Monday, December 18, 2017

Sourdough by Robin Sloan

I started listening to the Book Riot podcast and on a few episodes, they mentioned Sourdough. It sounded interesting: an IT woman is gifted a special sourdough starter that turned out to be magic.

I'm on the fence. I'm not really sure that I liked this although I did finish it. Maybe I just didn't LOVE it.

Lois Clary is the young woman who graduates college and gets recruited to a robotics firm in San Francisco. All was well until Slurry was introduced. She doesn't have the time or inclination to cook so she orders from a Clement Street restaurant every night. She gets spicy soup and sourdough bread. When the brothers of the restaurant are forced to leave America, they leave her their starter for the bread (as well as all the ingredients and utensils Lois needs because she clearly has nothing in her kitchen).

Amazingly, Lois learns to bake perfect bread and build a brick oven from a book. Her bread is so perfect that she is accepted into an alt-food market full of bizarre fake food, cricket food and weirdness. Because that's the next big trend, apparently.

The starter turns out to be magic and there is a "thrilling" adventure.

It was ok. Probably more of a beach read than anything serious.


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