#The Thick and the Lean

[haveyoureadthisscifibook]

vote yes if you have finished the entire book.

vote no if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

#scifi #books #The Thick and the Lean #Chana Porter #poll #body horror #result: no #l: English

[contracat25]

Alright I know I just posted the March one, but how about some April books! It seems like another good month! There are a lot of interesting things coming out, though Some Desperate Glory is probs what I am most exicited about because I have really enjoyed what I have read from Emily Tesh so far. As always there are a lot of other books that I didn't have room for, and I have a different set of lists for Sequels so they aren't on here. Is there anything you are exicted about coming out this month that I missed or haven't heard about yet?

Blood Debts by Terry J. Benton-Walker (4th)

Spell Bound by F.T. Lukens (4th)

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh (11th)

If I See You Again Tomorrow by Robbie Couch (18th)

The Thick and the Lean by Chana Porter (18th)

The Fiancee Farce by Alexandria Bellefleur (18th)

The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher by E.M. Anderson (21st)

The Skin and It's Girl by Sarah Cypher (25th)

Robin and Her Misfits by Kelly Ann Jacobson (25th)

#upcoming books #2023 books #booklr #upcoming releases #2023 book releases #queer sff #queer books #blood debts #terry j benton-walker #spell bound #f.t. lukens #Some desperate glory #emily tesh #lgbtq books #if I see you again tomorrow #robbie couch #the thick and the lean #chana porter #the fiancee farce #alexandria bellefleur #the skin and its girl #sarah cypher #robin and her misfits #kelly ann jacobson #ya books

[kammartinez]

The Divine Mother died for a cause. What’s the use of all our suffering?

-- The Thick and the Lean, by Chana Porter

#quotes #the thick and the lean #chana porter #books #science fiction

[theravenkin]

read the thick and the lean by chana porter and don't imagine reiko as rina sawayama challenge: impossible

#brain dump #seriously though #read it #the thick and the lean #chana porter #queer books #sci fi

[oracleofmadness]

This is a phenomenal read that creates a whole new way to view sexual and eating habits! They are something that can be compared, and a truth about one can lead to a truth about the other. This spins both issues out in much different ways than how our world typically views them.

Sex is something that is a freedom in this book. An appetite to be sated. While the joy of food and flavor is viewed as the opposite. The two main characters go through different aspects of this. I feel like the ending does a good job of summing this wild story up.

Out April 18, 2023!

#book #bookish #books #bookworm #book review #currently reading #read #bookblogger #reading #dystopia #fiction books #fantasy #The Thick and the Lean #Chana Porter #netgalley

[kamreadsandrecs]

Title: The Thick and The Lean Author: Chana Porter Genre/s: science fiction Content/Trigger Warning/s: cults, eating disorders, sexual harassment, death, murder, earthquakes, racism Summary (from author's page): In the quaint religious town of Seagate, abstaining from food brings one closer to God.

But Beatrice Bolano is hungry. She craves the forbidden: butter, flambé, marzipan. As Seagate takes increasingly extreme measures to regulate every calorie its citizens consume, Beatrice must make a choice: give up her secret passion for cooking or leave the only community she has known.

Elsewhere, Reiko Rimando has left her modest roots for a college tech scholarship in the big city. A flawless student, she is set up for success…until her school pulls her funding, leaving her to face either a mountain of debt or a humiliating return home. But Reiko is done being at the mercy of the system. She forges a third path—outside of the law.

With the guidance of a mysterious cookbook written by a kitchen maid centuries ago, Beatrice and Reiko each grasp for a life of freedom—something more easily imagined than achieved in a world dominated by catastrophic corporate greed. Buy Here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-thick-and-the-lean-chana-porter/18667830 Spoiler-Free Review: Another book that took me a while to write a review on because I had to turn over things in my head before I could get down on paper what I was thinking. Been a while since I read any of these books in succession, and I think I need more of them in my life.

Anyway: I think most people who've written reviews about this book have already mentioned how it tackles the relationship with food, and how it relates to diet culture, and how diet culture as been the basis for cultish behavior/actual cults (I like this episode from Cult Podcast about Jillian Epperly and Jilly Juice - just note that this podcast might slant more humorous than some people like while dealing with serious subject matter, and this particular episode makes liberal references to bodily functions that some people might not want to hear about in certain situations). This novel just takes it to an extreme, with an extra layer of factory town on top. Which, when you really think about it, a factory town isn't really all that different from a cult situation now, is it?

And while all that's definitely important to think about, and the book certainly puts it front and center, I was more drawn to the parallels between the two main characters, Beatrice and Reiko: specifically, how Beatrice seems to "ascend" in terms of the trajectory of her story and development, whereas Reiko's is a "descent".

It doesn't seem that way at first though. In fact, at first it feels like the opposite: Beatrice "descends", while Reiko "ascends", so to speak, when comparing the trajectories of their stories in the first third of the novel. But as the novel goes on, it becomes clear that while Beatrice's story is a "descent" in terms of her material circumstances, it is a clear "ascent" in terms of her inner life and her ability to be true to herself and the world. On the flipside, Reiko's story appears to be an "ascent" in terms of her material circumstances, but is a clear "descent" in terms of her inner life and her ability to be truthful to herself and the world.

I suspect that I derived this metaphor from the way the way the City is portrayed in the novel: as one becomes wealthier, one "ascends" through the layers of society until one lives in the air itself, like an angel whose feet never touch the ground. But that kind of ascent is not necessarily good for one's soul; sometimes you have to touch grass in order to be a better person, instead of being so detached from the world that you forget it - and everyone else living in it - exists, and become absorbed entirely in nothing but your own personal concerns.

While these comparisons are of course interesting, and highlight different aspects of the world in the novel (as well as similar ideas that are happening in the real world right now), I found myself wishing that Reiko's story had been given the space of an entirely different book. Not to say that it's badly-told, or that it's a bad story; I just think that it doesn't rest as comfortably alongside Beatrice's story as I would like. While the themes and concerns of their stories do have some overlaps, I truly feel like Reiko's story is a completely separate beast from Beatrice's, and deserves to have its own room to breathe, as it were. Maybe this book could have been done as a pair of matched novellas, as opposed to one whole novel? This is just my own thought of course, since the author knows what they want to do with their book and it's not my place to tell them how to execute the story they want to tell.

That being said: I liked the uncertainty of their respective endings. The novel talks a lot about change and how to bring it about: whether that's change in oneself, or change in the world around oneself, and the uncertain endings for both Beatrice and Reiko are a reminder of how such change never really comes into being unless one continues to do the work. It's also a reminder that though stories end, life continues: it doesn't stop moving just because the storyteller decided to write "The End" at the bottom of the page. It's an important reminder, I think, to people who are on the front lines of initiating and creating change in the world: sometimes the ending of one story is just the beginning of another, and with that comes all the potential for change and uncertainty as one would expect from the start of any story.

So overall, this was a great read: the language in particular is lovely, especially where it focuses on food descriptions. However, I think it bites off a bit more than it can chew. Beatrice’s story is great, and Reiko’s story is great, and the idea of using The Kitchen Girl to both world-build and connect their two disparate stories is pretty damn cool, but I rather think their stories are distinct enough that they need to be told entirely separately. I say this specifically in reference to Reiko's story, which i think could have been more justice if it just had a bit more room to breathe. The attempt to encompass so many themes - diet culture as religion; the sublime experience of the senses through food; being true oneself despite the potential consequences; sacrificing oneself in order to achieve stability and security in life; the effects of climate change; classism; racism; colonialism - this book tries to get them all in there and doesn’t quite let all those themes really breathe. I rather admire the attempt, but again I wish each of those ideas had been given a bit more room to really expand.

Rating: four plums

#book review #book reviews #science fiction #the thick and the lean #chana porter #books

[bookcoversonly]

Title: The Thick and the Lean | Author: Chana Porter | Publisher: Gallery / Saga Press (2023)

#books #The Thick and the Lean #Chana Porter

[readsofawe]

#readsofawe photo challenge: Fall Vibes

The Thick and the Lean is the newest release by one of my favorite authors! In a world where sexuality is normalized but eating for pleasure is taboo, one girl finds herself deeply hungry. Which is relatable, tbh.

#readsofawe #books #jewish #jewish books #judaism #rosh hashanah #yom kippur #days of awe #readathon #amreading #the thick and the lean

[mjackdaw]

finished The Thick and the Lean yesterday and overall found it really engaging and an enjoyable read. I do really like when speculative & dystopic lit give me food details to latch onto and this one had a lot of them.

the main criticism I saw on goodreads was that the plot went off the tracks by the third part, and I did feel that in some way but the other critique I have is that the allegories for irl oppression were so consistent and so accurate/specific to various 2020s experiences / themes / examples of microaggressions with just different sci fi nouns with find and replace done to them that I found it a bit immersion breaking. not because the depiction of it didn’t fit with the narrative but because it was so consistent and so one-to-one that since I realized I could map everything to an irl example, it made me want to spend time trying to decode the book’s cypher.

I don’t think it was like, a universally bad strategy to writing this story but like, it was something I chewed on a bit while reading it

would love to try and unspool some thoughts w/ someone who has read it.

if you haven’t and are interested, heads up that it is very much like, a disordered eating based dystopia for a lot of the book so content warning for that.

-M

#the thick and the lean #I got a bookwyrm account a while ago that I should use now that I read more

[nixthelapin]

You know, I liked Lila as a character much better when she was just a lonely girl who lied to get attention and clout rather than some evil mastermind who somehow has three (3) different identities and has a secret lair in the catacombs under Paris.

But the writing team doesn’t want to hear that.

#not to mention how most of her lies suck and everyone’s iq takes a plummet whenever she does #honestly she should’ve been done once the whole ‘framing Marinette and getting her expelled’ thing was done #she literally tells the principal that she has a disease that makes her lie uncontrollably still no one doubts anything she says #wtf #the plot armor is thick with this one #she had no business being in s4 or 5 #especially once Alya leaned Marinette was Ladybug #miraculous #mlb #miraculous ladybug #adrien agreste #marinette #marinette dupain cheng #lila rossi #volpina #ml salt #ml writing critical #ml writing criticism #lila salt

[kammartinez]

Only a fool doesn’t notice when they’re happy.

-- The Thick and the Lean, by Chana Porter

#quotes #the thick and the lean #chana porter #books #science fiction

[buckttommy]

One thing that was very interesting to me in this episode is the way Eddie was just... not joking about Buck's love interests.

That stuck out.

Usually when Eddie talks to Buck about his love interests, it's with an edge of fond exasperation, teasing laced around his gently delivered truths, but there was none of that this episode. Buck told Eddie he went to see Natalia and it was like something switched. Eddie's entire affect changed when Buck started talking about Natalia. He went from being loose and easy (as loose and easy as one can get when standing at a grave) to being... not combative, necessarily, but visibly actively not wanting to engage in conversation about her either, and it's not...

It's not even jealousy!! We joke a lot about Eddie and jealousy, but it wasn't that at all. It was a fatigue that comes with silence, that comes with holding your tongue, that comes with keeping secrets. Especially when Buck said that he feels like Natalia sees him. That look Eddie gave him immediately after? That was pure hurt. That was him saying I see you too, I've always seen you. But he can't say that. He can't say that, because to say that would be to say so many other things about the way he sees Buck, and to say so many other things would mean to have to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth about the ONE thing he's been holding onto ever since he was shot.

I don't know. I don't know, but I think Eddie taking Buck on a date and I think about how Eddie left his son—his heart—in Buck's care so they could bake cookies together (which becomes profoundly more significant in an episode where Christopher was talking about baking smores with his mom), and I think about Kenny saying Ryan has been doing some very nuanced work in the back half of this season, I'm like

Oh. Oh. I see it, thank you. Loud and clear.

#Before 5B I was like 'Eddie's pining era Eddie's pining era WHEN?' #but babes we are right in the thick of it. It's in his eyes. It's in his smile. It's in the way he looks Buck #in the way he treats him. In the way he creates space for his confusion for his fatigue for his grief. #In the way he shows quiet support and a stern shoulder to lean upon #In the way he doesn't burden Buck with his own feelings (even though that's mostly selfish on his part because #no part of Eddie will ever be a burden on Buck but Eddie doesn't know that yet) #It's just. Eddie's feelings for Buck are literally in *everything* he says and everything he does #It bleeds from him just like his blood did on that street. #If everything about Buck/Eddie's lives have been shrouded by the shooting since it happened #everything about their lives has *also* been shrouded by Eddie's enormous and unflinching love for him #and he keeps holding his breath and swallowing it down and putting off the moment where he pulls back the lid #and it all spills out and before he knows it... before he knows it #it's going to be too late. And instead of his blood staining the street it's going to be Buck's and he's going to tell him #but he won't hear him because Eddie was too slow too fucking slow #(did we all peep the watch on his wrist? Yeah. Time is running out Eddie. Time is running out and it is not going to #wait for fear to release its hold on you. Buck's not going to cheat death again. Don't waste time babe) #Anyways. Yeah. YEAH. Yeah....... whew. This episode was a Lot #jack.txt #tv: 911 #911: 06 x 15 #911 spoilers

[corrodedcoughin]

It is of my opinion that Eddie would actually have a killer falsetto which Steve discovers when he walks into the trailer kitchen to find eddie singing along to the radio playing you make me feel like dancing while waltzing (surprisingly well) with an upside down mop

#Steve is leaning up against the counter arms crossed and smiling just watching #until eddie notices and when he does he shields his ‘dancing partner’ and stage whispers to it ‘DONT worry my love. he will never separate #us. our love is too strong. he is but a jealous voyeur’ #and Pretends to make out with the mop head complimenting the ‘thick and lucious hair. much better than anyone in hawkins’ #Steve feels like his heart is going to burst with how much he wants to kiss the smile that Eddie is fighting Down #they aren’t even dating (YET) #Eddie recounts the whole thing to Wayne later that night because he needs boy advice and Wayne may be exasperated but he is supportive #mayhaps I should have put those tags in the main post… #alas I cannot be bothered #go listen to Leo sayer #and wham rap because it’s fun #stranger things #eddie munson #steddie #steve harrington

[kamreadsandrecs]

Each morning, ask yourself: If I too am mostly water, In which direction shall I flow?

-- The Thick and the Lean, by Chana Porter

#quotes #the thick and the lean #chana porter #books #science fiction

[laesas]

I don't know how much more explicit the message of "THIS IS GROOMING" could have been without Be On Cloud superimposing it in all-caps text over every one of Non and his teacher's scenes. People interpreting that as "cheating" are cracked in the fucking head.

#dead friend forever #dff the series #barcode fucking killed those scenes!!! the desperation and discomfort and resignation!?!! #the fact that Non was textually terrified of dying at the hands of Tee's uncles gang unless he found that money #and once he accepted it and Keng held that power over him did he lean in to kiss him. #theres a reason that even universoty professors are fired for having relationships with their ADULT students. #because holding a position of institutional power over someone like that in a relationship is deeply deeply disfunctional and bad #do you think that if you were a child that felt they had literally nowhere else to turn. not to parents. or friends. or partner. #and a teacher said they would fix all your problems in a room with a closed door and kissed you. #you wouldnt feel obligated to kiss back and offer yourself up in exchange??? #because what?? you're too moral??? you'd rather die??? #THIS IS HOW GROOMING HAPPENS. ITS ADULTS SEEKING OUT THE MOST VULNERABLE PEOPLE IN THEIR CLASSES AND HOLDING SOMETHING OVER THEM. #IF I SEE ANYONE CALLING NON A CHEATER AGAIN I AM GOING TO KILL. #ITS STATUTORY RAPE. YOU THICK FUCKS. #KENG MADE HIM KEEP HIS SCHOOL UNIFORM ON. HE'S A FUCKING PEDOPHILE. #IM GOING TO KILL. #AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA SOME OF YALL ARE THE STUPIDEST MOTHERFUCKERS AROUND. YOURE STUPID. YOURE SO FUCKING DUMB. GODDDDDDDDDDDDD