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darkhorse488's review
emotional
reflective
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
3.5
I have been watching a LOT of Top Chef lately and figured I would give Padma’s memoir a try that I bought on a Kindle sale for $1.99. I appreciated Padma’s candor and willingness to own her own faults and speak to some of the most difficult moments in her life (a controlling and borderline abusive step-father and ex-husband, her endometriosis, and her grief over a lover who died too soon.) She definitely has some very negative qualities on display notably her vanity and her deep attraction to much older men with a lot of money and power, but she owns these fault and doesn’t pretend to be a better person to get others to like her. I found this pretty admirable.
She’s a very good writer particularly when talking about food or her lover Teddy. I also enjoyed many of the passages about her childhood growing up in India.
My only complaint is really how much this memoir meandered. At times I felt lost because we sometimes go through big time jumps back and forth between different paragraphs and I felt a bit rudderless, but overall I enjoyed this and found it much deeper and more revealing than I expected for a celebrity memoir.
She’s a very good writer particularly when talking about food or her lover Teddy. I also enjoyed many of the passages about her childhood growing up in India.
My only complaint is really how much this memoir meandered. At times I felt lost because we sometimes go through big time jumps back and forth between different paragraphs and I felt a bit rudderless, but overall I enjoyed this and found it much deeper and more revealing than I expected for a celebrity memoir.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical content and Grief
Moderate: Emotional abuse
akswhy's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
2.5
Come for the recipes, stay for the vivid and honest descriptions of heartbreak and grief.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer, Terminal illness, Chronic illness, Pregnancy, Infidelity, Infertility, Death, Medical content, and Grief
Moderate: Domestic abuse
mariakureads's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.0
I came into this book with very little knowledge of Padma as I've only ever seen her on Top Chef so I wasn't sure what to expect with this memoir but it's definitely a combination of things.
Part memoir, part musings, part cookbook, I enjoyed the slow journey to learning more about Padma. The book has a back n forth narrative as she jumps back and forth from childhood to adulthood and all of the in-between, creating a more personal narrative which is lacking a bit of structure which I think worked well for here.
Through this book, I got to learn a lot about her, the person behind the persona and the way she talks about these moments are not just full of yearning but she is genuine and warm, full of wide-eyed wonder and skepticism and yet itching to learn more and I gravitated to that as much as I did when she started talking about the variety of food. I appreciated her candor about her relationships and her ownership of specific choices and moments which is not an easy thing to recognize much less admit.
She reads her own audiobook and I equally appreciated that as you can hear in her voice how certain moments hit her in her reading especially when talking about said relationships as well as her battle with endometriosis which I also got to learn more about through her struggle.
Part memoir, part musings, part cookbook, I enjoyed the slow journey to learning more about Padma. The book has a back n forth narrative as she jumps back and forth from childhood to adulthood and all of the in-between, creating a more personal narrative which is lacking a bit of structure which I think worked well for here.
Through this book, I got to learn a lot about her, the person behind the persona and the way she talks about these moments are not just full of yearning but she is genuine and warm, full of wide-eyed wonder and skepticism and yet itching to learn more and I gravitated to that as much as I did when she started talking about the variety of food. I appreciated her candor about her relationships and her ownership of specific choices and moments which is not an easy thing to recognize much less admit.
She reads her own audiobook and I equally appreciated that as you can hear in her voice how certain moments hit her in her reading especially when talking about said relationships as well as her battle with endometriosis which I also got to learn more about through her struggle.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Infidelity, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Death
Minor: Fatphobia and Racism
kristenm's review
emotional
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
2.0
I'm DNF-ing this at 90% unfortunately, I am bored. While Padma has lived an interesting life, most of this book was about her personal health issues (endometriosis) and her pregnancy. Neither of which I am interested in. I found the structure hard to follow as it jumped around and the chapter markings seems completely arbitrary. The parts of her personal life I was most interested in were in the first few chapters and there wasn't much about her professional life post-modeling. For me this is a shame because it's what I was most interested in.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Medical content
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