I liked reading this book because it was about normal people over multiple generations, living their normal lives. It reminds you that everyone can be interesting, family is interesting, and sometimes it is hard to find out what makes people tick. This book kind of made me want to write about my own family. :)

However, at times the book was hard to read because it was written in a stream-of-consciousness style. Sometimes the writing suffered from lack of punctuation, and I think even a bit of editing in the format (large spaces or borders between stories) could have made it more clear. An inclusion of a family tree would have helped immensely in keeping track of who was who, and what everyone's names and nicknames were. ( )

Great, great read full of weirdness, wisdom, wit and good food. ( )

In this book there area lot of names & it gets very hard to follow them at points. But I found this didn't matter - what their role in the family was wasn't the important part, it was the impact they had on the writer & her life. Volk has brought together key family tales & memories to paint a picture of the unit she grew up being a part of. Its the first book in a while to make me cry & really think about certain things in my own relationships, so while it may not have broken any literary ground, it touched me. ( )

I thought this memoir would be about running a restaurant, full of funny and perhaps poignant anecdotes. But it's really about love and family relationships. The chapters on her father are especially touching and memorable. I'm very glad I read this work. ( )

Too much family. Not enough food. ( )