Helen Burns is a food critic with a big black hole in her past. But when she embarks upon a tasting menu at a mysterious restaurant, she finds over the course of the meal that she is forced to confront her deepest, darkest memories – for better or for worse...

Hungry, the Stars and Everything

I loved this book. The whole tale, our protagonist's life story, is woven and connected to a 5-star meal. She is eminently human; weak, broken, sad, passionate, full of life and yet fleeing from it. The author's way of turning a phrase, and her descriptions of love and desire and the terror of settling, the insanity of knowing how and where you belong, are perfect. Our character isn't perfect, but she is so relatable. We learn about her relationship with the devil (and I liked the lack of a clear definition; is he real? Is he a hallucination?), her family, her real, terrible, passionate love, and her wonderful and safe love. I highlighted more passages on this book than any yet, because her descriptions of those loves resonate with me.

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