Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

BookBrowse Reviews In the Kitchen by Monica Ali

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reading Guide |  Reviews |  Beyond the book |  Read-Alikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

In the Kitchen by Monica Ali

In the Kitchen

A Novel

by Monica Ali
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • First Published:
  • Jun 16, 2009, 448 pages
  • Paperback:
  • May 2010, 448 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About This Book

Reviews

BookBrowse:


A brilliantly written tale of a chef's descent into madness

In the Kitchen is essentially a descent-into-madness tale, and we're warned of this in the novel's very first paragraph:

When he looked back, he felt that the death of the Ukrainian was the point at which things began to fall apart… it was the following day on which, if a life can be said to have a turning point, his own began to spin.

As the story unfolds, Gabriel Lightfoot's incipient breakdown reveals its roots: his mother's manic/depressive state, his mill town upbringing, his own desperate plans to make something of himself in the world of high class London restaurants, and the changing patterns of British society due to immigration and economics.

Though written in the third person, the point of view is all Gabriel's, who has contentious relationships with everyone in his life. He suffers from a debilitating inability to communicate, and is sorely out of touch with his kitchen crew, particularly with women. To top it off, he's self-absorbed, makes bad decisions, and acts inappropriately - but his position as an Executive Chef excuses him; people expect him to be high-strung.

I can't say that Monica Ali has given us the easy read she created in Brick Lane. To spend over four hundred pages inside the mind of an unlikable man who is going down is unpleasant in the extreme, and there's not one other admirable character in this entire novel.

What is admirable is Monica Ali's writing. Some reviewers have complained of over-writing, awkward dialogue, and an imbalance between issues and story. On the contrary, Ali illuminates the detachment of modern day life through her characters, as well as the damage done by immigration policies and human trafficking. Every bit of dialogue demonstrates the missed human connections of her troubled characters, and the kitchen works as a perfect metaphor for the simmering tensions of life in twenty-first century London.

Being under so much stress, Gabriel has nightmares about the dead man found in the kitchen's catacombs, until he's barely able to sleep at all. As he begins his final descent, the writing becomes as surreal and insane as Gabriel's state of mind and speeds the reader through several days of pure madness. Watching him pretty much destroy everything he has been working towards while he inadvertently solves the mystery at the heart of the story feels like a fever breaking.

In the Kitchen is not the book for someone looking for a heartwarming or comforting read. It is disturbing, irritating, even maddening at times, but is it also brilliantly done.

Reviewed by Judy Krueger

This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in July 2009, and has been updated for the May 2010 edition. Click here to go to this issue.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked In the Kitchen, try these:

  • 26a jacket

    26a

    by Diana Evans

    Published 2006

    About This book

    A hauntingly beautiful, wickedly funny and devastatingly moving novel of innocence and dreams.

  • The Inheritance of Loss jacket

    The Inheritance of Loss

    by Kiran Desai

    Published 2006

    About This book

    More by this author

    In a crumbling, isolated house at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga lives an embittered old judge who wants to retire in peace, then his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, arrives on his doorstep. When a Nepalese insurgency in the mountains causes their lives to descend into chaos, they too are forced to confront their colliding interests. Winner of the ...

We have 4 read-alikes for In the Kitchen, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Monica Ali
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...
  • Book Jacket
    The Rest of You
    by Maame Blue
    At the start of Maame Blue's The Rest of You, Whitney Appiah, a Ghanaian Londoner, is ringing in her...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.