I Can Cook, Too! (Book Review: The Girls' Guide To Love And Supper Clubs, Dana Bate)

I thought Dana Bate's novel "The Girls' Guide To Love And Supper Clubs" was about a jazz singer - I have this habit of reading synopses after starting books - but maybe I had paid closer attention to the cover I would have noticed a nice cupcake prominently featured, giving me a clue that this novel would be about food/cooking. Well, turns out it is, and isn't. Its about Hannah Sugarman, who works at one of those government agency offices but whose real passion is cooking. Hannah is one of those "quirky" characters, so she is self-deprecating, clumsy, you know traits that authors use to make someone more "real" and easier to relate to. I found her borderline annoying and unlikeable, but not too bad that I wanted to stop reading. She gets put in situations that are all her doing, so you sometimes cannot help but feel unsympathetic towards her. But she has a warm narrator tone, so it's bearable. This is a nice summer read, sugary with just a bit of acid thrown in. Plus, I kind of liked that the book had a local flavor. Bate obviously is in love with the District of Columbia and it shows in how she describes her surroundings.

BC-42