Lori's Reviews > Land of Milk and Honey

Set in a near future, the world is dying. A smog has settled over much of the world, and the animals and food crops everyone relies on are now scarce and heading towards extinction. Our main character takes a job as a private chef in an elite self sustaining mountaintop community in Italy. Her role is to cook up unique and elaborate meals based on certain guests' preferences for the lavish dinner parties her employer throws in order to entice their wealthy diners to continue to donate to their project -which is partially revealed pretty early on in our chef's time on the mountain but not FULLY explained until the end, which ok, hello, you got me Zhang, because I certainly did not see where this thing was taking me and oh what a strange place for it to go to if I'm being honest...

I wanted to like this as much I loved How Much of These Hills is Gold, but sadly I did not. I knew it was going to be highly food focused, but geesh... how many pages can a girl read about rare ingredients and food preparation and people eating the food and everyone's table manners as they eat the food and talk politics and position themselves to be considered 'apice' in the employers eyes?

Stunningly written but incredibly slow moving, Land of Milk and Honey is a book about climate change, false utopia and deception, privilege and power, and the lengths people will go to in order to survive.