REVIEW: Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler
The bestselling novel about a young woman's coming-of-age, set against the glitzy, grimy backdrop of New York's most elite restaurants. Now a STARZ Original Series.
Newly arrived in New York City, twenty-two-year-old Tess lands a job as a "backwaiter" at a celebrated downtown Manhattan restaurant. What follows is the story of her education: in champagne and cocaine, love and lust, dive bars and fine dining rooms, as she learns to navigate the chaotic, enchanting, punishing life she has chosen. As her appetites awaken—for food and wine, but also for knowledge, experience, and belonging—Tess finds herself helplessly drawn into a darkly alluring love triangle. In Sweetbitter, Stephanie Danler deftly conjures with heart-stopping accuracy the nonstop and high-adrenaline world of the restaurant industry and evokes the infinite possibilities, the unbearable beauty, and the fragility and brutality of being young in New York. (Via Goodreads)
Review
As a disclaimer, I should say that it has been over a year since I listened to this book and since I returned it directly after listening I was not able to refresh my memory before writing this review.
I decided to check out Sweetbitter after seeing the trailer for the Showtime TV adaptation. I hadn’t heard of the book before then but the trailer looked very interesting so I thought I would check it out. The book itself was just… kind of nothing? It wasn't so terrible that I didn’t finish it, it just was not good. There wasn't really a plot; there was only a series of events that just kind of happen. Tess goes to work, messes up, comes home, goes back to work, pesters her coworkers, comes home, goes to work again, does drugs with coworkers, etc.
Sweetbitter reads like an overwrought diary, it details every aspect of Tess’s life but her life is just really mundane. I suppose it could be an interesting choice to realistically portray the life of a dull, 20something new-New Yorker but it is not a choice I ever care to read again. The only universally positive thing I could say is that if you are wanting to work in a high-class restaurant Sweetbitter does appear to be a very thorough and intensive look at the job and the life of a waiter so it would be a good learning tool if that is what you are after.
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