Thank you NetGalley and Interstellar Flight Press for the ARC!

This was a super fun read! It felt like watching a movie but in a book - while I'm honestly not usually a movie person, this time I appreciated that. In the beginning of the book I couldn't quite figure out who was who (and what everyone's relationships to each other were) or what the structure of the society and the Hab looked like, but as I kept going I eventually figured it out (which is similar to my experience watching movies). This novella felt like it used more of a "show" than a "tell" attitude, which ended up working well once I figured everything out.

I enjoyed the adventure of it all! Although I pretty quickly figured out who was shady and who wasn't, the book still took a bunch of surprising turns and I was never bored. I also liked the casual way we got to see the different parts of the Hab, especially the scene where Triz goes to sort through her thoughts in the music-chamber. I loved the different relationships we got to see, even as we didn't necessarily spend a lot of time (in such a short book, how could we?) delving into each super deeply - Triz's relationship with Casne and Casne's quad-parents, Casne's relationship with her quad-parents, everyone's dynamic with Kalo- I felt like each had enough flesh to feel real and dynamic. 

Triz's development over the course of the book, especially in her self-worth and in taking risks and being brave for the ones she loves, was a journey I enjoyed seeing. I did wish that Nantha's character was more fleshed out, and I missed her presence, whether physically or just via a call or message, in the end especially. Also because I've seen confusion in some reviews, while the MC has two established (poly) f/f relationships at the beginning of the book, the main romance we see on page is between her and her male ex, so if you're specifically not looking for m/f romance, this isn't necessarily your book, but I loved it and absolutely count it as a queer relationship/romance.

All in all, this was a fun and engaging book! I loved the queer and trans and poly normative world, and although it could also have gone deeper into this, found the framing of the use of biomods by the Ceebees vs. the Fleet as super interesting. There's definitely an analysis to be made about Ceebees not only destroying environments but also how their beliefs and society play into disability and ableism as exists in our world today - an analysis I won't make myself but am curious about. I think it's also important to note for anyone going in, especially who uses assistive/adaptive tech, that the MC's view on it in the beginning are not representative of the perspective of the book as a story or as a whole.

Final thought: can it be space opera if no one gets caught in a garbage shoot?

Note: I didn't realize there was such an extensive glossary at the end, and honestly it would be nice if ebooks especially would just have a little note in the beginning if there's a glossary at the end, or have it at the beginning, because when you're not rifling through physical pages you just won't know it's there until you've already finished the book (as I did).

New favorite book???? New favorite book!!! Like maybe this is actually my new reread and Red White & Royal Blue can take at least a short break (we'll see though, I have already read it three times this year). This book was just so joyful, so sweet, so full of hope and so relatable in its journey from sadness to a life of color. I want that for myself. This book gives me something to dream about.

See content warnings for discussion of fatphobia in this book, though.

I will try to write more later but I loved this book. At first I didn't care so much about the plot, but loved the tone and the mood of the book. By the climax, though, I loved it.

I might go through later and name my favorite stories... I just don't remember what they were called! Also my favorites are going to mostly just be the queer ones (A Good Kiss was SO CUTE)

Butter Honey Pig Bread follows Kambirinachi and her twin daughters Kehinde and Taiye, in alternating points of view, throughout the time of their relationships, as well as Kambirinachi's childhood. Their familial relationship is complicated, especially after

Kehinde's rape as a child, which she couldn't forgive her mother and sister for not stopping.

It's messy, but they all love each other, and the story, while it meanders into the particulars of each MC's life, follows the thread of their relationship as it changes.

This book has one of my favorite queer friendships I’ve ever read (between lesbian Taiye and femme gay man(?) Timi), a mostly Black cast, and takes place kind of all over the world (except the US) in Nigeria and England and France and Canada and probably more. And the intergenerational aspects and magical realism (slash like, Igbo beliefs I think? Unsure how realistic vs heightened it is) are so good and interesting. And I saw someone on Goodreads say that the tender intimacy of cooking together or cooking for those we love and other aspects of like, presence, is something we don’t get to have in COVID times, and that is central throughout this book.

There are so many trigger warnings but it’s also just so full of realness and heartbreaking beauty and the RELATIONSHIPS are all so complex but truthful. And full of love in ways that sometimes hurt and sometimes heal and sometimes are full of joy. The book ends on a bittersweet and hopeful note. I truly recommend this for anyone who can handle the trigger warnings because it's absolutely beautiful, and true to title, a mix of sweet, meaty, hearty, filling, and decadent.

Specifically about the audiobook - I really liked it! Sometimes audiobooks feel like they're an almost separate thing from the book, which could be a good thing or a bad thing, but this narrator subtly embodied the characters in a way where I didn't really feel like I was listening to a performance, just reading a book. I did get pretty confused in the beginning and ended up taking out an ebook copy from my library to follow along with the beginning again to make sure I understood who the different characters were and how they related to each other. That's probably a mix of my own memory/attention span, and the early confusion of alternating point of view chapters with names I am not used to (and with the names of the POV characters only introduced at the beginning of each chapter, and not textually listed, at least on NetGalley, on the section of the audio I was listening to). As I am not familiar with a lot of the words and names, having the audiobook was probably best as I got to hear pronunciation.

I was provided free access to an audiobook copy by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Soooooo goooooooood! More of a review to come hopefully but I loved that it was

like Shrek

and I loved every single twist and turn (and there were a lot!). I liked that this got to be complicated while staying fun and relatively upbeat. And still touching on shame and secrecy and acceptance and fear of turning monstrous in both a literal and moral way.... woooo!!! this book!