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There are currently 31 member reviews
for Feast
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Norma R. (Secaucus, NJ)
Sense of Taste
Feast is a historical novel set in the 19th century. Locations are England and France. Minha is a young woman who has an extraordinary sense of taste. Her whole life she can list every ingredient in a prepared dish. She possesses a taste memory as well. Minha gets a job as a poison taster at the castle of a rich French duke. She is treated as "parlor trick" and paraded before the guests to perform. She is a person of color and considered an outcast. Minha has some horrendous experiences but preserves. This novel provided a huge contrast between those with power and those with none. Some of the plot events were a bit predictable. Overall, I enjoyed it. The descriptions of the food and the other characters was very detailed. I felt like I was in the story.
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Mountain lover Colorado
A Disappointing Feast
While I thought that the writing of Feast was good, I found the plot to be disappointing. I have found that recently many authors use the technique of jumping back and forth in time while telling the story. Sometimes this technique is very effective when you slowly gain "little nuggets" of information about a character(s). In Feast I just found jumping back and forth in time to simply be tedious. I believe the story would have been much more effective if told linearly. I also found the plot to be very predictable. To avoid spoilers I won't give the many examples, but I will say, not once did i think, "well I didn't see that coming."
The author does an excellent job in her descriptions both of the people and of the food. I could smell and taste every dish that she described. And I could definitely visualize all of the characters.
I would recommend "Feast" to someone who would like a light read, but not to a book club that wants to dive deeply into character or plot analysis.
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Nancy Marlborough, MA
A Satisfying Read
I found the premise of "Feast" by Catherine Kurtz to be very intriguing. I looked forward to meeting Minha, a girl with the extraordinary ability to smell and taste every tiny ingredient in her food. That she was a poison taster for a French duc made me look forward to this interesting tale. There is so much to like about this book, but there were some issues for me. The descriptions of the sumptuous foods served on a regular basis were wonderful, but I found the amount of food descriptions to be overwhelming. I also wanted to read more details about Minha's and Frog's life especially how they survived their long time in hiding. Although I was happy with the ending, I found the miraculous nature of it to be a bit too much. This was, however, a satisfying read.
