Land of Milk and Honey
Ratings20
Average rating3.7
15
Ratings20
Average rating3.7
NATIONAL BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR, HARPER'S BAZAAR, TOWN & COUNTRY, KIRKUS REVIEWS, ESQUIRE, ELECTRIC LITERATURE, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN AND MORE! “One of the most pleasurable, inventive reads of the year… fiendishly, deliciously fun."—San Francisco Chronicle "A profound exploration of human nature, the allure of pleasure and the choices we make in the face of adversity.”—NPR, "Books We Love" “It’s rare to read anything that feels this unique.” –GABRIELLE ZEVIN, New York Times bestselling author of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow "Land of Milk and Honey is truly exceptional."–ROXANE GAY, New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist “A sharp, sensual piece of art.”–RAVEN LEILANI, New York Times bestselling author of Luster The award-winning author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold returns with a rapturous and revelatory novel about a young chef whose discovery of pleasure alters her life and, indirectly, the world A smog has spread. Food crops are rapidly disappearing. A chef escapes her dying career in a dreary city to take a job at a decadent mountaintop colony seemingly free of the world’s troubles. There, the sky is clear again. Rare ingredients abound. Her enigmatic employer and his visionary daughter have built a lush new life for the global elite, one that reawakens the chef to the pleasures of taste, touch, and her own body. In this atmosphere of hidden wonders and cool, seductive violence, the chef’s boundaries undergo a thrilling erosion. Soon she is pushed to the center of a startling attempt to reshape the world far beyond the plate. Sensuous and surprising, joyous and bitingly sharp, told in language as alluring as it is original, Land of Milk and Honey lays provocatively bare the ethics of seeking pleasure in a dying world. It is a daringly imaginative exploration of desire and deception, privilege and faith, and the roles we play to survive. Most of all, it is a love letter to food, to wild delight, and to the transformative power of a woman embracing her own appetite.
Reviews with the most likes.
A 3.5 on the verge of 4.
A captivating story that at times eerily - the author reminds us of the fragile earth we live in and the even more fragile human element to it. A social critique, a love story - all intertwined in a dystopian future which feels more real than not.
“We all die. We have only the choice, if we are privileged, of whether death comes with a whimper or a bang; of what worlds we taste before we go.”
I loved the eerie tension of the mountain aerie mixed with the absolutely stunning language. I had to stop at several points and determine for myself if it was too much, was it veering into purple and overwrought? Considered line by line it feels excessive, but reading at pace the language just gelled into glittering prose. The language felt right, perfect for this discombulated experience.
Our narrator is hired on as a chef for the billionaire elite who trade the grey smog that covers the world and the ubiquitous engineered mung bean flour for the sun bathed Italian Alps and lavish dinner parties. What could go wrong catering to the one percent of the world's one percent? Winning the hearts and minds of potential investors through gastronomical science and a veritable Noah's ark of heritage grains, abundant produce, and a vast deep freezer filled with protien. It feels like an easy set-up where there's a third act revelation of “it was people all along!” but Zhang avoids that easy trope. She does lean hard into the horrors of privileged consumption that left me queasy nonetheless.
Things get wild cooking for a widowed billionaire, his flamboyant geneticist daughter, and a scruffy cat — which now that I'm describing it makes it all seem like Rachel Ray stumbled into Dr. No's mountain lair. It's a lot of chaotic culinary energy here alongside the zeitgeist of anti-billionaire fiction.
