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Beatrice hungers for luxurious foods, but her strict religious sect praises those that go hungry. She’s expected to take pills to suppress her appetite and stabilize her moods but chooses to avoid them. All she wants is to be a chef and prepare delicious meals for those who want to eat solid food, and to do this without shame. In a moment of vulnerability, she shares her desire with her girlfriend, who rips her recipe book and heart to shreds. Beatrice runs away that very night, to a woman who gave her the freedom to copy recipes from books surreptitiously. That woman helps her escape the cult and train to be a chef.

Reiko is from one of the poorest sections of the city, the Bastion. She receives a scholarship to an expensive school, where she can study skills to make her marketable. Her computer engineering skills are particularly good and she decides this will be her career path. Her grades are stellar, but the school pulls her scholarship, leaving her with either a mountain of debt or going home in shame. She chooses to use her skills to skim money from her rich roommate. From there, she steals her way higher and higher up in society.

Both women get their hands on a forbidden book: The Kitchen Girl. This book is the basis for the Flesh Martyr religion and forbidden because the ideas have been bastardized into people starving themselves to be closer to God.

While both women lead remarkably different lives, they cross paths and bond over the book.

The author’s narrative style is sumptuous, describing rich foods and fine clothes in such a way that I could taste and feel them. I loved the author’s first book, The Seep, and am thrilled that this book is equally good, if not better.

The worldbuilding is incredible and beautifully woven into the story. The author takes dieting to an extreme, demonstrates the difference between the wealthiest class and the poorest, and ties everything together with a theme of nourishment, finding oneself, and societal expectations based on class.

I loved this novel so much I’d read it again, just to immerse myself in the world for a while longer.