Life From Scratch: A Memoir of Food, Family and Forgiveness by Sasha Martin Review

Title: Life From Scratch: A Memoir of Food, Family and Forgiveness
Author: Sasha Martin
Age Group: Adult
Genre: Nonfiction; memoir
Series: N/A
Star Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

This book was given to me by the publisher, National Geographic, through Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

I love memoirs, but particularly, I love memoirs about food. I could read food porn all day. Even though I live in Ohio, (I know, not a very big place for haute cuisine. Lol.) food is one of my great loves. That's initially why I was drawn to this book in the first place, and I loved it.

Life From Scratch is told in a strange manner--it jumps all over the place, but it seems fitting of Martin, a young woman trying to find her own place in the world. Food has always been her anchor through all the thick and thin of her life, and it shows. But what touched me most about this book is how blisteringly honest it was.

Martin lays bare her entire life for the reader to see: the eclectic chaos of her childhood, particularly her mother. She doesn't have a normal family--in fact, she is sent to live with her mother's close friends until she is eighteen. She pulls no punches, honesty and raw pain bleeding from every word for most of the book. I really loved the way she was so frank--because if a memoir isn't frank, it isn't real, and it turns me off.

The food, too: the food descriptions were absolutely to die for. And she grows with it. Creating a blog to cook the world's various foods, she finds some semblance of peace, and happiness, even as she waits for it all to shatter. I really related to her; what person doesn't want to find a place where they belong? The bottom line: A searing, raw memoir full of love, honesty, and emotional turmoil, Life From Scratch is a gem of a memoir--recommended for readers of Julie and Julia and the like! Next on deck: Mortal Enchantment by Stacey O'Neale!

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