false<![CDATA[In the Kitchen: A Novel]]>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255711405m/6065178.jpg606517810Gabriel Lightfoot is an enterprising man from a northern England mill town, making good in London. As executive chef at the once-splendid Imperial Hotel, he is trying to run a tight kitchen. But his integrity, to say nothing of his sanity, is under constant challenge from the competing demands of an exuberant multinational staff, a gimlet-eyed hotel management, and business partners with whom he is secretly planning a move to a restaurant of his own. Despite the pressures, all his hard work looks set to pay off.
Until a worker is found dead in the kitchen's basement. It is a small death, a lonely death - but it is enough to disturb the tenuous balance of Gabe's life.
Elsewhere, Gabriel faces other complications. His father is dying of cancer, his girlfriend wants more from their relationship, and the restaurant manager appears to be running an illegal business under Gabe's nose.
Enter Lena, an eerily attractive young woman with mysterious ties to the dead man. Under her spell, Gabe makes a decision, the consequences of which strip him naked and change the course of the life he knows - and the future he thought he wanted.
Readers and reviewers have been stunned by the breadth of humanity in Monica Ali's fiction. She is compared to Dickens and called one of three British novelists who are "the voice of a generation" by Time magazine. In the Kitchen is utterly contemporary yet has all the drama and heartbreak of a great nineteenth-century novel. Ali is sheer pleasure to read, a truly magnificent writer.62414861662009In the Kitchen: A Noveltotal:190|5:4|4:32|3:55|2:68|1:31|1904805649714falsefalseFri May 15 18:57:18 -0700 2009Sun May 24 07:55:34 -0700 2009 It is official...I give up. I tried. I kept reading, but I can't go on. I feel bad...I won this. I am a "first reader" and am starting the reviews. But, sadly, I can't give it resounding applause as a book. It felt like it was going nowhere and I got nowhere VERY ...more...]]>
20falsetrueTue May 19 00:00:00 -0700 2009Mon May 25 10:16:06 -0700 2009Mon May 25 10:35:24 -0700 2009 The only reason I marked this book as "ok" rather than "I liked it" was because I didn't get invested in the characters until about 200 pages in. I felt like I had no clue who Gabe was. He was completely one dimensional, and until about page 200...more...]]>
42falsefalseSun Apr 12 00:00:00 -0700 2009Wed Apr 08 08:50:50 -0700 2009Sun Apr 12 04:54:31 -0700 2009
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12falsefalseMon May 18 09:24:41 -0700 2009Mon May 11 16:27:57 -0700 2009Mon May 18 09:24:41 -0700 2009 It started well, with a brilliant character description, "His eyes were pale blue and disreputably alert. His hair, by contra...more...]]>
02falsefalseFri Jul 03 00:00:00 -0700 2009Thu Jun 25 17:45:01 -0700 2009Thu Jul 02 21:39:37 -0700 2009
Brick Lane breathtaking, and if anyone is deciding whether or not to read Brick Lane based on this book, i really think they should reconsider, if for no other reason that they are so different, they could be written by different authors. they really should be judged independently.
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In the Kitchen, Ali's third novel, received mixed reviews from critics who couldn't help but compare it to the brilliant Brick Lane. Interestingly, although American critics found much to reprove -- including an exasperatingly slow start, stereotypical characters, and a surfeit of moralizing t...more...]]>
55falsefalseSat Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009Fri Jul 17 16:34:37 -0700 2009Sat Aug 01 22:27:54 -0700 2009 I got the book on the strength of my great admiration for "Brick Lane," and as a writer and storyteller, Monica Ali continues to be impressive. In...more...]]>
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Kitchen Confidential , a picture of life in a high-pressure restaurant kitchen, focusing on the different cultures and backgrounds of the people who...more...]]>
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21falsefalseWed May 06 00:00:00 -0700 2009Wed Apr 08 12:41:18 -0700 2009Thu May 07 10:35:12 -0700 2009
Brick Lane A Novel (which incidentally I own but haven't read yet - that'll be moved down my TBR list!) I was expecting great things from this book. It was not as I had expected.
So what was good about it? Well the charact...more...]]>
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11falsefalseWed Aug 19 16:33:10 -0700 2009Wed Aug 19 16:48:16 -0700 2009
in the kitchen? Instead of in this guy's apartment where he molests a teenage sex slave's feet? Instead of wandering the streets on London with a member of Pa...more...]]>
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