A review by amysbrittain
الشيف by Jaspreet Singh

2.0

Ehhhhhh. This one left me cold. Only one relationship felt real and full, and it was between virtual strangers. I liked the book's detail of cooking and Indian cuisine, but the constant, endless rumination on a small portion of the military and its poltics and personal vendettas re: India-Pakistan-Kashmir battles...ai yi yi. Didn't hold my interest. The main character felt like merely a vehicle for watching things happen around him; he wasn't inherently interesting and didn't do anything himself. His obsession with his extremely disturbed, dangerous, and malicious chef mentor made me want to close the book in disgust by the end.