Stephanie Danler

A thrilling novel of the senses and a coming-of-age tale, following a small-town girl into the electrifying world of New York City and the education of a lifetime at one of the most exclusive restaurants in Manhattan. Perfect for readers of Kitchen Confidential and Blood, Bones and Butter.

Twenty-two, and knowing no one, Tess leaves home to begin her adult life in New York City. Thus begins a year that is both enchanting and punishing, in a low-level job at "the best restaurant in New York City." Grueling hours and a steep culinary learning curve awaken her to the beauty of oysters, the finest Champagnes, the appellations of Burgundy. At the same time, she opens herself to friendships--and love--set against the backdrop of dive bars and late nights. As her appetites sharpen--for food and wine, but also for knowledge, experience, and belonging--Tess is drawn into a darkly alluring love triangle that will prove to be her most exhilarating and painful lesson of all.

Stephanie Danler deftly conjures the nonstop and purely adrenalized world of the restaurant--conversations interrupted, phrases overheard, and suggestions below the surface. Evoking the infinite possibility of being young in New York with heart-stopping accuracy, Sweetbitter is ultimately about the power of what remains after disillusionment, and the wisdom that comes from experience, sweet and bitter.

Sweetbitter

A thrilling novel of the senses and a coming-of-age tale, following a small-town girl into the electrifying world of New York City and the education of a lifetime at one of the most exclusive restaurants in Manhattan. Perfect for readers of Kitchen Confidential and Blood, Bones and Butter.

Twenty-two, and knowing no one, Tess leaves home to begin her adult life in New York City. Thus begins a year that is both enchanting and punishing, in a low-level job at “the best restaurant in New York City.” Grueling hours and a steep culinary learning curve awaken her to the beauty of oysters, the finest Champagnes, the appellations of Burgundy. At the same time, she opens herself to friendships—and love—set against the backdrop of dive bars and late nights.  As her appetites sharpen—for food and wine, but also for knowledge, experience, and belonging—Tess is drawn into a darkly alluring love triangle that will prove to be her most exhilarating and painful lesson of all.
 
Stephanie Danler deftly conjures the nonstop and purely adrenalized world of the restaurant—conversations interrupted, phrases overheard, and suggestions below the surface. Evoking the infinite possibility of being young in New York with heart-stopping accuracy, "Sweetbitter" is ultimately about the power of what remains after disillusionment, and the wisdom that comes from experience, sweet and bitter.

A Novel

"You will see it coming. Not you actually because you don't see for your self yet, everyone is busy seeing for you, days filled with unsolicited advice you don't take and trite warnings you can't hear and the whitewashing of all your excitement. Yes, they definitely saw it coming, exactly the way it came.

When you're older you will know that at some unconscious level not only did you see it coming, but you created it, in your own blind, stumbling way. You will console yourself with the fact that it wouldn't have mattered, seeing it or not seeing it. You were a sponge for incident. Maybe everyone is when they're young. They don't remember, nobody remembers what it feels like to be so recklessly absorbent.

When you can't see in front of you life is nothing but surprises. Looking back, there were truly so few of them.

abi a

Elisavet Rozaki 

Good writing here and there, but no plot whatsoever.

azliana aziz

let me be that person who shitpost about other thing in other people's turf. 

go read this book http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20... instead of this.

Kristin Boren

Very fast and very gossipy. I wouldn't know but feels like a realistic picture of serving work.

Hannah Yang

Sweetbitter has been on my to-read list for ages and I really wanted to love it because it contains a particularly niche combination of things that I like in books: fine dining, coming of age in New York City, pretentious artisté-y waiters and waitresses / 'found family' esque camaraderie, pretentious references, experimental writing snippets, girl-who-feels-perpetually-on-the-outside-of-a-mysterious-relationship-slash-power-dynamic.... and atmospherically, this book is great. This book feels how I wanted it to feel (maybe simultaneously a little grittier and a little more pretentious, but most of the time, it gets it right).

At the same time, there really is no plot and the intrigue of the characters and their dynamics is eventually overshadowed by the fact that they are not that interesting. Such a story would work if we could understand why Tess is so completely enamored, why Simone and Jake are so 'magnetic' to her, but eventually she began to feel a little pathetic -- which was perhaps the point / was acknowledged by Tess herself, but there is very little 'redemption' thereafter. Over time, the whole book begins to feel slightly unbearable. I feel like Stephanie Danler could be great at writing short stories on a similar subject matter.

Kelly Wynne

"Danler’s descriptions of New York are something to be coveted by authors everywhere, and her food and wine writing is one of the reasons why Sweetbitter was so successful. Her personal experience shines through and makes the storyline feels so realistic. It’s an easy book to fall into, one you’ll never want to let go of. "

Read more here: http://www.justcutthebullshit.com/hom...

I honestly can’t tell if i liked this book or hated it. It started off really slow and honestly doesn’t really have a plot line but i also wasn’t really bored while reading it either. 

Tori Albin

Why is Tess’s name not mentioned until page 216?

Margo Koss

A thrilling novel of the senses and a coming-of-age tale, following a small-town girl into the electrifying world of New York City and the education of a lifetime at one of the most exclusive restaurants in Manhattan.

Newly arrived in New York City, twenty-two-year-old Tess lands a job working front of house at a celebrated downtown restaurant. What follows is her education: in champagne and cocaine, love and lust, dive bars and fine dining rooms, as she learns to navigate the chaotic, enchanting, punishing life she has chosen.

The story of a young woman’s coming-of-age, set against the glitzy, grimy backdrop of New York’s most elite restaurants, in Sweetbitter Stephanie Danler deftly conjures the nonstop and high-adrenaline world of the food industry and evokes the infinite possibilities, the unbearable beauty, and the fragility and brutality of being young and adrift.

Catherine Duplessis

This book feels like a very drunk night and a very bad hangover on repeat. I think my main complaint is that it's too much self-sabotage for me to really enjoy (the end made me so angry and disappointed). I kept wanted to do something else rather than read more of this very messy life unfortunately.

Alexa M

Micah

A great example of how you don't have to have glamourous dreams, and, sometimes, you just want to be a good waitress and enjoy life.

Kendall Mermuys

** spoiler alert **
           Okay so I liked this book a lot. I think the story took a long long time to pick up. At least the heat of it all. I felt like the story didn’t full make much sense until you got into the Winter section and the spring. I did really like the language used in this book. I felt like I was at a fancy restaurant and that things were being placed in front of me, even when they discussion had nothing at all to do with food.

Amy Thibodeau

Overwrought, heartfelt, and in the end it seemed to be about a man. I didn't like that there were two assholes in this book, but only the female character was made out to be the villain. 

Felt a bit like grad school writing and could have used some help from an editor to cut, rearrange, and smooth out the edges. Still, Danler is promising and this is a reasonably solid debut.

Alexandra Sklar

Conflicted here- I really enjoyed it, but that could be because of my comfort reading about food and kitchens. She used some interesting construction and character development techniques that were effective, but made me uncomfortable....the characters were deliberately distanced from the reader.

Emily Pauls

books with realist endings have a special place in my heart, this one will forever be a favorite

Arianna M

I wish this had been more, that it had gone deeper into the characters (namely, Tess, the narrator). A lot of this book is surface, yet some bits of introspection here and there were great, and I kept chasing them throughout- I was hooked in the first chapter by a few such paragraphs.

(A part of me wishes this book had been as sapphic as the title promised me, but it would've had to be a different book.)

The bestselling novel about a young woman's coming-of-age, set against the glitzy, grimy backdrop of New York's most elite restaurants. Now A STARZ Original Series.

Newly arrived in New York City, twenty-two-year-old Tess lands a job as a "backwaiter" at a celebrated downtown Manhattan restaurant. What follows is the story of her education: in champagne and cocaine, love and lust, dive bars and fine dining rooms, as she learns to navigate the chaotic, enchanting, punishing life she has chosen. As her appetites awaken--for food and wine, but also for knowledge, experience, and belonging--Tess finds herself helplessly drawn into a darkly alluring love triangle. In "Sweetbitter", Stephanie Danler deftly conjures with heart-stopping accuracy the nonstop and high-adrenaline world of the restaurant industry and evokes the infinite possibilities, the unbearable beauty, and the fragility and brutality of being young in New York.

I wish the book would’ve just focused on Tess and her growing at her job and finding herself amidst her new chapter in life and her relationship to Simone, that would’ve been more satisfactory to me personally. Those were my favourite bits of the book. But that is unfortunately overwhelmed by Tess’ annoying personality and her endless envy of Simone and Jake. I just wished that aspect would’ve been left out altogether.

dascha

Amy Vicknair

A rare case when the show was much better than the book. Heard the show was canceled so i thought I’ll read the book to see if it ties anything up. It doesn’t and I had to plowed through for no pay off

Fraser Simons

I’m a sucker for coming-of-age stories and subcultures. This book is completely for me. People on alternate schedules. Vivid descriptive writing. Clearly the product of MFA writing. Goodbye Hemingway and thank god for it.

The problem is I have seen the TV show first, and the show actually takes what works in this and does it better. The best plot beats and lines of dialogue have already made an impression. The adaptation also wisely makes this less white girl and further fleshes out a lot of the minor characters. And what was changed completely is, again, better than what we find here.

The prose work is also a bit uneven here. The voice not quite solidified. In a way, this works well because our girl is coming into her own. She alternates between whiney adolescence and articulating really poignant and emotive interpretations of what is occurring. But the this works a little too well. Waiting for her to grow up or describe something interesting is about as captivating as it sounds. 

But the aftertaste (hah) of this is still pleasant. It may not fully succeed at either angle, but it does do a pretty good at both and is one of the more interesting intersections. By no means is this a bad book. I think if I had read it first the show might be somewhat diminished, aside from the plot changes. That’s how good it is when it nails some lines. Some books never hit on something that good.

Jenna

Well I finished Sweetbitter in two days flat and I loved every second of it. The story, the nostalgia of being your early 20s and starting somewhere new, the nostalgia I somehow feel for NYC despite never having lived there... strong feelings, people. I felt all of the things.

And like, no, I probably won’t quit my life and work in a restaurant, but the messed up yet familial-feeling relationships in this book kind of made me want to?

This book just worked for me. The writing took me there and I deeply cared for the characters. I’ve heard it’s not for everyone and many people seem to loathe this book, but I just loved it.

Angbeen Abbas

the writing style is far too MFA-esque for me to enjoy. feels like a parody of itself at times. white ppl coming of age stories are really boring to me at this point.

Hannah Riddle

Overall a very confusing book with not much of a plot. Not so much about a girl learning to love New York, as it is a girl growing up in a restaurant.

A thrilling novel of the senses and a coming-of-age tale, following a small-town girl into the electrifying world of New York City and the education of a lifetime at one of the most exclusive restaurants in Manhattan.

Newly arrived in New York City, twenty-two-year-old Tess lands a job working front of house at a celebrated downtown restaurant. What follows is her education: in champagne and cocaine, love and lust, dive bars and fine dining rooms, as she learns to navigate the chaotic, enchanting, punishing life she has chosen.

The story of a young woman’s coming-of-age, set against the glitzy, grimy backdrop of New York’s most elite restaurants, in "Sweetbitter" Stephanie Danler deftly conjures the nonstop and high-adrenaline world of the food industry and evokes the infinite possibilities, the unbearable beauty, and the fragility and brutality of being young and adrift.

Sweetbitter

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