Three stars is mean; three and a half would be fair. I enjoyed reading this book and I'd recommend it, but I know I'll never pick it up again. Reichl writes well and has a genuine and articulate interest in food, and her accounts of the weirdness of life as a high-profile food critic are absolutely winning. The excitement of going to work for the NY Times - and finding she's famous, at least in restaurants - is lovely to read about. I found the autobiographical elements, however, strikingly strange. She flirts with different identities, flirts with affairs, and it is unsettlingly unclear how much this was invented to help the book along and how much an expression of her character. It felt like a major thread of the book that hadn't quite been woven in properly. I'd probably be less dis-satisfied if she didn't write so well - as it was I really felt frustrated that she hadn't put all the bits of the book into place.
A good read but not, I think, as good as it could have been.
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