It's my turn on the Blogtour The Yellow Kitchen by Margaux Vialleron. 'Expectation meets Julie & Julia, The Yellow Kitchen is a brilliant exploration of food, belonging and friendship.'
Margaux Vialleron is a French-born, London-based writer, self-taught cook and co-host of the The Salmon Pink Kitchen book club, culinary community and podcast. The Yellow Kitchen is her first novel.
Find out more at her website margauxvialleron.com or connect with her on Twitter and Instagram @margauxvlln.
About the book
London E17, 2019. A yellow kitchen stands as a metaphor for the lifelong friendship between three women: Claude, the baker, goal-orientated Sophie and political Giulia. They have the best kind of friendship, chasing life and careers; dating, dreaming and consuming but always returning to be reunited in the yellow kitchen.
That is, until a trip to Lisbon unravels unexplored desires between Claude and Sophie. Having sex is one thing, waking up the day after is the beginning of something new. Exploring the complexities of female friendship, The Yellow Kitchen is a hymn to the last year of London as we knew it and a celebration of the culture, the food and the rhythms we live by.
It's an interesting one. I think it's the kind of story that every reader - specifically women, will relate to - or not, through their own frame of reference. A very specific frame of reference - the relationship and bond between daughters and mothers.
On the periphery it's also about friendships, close friendships between women, especially long-term ones. The author captures an often overlooked and forgotten aspect of close friendships, when the boundaries of the bonds are slightly adjusted, which can solidify or make them slowly dissipate. The author also captures the minutiae of interactions, micro aggressions, passive aggressive subconscious moves. When two become three it can become a ticking timebomb of emotions.
Claude, Sophie and Giulia ultimately find themselves exploring their own identity, their first bond with another woman, and in a strange way a second sort of coming-of-age. When a woman enters an age of reflection and introspection, when the similarities between the mother and evident in the woman the daughter has become.
The writing style reminded me at times of flash fiction or performance art - many messages and thoughts thrown out into the universe in the hopes that some will provoke, others will make you pause and think. I found it refreshing and innovative.
Buy The Yellow Kitchen at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher : Simon & Schuster UK; pub date 7 July 2022 | Hardback | £14.99. Buy at Amazon com. Buy via Simon and Schuster.
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