This was a well written memoir of the authors journey through the love of food, her family and her Jewish roots. Bonny is very close to her father, now living in Canada they came over from Poland after WWII, where her father and his family were put in concentration camps, and where he miraculously survived at the end of the war .
His daughter, the author as she grew up, her father started telling her about what he went through in the camps, and this seemed to make her more traumatized than he was about what happened. He always tried to look at the brighter side of life.
Together they found out things about there relatives, and they even made trips back to Poland to research some of it.
She was also searching what would really make her happy, and food was one of the things, going to cooking school, getting married and having kids, but also connecting with her family, their traditions and learning to master some of the Polish dishes and some that her Grandmother had made and that were great memories for her parents.
This book was a page turner for me. Beautifully done.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Random House Publishing group – Ballantine ,for a copy of this book.

This was an incredibly powerful and moving story. Though specific to this family, the story itself is more important and relevant now than ever. Yes, it is about food, but so much more. Bonny is the child of a Holocaust survivor. That comes with a lot of things that most cannot begin to imagine. The author takes us on a journey of her relationship and experiences with food and interweaves her beloved fathers experiences during the Holocaust as well as her intergenerational trauma. Food is so much more than nutrition. Her writing is wonderful and I was drawn in from page one. If I had to pick one word to describe this book it would be love. Love of family, food, travel, history and so much more, but truly at its core, love.

Bonny Reichert is an award-winning journalist, chef, and the child of a Holocaust survivor. In HOW TO SHARE AN EGG, Reichert chronicles her father’s childhood horrors, her own childhood internalizing that trauma, and her adulthood attempting to reconcile her father’s trauma with her own.

In flashbacks and through conversations with her father, Reichert shares the horrors of her father’s time in concentration camps as the only survivor in his family. She remembers the first time, as a young child, seeing the numbers tattooed on his arm and asking him what those were. The author internalized much of his pain and suffering as a child which exhibited in anxiety and panic attacks for her. Since she was a writer, her father asked and begged her to write his story, but she never felt she had the emotional capacity to do it.

“When you have a father with stories like these, and you happen to be a writer, you know what you’re supposed to do…It’s simply the story of a daughter trying to figure out who she is in the shadow of something bigger…It’s a mishmash of what happened to my dad and what’s happened to me; a portrait of a parent and a child, a father and a daughter.”

After waiting until nearly the last minute (her father is 94), canceling and then finally taking a Holocaust tour, she was able to sit down and have the hard conversations with her father, putting pen to paper. A pivotal moment for her was eating a bowl of borscht while in Warsaw. She described it as “sweet and sour and honest and alive.” That bowl of borscht changed everything.

Reichert writes of her Baba, her mom’s mom, who came every weekend and filled the kitchen with food. Baba wore a house dress and baked and cooked for hours straight. Her descriptions brought my own memories to mind of my Great Grandma Wilma. My memories of her are in a house dress with an apron and always, always in the kitchen. I recently perfected her oatmeal cookies and eating one brought me to tears, taking me back to over 45 years ago. Reichert was also the youngest and her experiences as the last child of much older siblings were familiar to me.

So much of this story is centered around food. From the times when her father ate potato peels and coffee grounds to stay alive to the time he was given an egg to share…which is where the title came from. She writes of delicious meals made by her father who owned restaurants and her Baba. She relates food and its connection to memories and stories and how nothing was wasted.

“We did not waste food. Ever.”

“Beautiful fruit was not something to take for granted.”

As Reichert wondered what her grandma Udel was like, I had similar thoughts to my own grandma, who died when my mom was 17. Reichert wanted to “conjure her, smell her, know how she moved, hear her voice.” But, it went farther. She wanted to understand her bravery. How did she cope with being separated from her children? Did she resist or enter the gas chambers bravely? Did she lie, bribe, or deceive to live one more day?

As someone who has read numerous stories (true and fictionalized) about the Holocaust, imagining the author’s father in the camps, hearing his story of survival (hiding in a hay loft), becoming a business owner, father, and grandfather, and living to see his 90s is nothing but inspirational. He wasn’t bitter or filled with hatred. He didn’t fill his life with sadness but looked for the joy in every day. He didn’t let his past consume him. Many of us can take this approach to our own lives.

“Survival is not one thing-one piece of luck or smarts or intuition-but a million small ones. This choice not that one. This brave move, that good stranger. Careful here. Reckless there. From my father, I’ve learned that survival is also a state of mind.”

This emotional and deeply personal memoir is very well-written. I could almost taste the food, imagine the places, and feel her father’s love in her words. I hope this experience of writing was healing for her and allows her to focus from here forward on the many wonderful memories shared with her parents and family.

"How to Share an Egg" is a subtle meaningful memoir about Bonny Reichert and her complicated relationship with her father, a Holocaust survivor, and what he went through. It's certainly an area of psychology, I don't know much about, so I appreciated Reichert's honesty and vulnerability as she tried to figure out her complicated thoughts and feelings.

I'm not a big reader of what I would call "lyrical" books--a lot of beautiful writing, but not really in a logical set order with the normal elements of a story, so I would say I struggled a bit with the book keeping my attention (it also didn't help that I was in the middle of an extremely busy and stressful time at work), but it is beautiful writing.

As a reader of food writing, I also appreciate the many nods to food along the way, though I think there was a missed opportunity to use the food as a way to tie everything together.

So, I would recommend the book to anyone that enjoys vulnerable memoirs, food stories, or wants to know more about the long after-effects of the Holocaust. I hope Bonny (and any others struggling with emotions left from the horrors of the Holocaust) find the healing they deserve.

Book: How to Share an Egg
Author: Bonny Reichert
Format: Digital
Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir, Historical
Places Featured: Poland
Review Score: ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2 (rounded down)

So many memories my family has are of the meals we cooked then ate together. Of the successes, milestones and failures that a family celebrates with food. Bonny Reichert came to realize this tradition as her father, a Holocaust survivor, shared his stories with her, incorporating the foods or lack thereof he remebers from his life into the memories. She traveled the world, learning the traditions shared through meals and would eventually become a chef, learning her own history through this history. This is an excellent book to read, savor and share with those you love and continue the traditions started at your grandmother's home.

HOW TO SHARE AN EGG by Bonny Reichert ~to be published January 21, 2025

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is a very moving memoir about food and family, written by the daughter of a Holocaust survivor.

For most of her life, Bonny Reichert resisted writing about her father’s story. She didn’t want to cause him any pain by reliving the horrible details of his time working in a Jewish ghetto in Poland, and then later, being held at Auschwitz-Birkenau. But even more so, she had always been extra sensitive and easily traumatized, and didn’t want to have to carry his pain with her. It was not until she was in her midlife that she realized that she must tell her father’s story in order to release its hold on her. This is a really well-written mash up of Reichert’s life and her father’s life, describing her upbringing, her culinary journey, and her father’s story of hunger, and ultimately, survival. If you enjoyed THE POSTCARD, I think you will love this too.

Many thanks to Ballantine Books @penguinrandomhouse for the advance reader’s copy. I highly recommend this memoir!

This was a very interesting memoir. The author connects to her Dad (Holocaust survivor), and family’s history through food.

But it takes her a while to get there. In this memoir she recounts her time learning family recipes with her Grandma, and slowly digging out her Dad’s life experiences by learning to make the dishes that brought him joy as a child.

I loved this one. One of the main issues discussed was how we carry our family trauma, and make it a central part of our identity, and how she eventually was able to become her family’s storyteller through food.

I enjoyed reading How to Share an Egg by Bonny Reichert. You will fall in love with all the characters. I received an ARC of this book courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and given freely. Happy Reading!

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 that point in 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 she 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.

A moving memoir about the daughter of a Holocaust survivor & her father, tons of delicious meals cooked, and life as a sensitive child. I enjoyed the short chapters & detailed storytelling.

4.5ish stars, rounded up. This is a powerful story, and Bonny is an insightful and raw writer, establishing the ways a family legacy of trauma and growing up the daughter of a Holocaust survivor shaped her life. Framing the story around food and memory works very well for this story.

This unusual book is definitely worth reading. HOW TO SHARE AN EGG tells a daughter’s tale of life with a Holocaust survivor. By turns heartwarming and engaging, the survivor’s guilt at the heart of this tale is both well described and well investigated. Author Bonny Reichert is able to describe scenes with such detail that the smell of food and the heat of the kitchen can be felt. She does equally well describing the knowing/not knowing that permeates the lives of relatives of Holocaust survivors. This book really made an impact on me. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

As someone who strongly connects memories to food shared with people from my past I found this book very enjoyable. Bonny's writing is captivating and it quickly drew me in. I've consumed a good amount of media about WW2 and the holocaust yet the story of what Bonny's father went through felt so impactful. Her procrastination of writing his story that she speaks of early on in the book because she is worried about also carrying his pain stuck out to me. Generational trauma is such a complex thing yet many of us have experienced it. So often stories of holocaust survivors only tell us the horrors that they lived through during the time, but what we don't get to hear is how they moved forward and the lives they built afterwards. The food descriptions are also wonderfully written. Memoirs aren't usually the kind of books I go for, but this is a book I would recommend for anyone to pickup.

Thanks to NetGalley, Bonnie Reichert, and Random House Publishing for the E-ARC.

this was such a lovely read! I thoroughly enjoyed the writing style and thought that this was thought-provoking and engaging. this was thoughtful and honest and intriguing. A beautiful memoir that took a look at resilience and what it means to a family.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book.

What a powerful memoir. I really appreciated learning more about Bonny's father's immigration to Canada, because I feel like most Holocaust stories shared are from survivors who immigrated to America, so this was really interesting to me.

I loved that Bonny's father encouraged Bonny to tell his story, because so many survivors haven't told their stories, so it was special to hear his.

I would definitely recommend this book!

I admit that I was drawn to this book simply by its intriguing title. Bonny Reichert's memoir of life as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor was eye opening to say the least. Speaking for myself, I have always been interested in the stories of those who survived WWII as well as for those who did not, but I never really thought of what it would be like for the children of Holocaust survivors.

Reichert's story of guilt, anxiety, and depression form an interesting and fascinating backdrop of a woman who has lost relatives she never met and whose father wants more than anything to protect his family from the horrors he endured as a child.

This is a thoughtful and honest portrayal of a woman who eventually faces her own fears as she comes full circle in her life. An exquisite read.
Thank you to #NetGalley and #BallantineBooks for this eARC of #HowtoShareanEgg.

Food and family - that was honestly all I knew going into this book aside from the author and knowing it would be powerful. And it was. She had a beautiful way of intertwining food with the story of her dad who survived the Holocaust - and how food had a large impact in his life. Learning more about her dad and his history and connection with food allowed her to understand better the almost obsession (but not in a negative way) with food and serving others. Her writing made me tear up at time...but then other times, made me hungry!!? A truly special story. Thank you Netgalley and Random House for this ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

How to Share an Egg
Bonny Reichert

HOW TO SHARE AN EGG is a memoir that is a mix of a food biography and personal experiences. Bonny grew up in a loving home with food and fond family memories. Her father, a survivor of the holocaust who lives his life in response to his horrifying experiences and her mother who does the same but in different ways.

Food was always at the center of her familial experiences. Around the table is where some of her favorite parts of childhood happened. She learned very early that love meant food and food meant home.

Although she knew her parents always loved her she didn't always feel that they allowed her to live her own life. She was often plagued by inherited guilt. And oftentimes felt that she could not want more for her life as she was surviving which was more than her father could've expected.

It is a story of one life that I think a lot of us can find a home in. Sharing her perspective will help a lot of us own ours.

An important conversation had within the pages of HOW TO SHARE AN EGG is about trauma and the exchange that happens when our traumatic stories are shared. Learning there is a difference between what is secret and what is private. What is relieved when it is shared and what is transferred. In all cases light is cast into the darkness but oftentimes, someone is left in the shadows.

It's about love, family expectations about finding you own path. Growing up and growing into yourself.

I am thankful for the opportunity to read it and it opened my eyes to my own associations with food and survival. It helped me to understand and really contemplate what food means to me.

Thanks to Netgalley, Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine | Ballantine Books for the advanced copy!

HOW TO SHARE AN EGG...⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A beautifully written memoir and testament to resilience. Reichert's father survived the Holocaust and moved to Canada where he owned restaurants but more importantly raised her to respect food. His stories, slowly spooled out, led her eventually to explore his past. They also led her to food, to culinary school, to making dishes for her father. It's a thoughtful and different look at generational trauma and healing. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A good read.

A well written book about both food and the Holocaust. I can't even imagine what it would be like to grow up with a father who had lived through the Holocaust, so I was interested to read this book. In the end, I wished it had been two different books because the juxtaposition just didn't work for me. But, that's just a personal choice.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. It will be eye-opening for many readers.