Member Reviews
Sorry, I hated this book. It was drudgery to read, especially as the author so clearly seems to look down on... pretty much everybody. She smugly psychoanalyzes vegans, vegetarians, paleo folks, millennials, gluten-free folks, people who eat health food, poor people who eat at restaurants (how fiscally irresponsible), and on and on. She location-drops the way other writers name drop, as she does things like jet off to Hong Kong to interview influential vegetarian restaurant owners and such left and right. She is very much the "I'm writing my PhD" kind of writer, quoting lots of studies, people she's interviewed and other authors.
Most of all, she's just so condescending. Ugh. As someone who did cure chronic illness with healthy food and who has gluten free and vegetarian children, it was very hard to stomach how utterly obnoxiously she talks about people who eat in any way outside of the standard American diet.
This is my least favorite book of the year so far, and I read a lot of books.
I read a digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.
So it took me a bit to get into this book. I did by the third chapter but it was a slow read. I didn’t agree with everything the author put out there but that is always the case. It was nice to read someone else’s take on the world we are all experiencing.
Hungry is a decidedly informative and thought-provoking book. The book is well-written and expertly composed. This book explores “foodie” culture and our physical, spiritual, and emotional hunger. These are salient issues I was eager to learn more about. I personally would have appreciated a more engaging and conversational style. Having said that, the book delivers on its promise to fully explore what it is we currently hunger for and what it is we are getting.
Interesting read, though there are some formatting issues on the Kindle version. I’ll recommend to food-loving friends.
This is not your typical. If you are looking for food or diet recipes, you will not want to read this. You still should anyway because it is filled with food statistics and the foodie craze. Some of the insights and point of view of author was quite funny, although that wasn't the main point of the book. I don't know how research she did for this book or it was all by experiences as foodie, but it was detailed.
There were some early pages about certain ages spending more money on expensive than they could afford, and this was repeated a few times throughout; a little off putting. I just had to remind myself that most of these experiences and opinions were her own that she was trying to share. All in all, a decent about what it means to be a foodie.
Thanks to NetGalley, Eve Turow-Paul and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an review. The opinions of this review are all my own.
Although I haven't finished this book (yet!) I'm reviewing it, and giving it the rating that I have, because the formatting is so bad, that it makes this book difficult, if not IMPOSSIBLE to read & follow, with random breaks in paragraphs and one letter of a word on one line, and then the rest of the word on another line, and even incomplete sentences that end abruptly, and continue without explanation a paragraph or page or two later!
If this "Hungry" read like an organized book, then I would DEFINITELY have given it 5 stars. I mean, I get that this is a "galley" copy, an uncorrected proof version of the book. But the amount of formatting issues and other problems has made it virtually UNREADABLE!
In all honesty, even before I started reading this book, I was hoping (and really wanted) to give it a good rating. Especially since, I really related to the subject matter, and in some/many ways, would be considered a "foodie" like those referenced in this book, as I am very interested in & fan of organic food/living, the "farm to table" or "farm to fork" movement, and similar beliefs.,
But this book is in such dire need of proofreading & editing that I am struggling to get through it.
That being said, I did like the content (of what I could get through, at least) enough that I'll most likely get it when it is available in a completed version, and hopefully the formatting will have been corrected by then!
The formatting of this book made it quite difficult to follow. However, it was an interesting read, full of facts and figures. It’s mainly based on USA figures and habits, but don’t let that put you off.
Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.