Get paid to test things

• File Size: 124233 KB
• Print Length: 176 pages
• Publisher: First Second (April 2, 2013)
• Sold by: Macmillan
  
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00C3KY7TU
• Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
• X-Ray:
  Not Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #167,308 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #3
    in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Comics & Graphic Novels > Graphic Novels > Contemporary Women
  • #20
    in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Graphic Novels > Contemporary Women
  • #27
    in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Comics & Graphic Novels > Graphic Novels > Nonfiction
• #3
  in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Comics & Graphic Novels > Graphic Novels > Contemporary Women
• #20
  in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Graphic Novels > Contemporary Women
• #27
  in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Comics & Graphic Novels > Graphic Novels > Nonfiction

Relish: My Life in the Kitchen is a memoir in comic form about the authors life experiences with food. I read it over the course of a couple of nights and really enjoyed it - though I highly suggest you read it when you have delicious food in the house and not when you are in the midst of a grocery shopping drought like me. Its a little depressing to read a book about the joys of cooking and eating well when you yourself are eating Morningstar buffalo wings and whatever you can salvage from a bag of green beans. But other people plan their grocery shopping better than I do! And Knisley does spend some of her book defending the joys of fast food restaurants and Ramen soup, so I didnt feel so bad.

And honestly, Knisley is such a bright and cheerful person who draws such bright and cheerful (and colorful!) pictures and shares such bright and cheerful food stories that its impossible to feel bad when reading this book. Im a big food lover myself, so I can identify with Knisleys inability to separate places shes visited from the food shes eaten while there. And the way she talks about potluck dinners and having friends over to share a meal - I absolutely agree with her, its one of my favorite things in the world to have or attend a dinner party with close friends.

This book doesnt have a plot. It is episodic in nature, starting with Knisleys childhood first in Manhattan, and then in upstate New York, through trips to Japan and Mexico and then her college stint in Chicago. She ends each chapter with a recipe (shared in a lovely cartoon format that I thoroughly appreciated), and throughout the book she has a lot of other really interesting tips and tricks.

I slightly waffled between giving this four stars and giving it five stars. The book has some minor flaws, but none that really ruined it for me as a whole. Relish pretty much falls into the type of graphic novel Ive come to expect from this publisher: a nice alternative/indie type niche read that is of good quality.

While this is undeniably an autobiography of her life, its also a story of food. Good food, bad food, and all that falls between those two groups. Knisley utilizes an episodic format with recipes or culinary advice sandwiched inbetween the tales. Most of the story is told in a linear format, but there are one or two mentions of her childhood later in the book. This works well, as it keeps the reader from getting too bored with the minute details. After all, meals are a relatively short portion of our lives and daily routine when you get down to it (even those meals that last for a few hours), so it makes sense that the stories should only be a few pages at a time. This might frustrate some readers that want to know more about a specific time period, though. I have to say that occasionally I wanted to read more about one or two things, such as Knisleys time at college.

The artwork was something I really enjoyed and it helped out in some instances where the words couldnt entirely portray the scene alone. Now you might be thinking "but its a graphic novel- its naturally reliant upon pictures, right?" Id agree, but there are some instances in graphic novels where the scene is given a complete narration/description, but is so well depicted in the artwork that the written descriptions are superfluous and/or just a bonus extra.