Review: A Place at the Table - Susan Rebecca White

A Place at the Table by Susan Rebecca White

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A rich, beautiful novel about three unlikely, complex characters who meet in a chic Manhattan café and realize they must sacrifice everything they ever knew or cared about to find authenticity, fulfillment, and love.

A Place at the Table tells the story of three richly nuanced characters whose paths converge in a chic Manhattan café: Bobby, a gay Southern boy who has been ostracized by his family; Amelia, a wealthy Connecticut woman whose life is upended when a family secret finally comes to light; and Alice, an African-American chef whose heritage is the basis of a famous cookbook but whose past is a mystery to those who know her.

As it sweeps from a freed-slave settlement in 1920s North Carolina to the Manhattan of the deadly AIDs epidemic of the 1980s to today’s wealthy suburbs, A Place at the Table celebrates the healing power of food and the magic of New York as three seekers come together in the understanding that when you embrace the thing that makes you different, you become whole.

-- I started reading this book, and I was in total heaven. Then we switched characters and I was sad for the loss of the last one. Then halfway through, I could start to see the thread weaving the stories together and I whispered to myself, bloody brilliant!! It was like a little petit four, where you bite into it, get one flavor and then halfway through the bite, something else that is even more divine shines through, and then the last bite really just made it over the top! That is the way this book is! All the characters are so three dimensional, I thought any minute Alice would come through the pages.

And who doesn't love cooking in a book? Talk about making me drool! At the back, there is a recipe for Mittie Cumbie Wade's Sour Cream Pound Cake, seems to die for! There is also a book discussion and a chat with the author, which I always love, gives the story behind the story.

This was my FIRST book by Ms White, but it won't be my last! Thank you for such a wonderful read.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.



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