In an imagined (yet eerily plausible) world blighted by smog, Zhang crafts an intimate narrative of culinary exploration and dystopian politics. As the protagonist peels back the complex layers of her surroundings, she also wades deeper into existential questions of what makes “real” food, leading to major personal revelations. It’s a tightly wound, complicated novel that rewards a close reading.

Land of Milk and Honey is a rare book for making me hungry from food descriptions alone while giving me climate anxiety at the same time. I'm not sure what Zhang's timeline for writing this was, but just in the first chapter, my mind was transported to September 9, 2020, when a climatological event and wildfire smoke turned the skies orange in the San Francisco Bay Area. If magical realism is a thing, then this book has shades of horror realism. What if our climate fears came true, but instead of a swift mass extinction, it results in a slow death? That's not the plot itself, just the setting. We've got our protagonist doing what she can to survive in this book's version of the world, and it's a combination of appropriated white cishet boy confidence, impostor syndrome, and occupational role playing that follows, with an affair on the side. "Eat the rich" echoed in my head the further along I got into this book, and I was extremely satisfied to see it literally written in the book. As our protagonist slowly starts living beyond survival mode, the book features ribbons of spoken word as a narrative, which is like music to my ears but also makes my old journalism kid pause. I did have to pay close attention to the dialogue, since they were presented as italicized text, just to make sure I didn't lose track of who was saying what lines. The ending felt rushed, but also oddly satisfactory. If some books have playlists or recommended reading, this book rightfully has food/dishes/restaurants in its "Acknowledgements" section. I am looking forward to nudging my friends to read this book.

Somehow this story felt like it lost its way between the intriguing beginning and sort of flat ending. So many themes could have been explored with the world on the brink of dying. Instead the narrative follows a 29 year old chef who is discovering herself and what she finds important in life. And, truthfully, I found the constant focus on food preparation didn’t add much to the story. The greed of the rich and the world response to famine were interesting. A bit more character development/background of the boss and his daughter would have been appreciated.

Thanks to NetGalley and Riverhead Books/Penguin Random House for the ARC to read and review.

When an unnamed chef takes a job with surprisingly distinctive and delectable food, she sees the difference money and standing can make even in a dying world. Through lush and leisurely descriptions, Zhang explores pleasure, privilege and palette with care. This is one to savor.

My type of cli-fi novel, and I rate this high—in the same stratum of now-canon speculative fiction. I'm thinking Oryx and Crake, The Water Knife, and the Hungry Tide. At its core, Land of Milk and Honey follows a chef as she travels to Italy where a billionaire, his daughter, and their exclusive community live, shrouded far, far away from the smog and destruction of their climate ravished modern world. She accepts a position as a private chef for this elite community in the mountains of Italy and is tasked with cooking elaborate, gaudy meals, oft with rare ingredients. I greatly appreciated care taken with contrasts in the novel, as they lend way to meditation. Lavish descriptions of food are contrasted against a backdrop of smog and despair. The looming climate catastrophe is placed against the narrator's interiority: her own dwellings on family, identity, and ambition. Without disclosing too much, there's an aching sadness to the novel, a sadness that is only compounded as more is revealed. 5/5.

In the near future, a chef applies for a position in an elite, guarded community atop a mountain after a worldwide smog outbreak causes wide-spread crop destruction and famine. Here, animals and food available nowhere else are carefully curated in underground labs and served up in lavish and wastefully extravagant meals. But what secrets are her employer and his daughter hiding? And how do they lead to the community's eventual destruction?

How Much of These Hills is Gold is one of my all-time favorite historical fiction novels, and this one definitely didn't live up to how much I adored Zhang's first novel. The narrator of Land of Milk and Honey didn't feel as fully fleshed out as Lucy and Sam. Nonetheless, it was an interesting exploration of food and near-future environmental destruction, and how humanity approaches--and ignores--each.

A near future dystopia focused on food shortages brought on by climate change and an eccentric millionaire trying to build a new home for an elite few.

Mesmerizing prose with a fascinating view of the decline and then the recovery of a post disaster world. The first person voice is convincing and sympathetic.
While not the fault of this book in particular, it does seem as if every book I read has a lesbian relationship. Never thought that sex would feel like a fad.

Absolutely spectacular. The food writing alone is worth the price of admission (do not read while even the slightest bit hungry, although honestly you're going to get hungry reading this even if you've just eaten a full meal) and Zhang manages to deliver the simultaneity of joy and grief that is a part of every exceptional meal. It's a good look at the future -- the possibilities of hope, the blind spots (enormous that they are) of the super-rich, the intoxicating and blinding nature of *need* -- while never getting too wrapped up in the nitty-gritty of climate collapse. Yes, that's happening, yes that's why this story is happening at all, but it's also a celebration of FOOD and what it means to be human. I think it might've been even better if it had skipped the last few pages (an epilogue that tidies things a little too neatly for my taste) but what great meal doesn't come with a bit of oversaturation in the end?

The Land of Milk and Honey is exactly what you'd expect it to be: rich and delicious. The prose is thoughtful and sensual, like being wrapped in the softest blanket of words. This is truly a novel to savor; everything about this demands you take your time and get lost in the prose, in the world, in the revelatory ideas. There are few novels in the world that I'd call the perfect novel, and this is one of them. C Pam Zhang is one of the greatest novelists writing today.

A chef has lost her passion for flavor in a near-future world overtaken by crop-killing smog. She’s offered an escape to an Italian mountain community far above the smog, where she’s asked to cook for the wealthy elite who can pay their way out of smog-filled cities. As the chef rediscovers a world of culinary delights, she’s torn between indulging her own desires and fear of what her employers are planning for the future.

WOW WOW WOW what a book!!!! The food writing is incredibly rich and immersive. The dystopian aspects feel stunningly prescient. It's layered and beautifully written, with a swirling sense of tension like you're in the eye of a hurricane. I can already tell I'll be recommending this book to everyone I meet!

Amid a global event affecting international food production a down on her luck chef lands a job at a commune on an Italian mountaintop where the elite dine on rare ingredients and her enigmatic boss and his enticing daughter have a vision for the future. This is a fascinating exploration of delight and desire in the face of dystopian disaster. It brought to mind both Karen Russell and Rumaan Alam in feel.

The world is dying. A spreading smog is blocking the sun, making it impossible to grow most foods.. But there is rumored to be a place in the mountains of Italy, above the smog, that is experimenting with new ways to grow food and live. It is called The Land of Milk and Honey and only the Uber-wealthy are invited to join. A down on her luck cook applies to be a chef. Once accepted she find herself drawn into a world of decadence and greed. But her senses are finally awakened after years of darkness and uncertainty. Zhang writes beautifully, sensually, and sometimes grotesquely about the innate human need to seek pleasure in all its forms.

A true work of art.

Land of Milk and Honey is a dystopian novel based on a time when smog covers the Earth and only mountain tops are free, and so, have been bought by the wealthy and become exclusive hideouts with food and flavors no longer available to the masses. Missing the flavors she used to cook with, a chef takes a job at a remote mountaintop community, where we follow her story. I read this while the Canadian wildfire smoke covered my home, so it felt all the more real and visceral to me.

Zhang captures many themes in this book amazingly well: wealthy people's desire to profit and get ahead of the masses with ill-conceived science projects, the human desire for unique experiences, the tension between money and government, and trauma responses. The writing is really well done and very different from anything I've read before. We learn more about the chef as the book goes on, but I really enjoyed how slowly her backstory and motivations unfolded to the reader. I picked this one up after seeing an author I enjoy rave about it, and I'm glad I did!

3.75 stars. Culinary decadence in a climate-disaster-induced dystopia. The writing is spare and a little like reading through smoked glass, not always smooth going, as if we're seeing the whole story through the strangling smog that afflicts the narrator's world. It does contain one of my favorite ever passages of lesbian sex through metaphors of food textures and consumption, though. Definitely worth reading if you have the palate for something on the bitter side.

I have filed a starred review for this book with Booklist. Amazing book, I hope it wins all the awards. Please look for my review in Booklist and thanks for the ARC.