TW: murder, violence
*FAV* Road by Terri Favro: Two sisters trying to survive in a moth apocalypse. Really great and scary worldbuilding here, this is a short story I could absolutely read more of! I also loved the ending.
TW: animal death, death, poison
Unlimited Dream by Mark Sampson: In a world where food can be grown through dreaming, we follow one dreamer as he slowly becomes more and more enamored with the dream. Haunting and intriguing, but I would have liked to dive deeper into the dream world.
TW: self-harm, mention of starvation, violence
*FAV* Marianne Is Not Hungry by Jowita Bydlowska: A story told through the perspective of an eating disorder as it follows a woman through her relationships. Heartbreaking and sad and especially the ending was tough to read. I really enjoyed this one, especially since it stands out in its intriguing approach to food in this anthology.
TW: cheating, eating disorder, mention of incest, miscarriage, vomit
Lorenzo and the Last Fig by Eddy Boudel Tan: In this story fruit and vegetables were destroyed by a fungus years ago. But now, miraculously, a fig tree has been discovered. This is a heartbreaking story oppressed by fear and governmental oppression, but also with a very hopeful end, which I adored!
Food Fight by Chris Benjamin: A story of farmers fighting for their right to their land and to sell their food after corporate greed and climate change has made most farming impossible. Intriguing concept, but it is also so dark and filled with a lot of misgendering and sexual violence that it took away from the story for me. I also don’t know why the grandpa that sexually assaults people needed to get a narrative voice in the story? Just to misgender Sawyer again, after their cousin already did? Just to think about sexually assaulting them? Really not a plot I needed in here or that I felt add anything to the story or the narrative about food it was trying to tell.
TW: sexual violence, incest, misgendering
The Crane by Jacqueline Valencia: A man struggling with a lot of anxiety imagines what a crane if it gained life and sentience might eat. Intriguing concept and really fun addition to this anthology, which more often features dystopian scenarios of scarcity than this short, but fun tale of horror.
*FAV* Recipe From The Future by Gary Barwing: A quite weird, but intriguing story about eating the future (literally). Told in really short scenes this paints a very strange world, but I enjoyed digging into it.

I won this book in a Kindle giveaway.

A dystopian world in which nothing is as we know it. Toxic nuclear fumes spread all over the USA and turned the sky a deep red. All plants are purple and many people become mutants. Society collapses as everyone tries to hide from the toxins and those affected. The Duneworth Collectors come and abduct people from their homes. They tell them that they will give them treatment but when people refuse to come with them they
Ava’s mother had been hit by the fumes as well and when she was 15 their mother and father are abducted. She is taken in by a befriended family as she is good friends with Carey. However her parents get abducted as well, since then the two girls had been on their own. A few years later Carey is also caught. Together with Tyler, her sister’s boyfriend, she starts to search for her.
The cities are split up in different areas. In some the Infected rule, often they are wary and mistrustful of anybody who is not affected. But there are also areas that are safe. They find a friend for a while who leads them to a group of Tainted, who after some mistrust and promises that no they are no collectors, take them in. The Tainted have good reason to be scared of the Collectors, they took many people either by force or with lies and locked them up in a prison. While they are not mistreated there, they are not treated well either. The man manages to flee.
Later they form a group and start their journey to free those abducted. To do that they have to go into the Lion’s Den.
What I liked about the book was the fact that the main character was a black girl. I also quite enjoyed the idea and while the story building was not fantastic it was still good. All in all it was a nice read and I loved Ava and the rest of the Red Resistance.
Plus there was no Love Triangle despite their being two boys who cared about the MC deeply. That was wonderful.

Disclaimer: I received an e-copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The book starts with Joanna and her daughter Dahlia on a camping holiday. Joanna's wife Rachel is at home. Somebody had just told Dahlia at school that she and her family weren't normal. This is especially hard to hear for Rachel, who has been kicked out by her homophobic parents when she was fifteen. Still over time they had built a happy life with accepting neighbour and good friends and a wonderful relationship.

Or so Joanna thought. When Rachel tells her that she slept with someone else, it's a shock. This confession destroys her trust in Rachel. Now they have to figure out what they want to do in the future.

Joanna's hurt feels realistic and their struggles to come to terms with that hurt do too. It was interesting to read about themes likes cheating and the aftermath of it.

I absolutely love Dahlia, she is honestly one of my favorite characters. At times she is a typical teenager, but you can always see how much she loves her parents and I'm happy to read a book about a lesbian family.

I would have liked a bit more focus on how Dahlia is dealing with it, after all she does not only struggle with the situation her mothers are in, but also with some prejudice at school. Sadly this wasn't discussed much and the book mostly focused on Joanna and Rachel.

There were a couple of typos, but I think they will be fixed before the book is released, so I'm not really counting them.

I enjoyed that we got to know their family life in detail, but at times I felt that the book was too focused on descriptions and dialogue was lacking a bit. After a while it also felt a bit dragged out.

The book was not amazing, but it was still nice to read and I quite enjoyed it.

Why I read it: A story about a lesbian family dealing with infidelity? That sounded interesting, and even though I'm not always a fan of cheating as plot point I still enjoyed this story.

Do I recommend it: If you want to read about a lesbian family dealing not with overt homophobia, but other relationship troubles, this is the book for you. It was still nice to read, despite it's problems.

Review crossposted to my blog here.