They said:-
SUPPER CLUB by Lara Williams is publishing in paperback on the 16th July. This is a joyful, empowering story about speaking up, fighting back, and reclaiming your space. It is really wonderful lockdown reading. At a time where people are exploring the escape, comfort and joy of eating and cooking more than ever, Supper Club’s visceral and seductive exploration of the psychology and pleasure of food will be the perfect companion.
Twenty-nine year old Roberta has spent her whole life hungry - until the day she invents Supper Club. Supper Club is a secret society for hungry women. Women who are sick of bad men and bad sex, of hinted expectations to be thinner, smile more, talk less. So they gather at night to feast and drink and dance, seeking the answer to a simple question: if you feed a starving woman, what will she grow into? This is a story about the hunger that never goes away. It is a story about friendship, food and female rage. Above all, it is about the people who make us who we are – who lead us astray and ultimately save us.
Lara Williams is the author of the short story collection Treats, which was shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize, the Edinburgh First Book Award and the Saboteur Awards and longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Her debut novel Supper Club has been translated into five languages, won the Guardian 'Not the Booker' Prize and was listed as a Book of the Year 2019 by TIME, Vogue and other publications. Lara Williams lives in Manchester and is a contributor to the Guardian, Independent, Times Literary Supplement, Vice, Dazed and others.
What I thought:-
At first, this story and Roberta reminded me of Eleanor Oliphant: someone adrift in their own life. Then I was reminded of "I May Destroy You", and Michaela Coel's character, Arabella. These resemblances were not strong, but there is something of a theme, perhaps a sort of coming of age story. We emerge into the world at eighteen or twenty-one, independent and responsible for ourselves, but it is in our twenties that we really explore who we are and what we want from our lives. This is an extraordinary, genre-defying book, with its themes of self-exploration, identity and appetite, learning what we want and need and being ready to commit to a path. It is also about family and friendship, and how sexuality fits in. Roberta learns to feel entitled to seek what she wants and the agency to say no to what is not right for her. She explores her place in the world and her right to take up that space. And there is also food, glorious food aplenty: but can there be too much of a good thing? I very much enjoyed reading this tale.
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