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Heartburn
276 pages
A razor-sharp, laugh-out-loud chronicle of a collapsing marriage that proves the best revenge is a perfectly executed vinaigrette.
What it feels like
Reading this novel feels like sitting in a cozy, slightly messy kitchen at midnight, drinking wine with your most brilliant, brutally honest friend as she spills the details of her spectacular life implosion. The pace is brisk and conversational, driven by a voice that is simultaneously heartbroken and hilariously sharp. It is a masterclass in turning personal tragedy into comedic gold, balancing the raw, humiliating sting of betrayal with the comforting, tactile rituals of cooking. The prose is effortless and confessional, peppered with actual recipes that serve as emotional anchors amidst the chaos. It will absolutely delight readers who appreciate wry, self-deprecating humor and who know that sometimes the only way to survive a shattered heart is to laugh at the absurdity of it all while eating a really good bowl of mashed potatoes.
- Mood
- bittersweet
- intimate
- cathartic
- chaotic
- Tone
- wry
- confessional
- darkly comedic
- sharp
- self-deprecating
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- betrayal and heartbreak · the absurdity of marriage · finding solace in food · female resilience · the performance of domesticity
- The writing
- Razor-sharp, conversational, and effortlessly witty, reading like a late-night phone call with your smartest friend.
- The arc
- From the shock and humiliation of sudden betrayal through messy, chaotic grief, arriving finally at a place of wry acceptance and self-reliance.
- Who it's for
- Readers who love their heartbreak served with a side of biting humor, culinary comfort, and unapologetic female rage.
Content notes
- infidelity
- divorce
- gaslighting
About the book
Is it possible to write a sidesplitting novel about the breakup of the perfect marriage? If the writer is Nora Ephron, the answer is a resounding yes. For in this inspired confection of adultery, revenge, group therapy, and pot roast, the creator of Sleepless in Seattle reminds us that comedy depends on anguish as surely as a proper gravy depends on flour and butter.
Seven months into her pregnancy, Rachel Samstat discovers that her husband, Mark, is in love with another woman. The fact that the other woman has "a neck as long as an arm and a nose as long as a thumb and you should see her legs" is no consolation. Food sometimes is, though, since Rachel writes cookbooks for a living. And in between trying to win Mark back and loudly wishing him dead, Ephron's irrepressible heroine offers some of her favorite recipes. Heartburn is a sinfully delicious novel, as soul-satisfying as mashed potatoes and as airy as a perfect soufflé.
Description from Open Library.
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