A moving story of survival during the Holocaust. Characters navigating physical challenges whilst encompassing family and food. Well done and left me thinking about choices we make.

A beautifully written story about relationships, generational trauma, and coming to terms with yourself.

Eggs. We love them and they give us nourishment. From my first glance of the cover, it looked like a friendly book about cooking eggs. True, it’s about food and the enjoyment of cooking but there’s a lot more going on in this memoir. It quickly got my attention with a taste of reality.

The reader quickly learned from the start that one egg was shared between two starving Jewish boys during WWII in Poland. They were desperately trying to survive after five years of severe abuse and terror from the Nazis. One of the boys was Bonnie Reichert’s dad. After the war, he found a new life in Edmonton, Canada.

Bonnie’s dad encouraged her often to tell his story. The thought of what he endured gave her nightmares especially when she was young. But years later, she did an intense amount of research with international travels to Poland and Germany. She combined her dad’s story from the war with her own career path and passion for food.

Many of the short chapters started with something to eat. Bonnie learned early how to cook from her grandma and dad. It’s impossible to read this book on an empty stomach as she described mouth-watering dishes as she explored cooking as a career.

There have been numerous books about the preparation of food but a first to have a memoir that includes this dark part of history. Her dad was a strong survivor and his story is important and educates all of us.

My thanks to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book with an expected release date of January 21, 2025.

“How to Share an Egg” is a memoir by Bonny Reichert. Bonny’s father, a Holocaust survivor, features a lot in this book - but the bulk of his story is not told until the last 20% of this book. Most of the book focuses on Bonny - her love of food (though her father and family shared it too), her generational trauma (wonderfully expressed), and her life - though her father’s story is interwoven. I have really mixed feelings about this book, which is frustrating for me. I so wanted to enjoy this book more than I did as I knew Holocaust survivors and absolutely loved how Bonny expressed and told her father’s heartbreaking story. However, I found myself feeling a bit too bogged down in Bonny’s story - as I wanted to know more about her father’s tale, not how she was maturing and dealing with life, work, marriage, and kids. I liked how food was the tying together aspect of this book, but I felt like something was missing. Do I think this book was one to read - yes. Do I need to read it again - no. Would I recommend it to people - yes, but I’d caution that I found Bonny’s father’s life more gripping, to be honest. 3.25 stars overall, rounded up due to this being a debut novel.

Speechless, not sure anything I can put into words can capture the emotions I felt while reading this. The author weaves family, history, and food into a moving story around her father’s story of surviving the Holocaust. Dishes are detailed so well through the chapters in between moments of family relationships and the author’s personal growth.

“For us, the way that people cook and eat, how they set their tables, and the utensils they use all tell a story.”

This was a book about a woman who was very close to her father, a man who was a Holocaust survivor. He tried not to burden her too much with his Holocaust related stories while she was much younger, but as she grew into adulthood he gradually shared more as she hungered for this information. Ironically enough, it seemed like he was able to handle the horrors of his past much better having lived it, while his daughter was filled with much more anxiety the more information she pried from him.

Her father was very passionate about the cultural foods he remembered eating from the loving hands of his own mother, and would often describe them to his daughter. In turn, she also developed a passion for these foods, learning how to cook them from both her father and maternal grandmother. She eventually parlayed this into attending chef school. Her father had owned and operated restaurants, but did not want this overwhelming work intensive future for his daughter. In the end, she organically mixed her gift for writing with her culinary obsession and wrapped it around her father's story. I think this amalgam of ingredients she combined in this memoir made the process of telling his story much more palatable. I loved hearing about the foods she was making, even though for the most part I had never eaten any of them in my lifetime. She made it all sound so delicious!

The father's Holocaust experiences did not weigh down the book heavily- they were artfully interspersed throughout the book around the author's own life story and all the culinary interludes- and I learned a lot about this horrific slice of history in such a personal way that I had never really experienced before. Well-done.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine who provided an advance reader copy via NetGalley.

I found the story an emotional journey through the eyes of the author, who experiences her important moments in life through food. The Food not only represented nourishment but also comfort for what she was experiences at the of her life.
I loved following the author as she describes her moments in life that connected her to the food and the people she cared for, both the good and the bad. I loved how much the author loved the food she cooked for herself and others and how she always tried to make a dish exactly the way others remember it, and would go out of her way to obtain that special ingredient. At times I could almost taste the food the author described and it sounded so yummy.
The most important part of the story that I can't get out of my head is the impact of being the daughter of a holocaust's survivor and how it shaped how she felt about herself and food and how she dealt with the actual memories of her father. At times, it was just heart wrenching as the author described what her father went through, but also how grateful her father was for everything that he had.
To me the story is about being grateful for every moment you have.

I want to thank Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine | Ballantine Books and NetGalley for an advance copy of a story about love and food.

Absolutely fascinating memoir about food, family, intergenerational conflicts and how the trauma of the Holocaust. never goes away. The writing was beautiful, poignant and heartfelt. I couldn't put it down. Highly recommended.

What a fabulous memoir. I was moved by many sections and really enjoyed the writing. The little details of the meals and food that most influenced her life were so fascinating. I loved her father cooking an egg and her time in Poland. Highly recommend.

This was such a moving book. As the daughter of a holocaust survivor I can relate to many of the stories she tells about her father. I also love how she weaves food into every aspect of his life. My father also talked about the food his mother cooked, before the concentration camps when food was plentiful. Having enough to eat was a priority in our household and every joyous occasion revolved around meals. I admit that has carried down to my life. The writing is wonderful and sharing her pain, anxiety and fears conveys the trauma she and her family endured.

Bonny's dad survived the holocaust. As an adult now, Bonnie suffers incredible anxiety and depression from knowing all that her father endured as a young man, and seeing how he emerged from that horror. How to Share an Egg is Bonny's story of growing up and maturing as her dad's daughter. His hurts have been passed down to her and throughout her life, she deals with them as best she can. Ultimately, she researches the geographical regions in Germany that her dad recalls, and in doing so, she finds links to his family and their history of survival.

How to Share an Egg is a fascinating memoir. It's smart, it's emotional, and I found that I could somehow relate to her suffering through her writing and cooking. Best wishes to Bonny and her family as she continue her own life journey to emotional liberation.

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read and review How to Share an Egg.

I received a free copy of, How to Share an egg, by Bonny Reichert, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Bonny Reichert father survived Holocaust. Food has always been a thing for Bonny, it can be comforting and used for survival. Food is a link to her past present and future. I enjoyed this book.

What an incredible, loving, vulnerable story this book tells. I have read a lot of accounts and stories about the Holocaust, but nothing like this one from a survivor’s child. The author expresses her generational trauma so clearly and it is such a sympathetic read. I loved the mix of her story alongside her father’s story, and the addition of how food was so important to her whole family. I will definitely return to this one again.

I received a free e-arc through Netgalley.
This memoir of a youngest daughter of a Holocaust survivor who feels the intergenerational trauma throughout her life. She loves food and cooking so it able to help her dad and herself with cooking childhood favorites from his happy childhood prior to the Holocaust. It was an emotional read at times. An interesting juxtaposition of food, travel, and memories.

I could not put this book down! There were so many moments I resonated with the author carrying the parental trauma and how she went through life dealing with it without realizing what it was. The mixed emotions and relationships with parents while living ones own life and the constant battle to be there and do her duty while honoring what she was needing and craving. And the realities of bringing that all together in a way that worked for her, a tangible, nourishing and relatable way. Must read for any daughter from any culture carrying their family history and the ways that the world around us doesn't honor or respect as well dealing with parents that have love/hate relationships with it as well.

Bravo to Bonnie for this moving story. It was much more than food and family. Her story runs deep and it’s brave and written very well. It left me thinking about the choices we make in our lives. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

How to Share an Egg is a culinary memoir that was reminiscent of Eat, Pray, Love. A wonderful story!