All in all a disappointment. I was expecting to read a romance/chick lit type book and it was all over the place. The hero in this one (Nate) really sucked. And the heroine (Melanie) wasn't great either. Other reviewers complained about the constant speech making by everyone involved and I have to agree. Real people do not speak like this. Ballis definitely knows her way around a stove though. The recipes that she included sounded awesome and were honestly the only reason why I gave this one 3 stars. 

"Good Enough to Eat" follows former lawyer Melanie who is now a gourmet chef. She cooks healthy food after finally dieting and exercising her way to a healthier weight. Now she's dealing with being single after her ex-husband leaves her for her former boss (who is heavier than Melanie used to be). Melanie is trying to figure out how to get her life together due to money issues and comes across a younger woman (Nadia) who she ends up employing and living with who has secrets of her own. Melanie meets a new guy (Nate) who honestly is the type of guy that would write into Reddit's Am I The Asshole (AITA) thread and act as if he did nothing wrong and wonders why women are so emotional.

I initially found Melanie to be pretty interesting, but after a while I got tired of her. I just lost 12 pounds (and counting) and have been exercising about 5 days a week. I somehow have managed to be around normal food and people eating fried things and drinking and have not turned into a self righteous ass. Melanie is obsessed with food and her going on about calories and wanting to eat a vat of mashed potatoes honestly started driving me up the wall. She seems to need a therapist badly and is using her nutritionist, her friends, her sister, and even Nate to be that for her. The character is set up to be constantly second guessing herself. It doesn't help that she looks down upon other people a lot (see Nadia) and I just didn't get why anyone acted like she was this really good friend. I have enemies I am on better terms with.

Nate, the love interest, just sucked. He's an investigator/documentary/director person. Yeah, I am not looking that back up. He starts seeing Melanie and honestly his family sounds better than he is. He's self-absorbed and judgmental as hell. He and Melanie snark on Nadia and her relationship with her boyfriend. They honestly should work romance wise since they are both kind of nasty at times, but Melanie draws the line when Nate does something that directly affects Nadia. I mean not enough to stop seeing his terrible ass though.

I honestly wish that the book had focused more on Nadia. She's more mature than Melanie and doesn't judge people based on outward appearances. Her backstory will break your heart and I wonder if Ballis has ever followed up on her in her subsequent books.

The other secondary characters talk like cliches (see Kai).

The writing could have worked I think if it had focused more on Melanie's weight loss journey and subsequent single life. I think following her post that just didn't work since she has a lot of other issues she needs to work through as well. The recipes starting each chapter (almost I think) were really cool. I liked the memories behind things that Melanie was sharing with readers. I eat certain things and they remind me of my mother (spaghetti, lasagna, beef stroganoff, fried chicken, and cake). 

The flow doesn't really work though. I think that Ballis is trying to make the book be about whether Melanie and Nate are ready for the next steps in their relationship, but it's ultimately about Melanie and what she wants next. It doesn't follow a typical romance/chick lit plot with the girl meeting boy, having misunderstanding, and then HEA for the two of them.

The book takes place in Chicago (I believe Ballis's hometown or current hometown at any rate) and I don't get a really good sense of the city like I have in her other works.

The book ends on July 4th, which I guess was symbolically supposed to be about Melanie's independence. 

I do like Ballis, though I have to say that so far the heroine in this one is kind of working my nerves. Melanie is a former lawyer who is now a chef doing gourmet take out in Chicago. Melanie is still reeling from a divorce from her husband who decided he didn't want to be with her as she lost weight. Melanie has a lot of issues and seems a bit too self centered and obnoxious about food. 

Today is my regular roll day which means I get that roll and the three rolls that Moonlight is doling out for the Fourth of July.

7/3/19, Roll 19:

Landed on: 

Going to use my robot card to just ignore that one and roll again.

7/3/19 Roll 20 (4th of July Roll #1):

Landed on: 29. Scottie dog: Post a list or poll of 4 books, and ask your fellow players/followers to "fetch" you a book.

Separate post for this one coming up soon!

I get an extra roll because of the doubles. 

Landed on: 35. We took the Ferry to France, crossing the English Channel.

Read a book set in Europe, or that was written by an author who was born in a Europe, or that involves travel by boat or that has a picture of a ship on the cover.

Woot! I got books from Tigus and also books from when I visited Moonlight last year :-) I am going to read "The False Inspector Dew." My book has a ship and gun on the cover. 

7/3/19 Roll 20 (4th of July Roll #2):

Passed Go so need to add $5.00 to the bank. 

Landed on: 7. Most places have a lot of different opportunities for summer fun!

Read a book that has a house on the cover, or that is related to something unique about your community (for example, if your community has a strawberry festival, read a book with strawberries on the cover).

Hmm around this area (Northern VA) there are always wine and food festivals. So going to go for something related to that book wise. Picked "Good Enough to Eat" since it deals with a chef and food and the book has recipes in it as well. 

7/3/19 Roll 20 (4th of July Roll #3):

Landed on: 11. There are gorgeous beaches all over the world. My personal favorite beach is in Pacific City, Oregon. Read a book set in a coastal/beach region that you love, or would love to visit, or a book that has a beach or ocean on the cover.

Selected "The Nantucket Inn" since it takes place on a coastal/beach/region I want to go to visit someday. There is also a little sliver of ocean and you can see the beach on the cover too. 

So I swore through this whole damn book. Seriously.

I have really enjoyed Stacey Ballis's past works. She can describe food and how to cook certain dishes in such a way that you will have to go and get something to snack on while reading. Also hopefully you have some wine to sip as you go. But I really wanted to take her by the hands and ask her some questions about how she portrayed some of the key African American characters in this book. I don't think it was intentional, but I was over it. And I think the main plot such as it was, was not a bit realistic at all. And some of the same dialogue used by the male hero in this one, was used by the same character in her book "Off the Menu." I even went and checked a few things back and forth between that book and this one and said oh well I guess it's nice she's reusing RJ's commentary. 

The main character is Eloise. She is a private chef to a very wealthy family and has another long time client as well. She has not dated in years since her last break-up broke her heart. When she finds out her favorite teacher has passed away, Eloise reconnects with her two high school friends, Teresa and Lynne. The three friends have grown out of touch, though Teresa and Lynne have kept in sporadic contact. When Eloise finds a list she made about what she wanted to accomplish by the age of 40, her three other friends agree that they want to knock some things off their list before their birthdays in May. This leads Eloise to finding and dating a guy who is too perfect by far (and yeah, he is) and leads to some conflict with Lynne. 

I will say that there was too much going on in this book. We have Eloise doing her bet with the friends, finding and dating a guy, teaching one of the kids that she cooks for privately how to train for a celebrity cooking show, reading about her attempts to stay active, draw, write, etc., I just didn't care after a while. But really, what got me is that this book started to read a bit too self help for me to enjoy.

Eloise really sticks her nose in the air about what Lynne is doing and I hated how Ballis portrayed her in this book. There was no nuance at all to be had. Eloise is right, Lynne is wrong. There is some bullshit let's say everything we hate about each other crap that Teresa pulls and I got so mad. You don't do that type of shit to people and than somehow everyone loves each other again. I wish that the book had been more honest that the people you are friends with in high school are not the friends you would choose as an adult. 

I also didn't even get why people kept telling Eloise to keep Lynne in her life. Lynne was terrible (based on the little we see of her) and there is no point in keeping someone you haven't spoken to in 20 years in your life. The way that Ballis tries to have her cake and eat it too (hey your long time friends are to be put up with even when they are acting like assholes, but also want more things than money and status) drove me up the wall. 

And here is where I want to ask Ballis some questions. Did she think it was stereotypical how she portrayed Lynne? Lynne is shown as some light skinned black woman who was all about money/status and didn't really give a crap about love. That Lynne sounded like a woman who wanted to forget her past and deny her black self and Eloise and the author via her give her shit for that.

I don't know enough about Lynne for why she is the way she is, but I hated how one of the few black characters we get in this book is shown in a terrible light when I actually sympathized with her a lot. For many black woman if we are not married, we prove ourselves over and beyond at work. Lynne seems to kick ass at her job, but Ballis shows her as too obsessed with doing well at her job. She gets a bit cartoony after a while and I just got over it. Black women are always being portrayed as either highly emotional or cold. Articulate (read white) or way too black. I could go on and on about things that I was like, oh lord about and just struggled to move on from. 

The other African American character, a love interest of Eloise is named Shawn and I rolled my damn eyes at the guy. First of all, I like that Ballis didn't have him speaking "ghetto" but he also sure didn't have what I would call an authentic voice to me. I say this because I said above, some of the phrases and things he does sounds like a previous character in her works. And Ballis breezes past the interracial relationship aspect real quick. Just asks one white character how did they deal with this when they were dating/married and it was all just be honest with each other.

Man. There's honesty and reality. And interracial relationships are hard. There are things you won't get and vice versa. All you need is love is great in concept, and hard in reality. I know a ton of interracial couples and they have to deal with the everyday mess they get from total strangers and family members. 

There is also another aspect that would be spoiling things about Shawn that I was 100 percent done with when revealed in the book. Sorry.

The writing was typical Ballis and I have to say that all of the recipes sounded awesome. But if not for the food descriptions I would have DNFed this book.

I think the book should have been edited further down past what we got since most of the book started to just be repetitive after a while with Eloise's conflicts with Lynne. 

The ending didn't move me at all and I can say that I will not be re-reading this in the future. 

I thought this was a fun, light read and I enjoyed the friendship aspect of this novel. They were close friends in high school and soon they grew apart. Now they are back in their hometown for the funeral of the high school teacher who brought them together. Each of the three young ladies feels content with their life but after conversing with one another, they each decide that there are a few things they would like to change. The friends also have suggestions for each other, on how they can improve their lives. With forty just around the corner, the three friends make a pact to try to change or improve their lives using their own ideas and their friend's suggestions. I liked how these ladies pushed each other and encouraged each other as they tried to make these changes in their lives. They tried to be supportive to each other yet there were some ill feelings that were being harbored inside about each other which eventually had to come out. They had always been honest with one another and they wanted to keep it that way. Not one of them is perfect, they all had issues they wanted to change to improve their life yet for them to change who they had been for almost forty years, it takes initiative and hard work. I liked listening to them and reading how they went about this pact although the novel soon grew to be centered around Eli. Some friendships are priceless and I like how these three tried to regain the friendship they had back in high school as they wanted that closeness again. It was an enjoyable read and I recommend it.