From Scratch by Tembi Locke Book Review

 

From Scratch by Tembi Locke Book Review 

From scratch by tempi locks, o this book tempe lock explores a very sort of specific part of her life which is when she met and fell in love with and married her husband 

While she was i believe in college she ended up going to italy and like studying abroad and while she was there she ended up meeting the guy who would eventually become her husband 

So the story is partially like following that section of her life like meeting her husband and falling in love all of that different stuff but also her husband ends up getting diagnosed with cancer and ends up passing away as well 

So you follow sort of that section of their life as well a little bit seeing what it's like for tenby to be a caregiver and the struggles that obviously their family goes through and then you follow sort of the life that tempi have to build 

Once he passes away becoming a widower and now a mother and tries to figure out what their life is like going forward 

So this is a really beautiful and poignant memoir there are a lot of really great things in here that attenbok explores one of the things i really enjoyed is the fact that like it's not told in a linear fashion 

So you get sort of like these glimpses of her life in a sort of like the current day of like being a widower and a mother and trying to grapple with what's going on but you also then just get like flashbacks into certain parts of their life together whether it be like the first time they met 

When they finally started dating or when they moved to the united states together or like all of these different things and even though it like jumps around in time a lot 

I feel like the way that it was put together is really well done you don't really necessarily get like a linear timeline of what their marriage is like but i don't think that's necessary for this situation i feel like all of these sort of like glimpses and stories and anecdotes give you a good sense for both tembelak 

Her husband and what their relationship was like it's a really beautiful story because tempest lock's husband is sicilian and his family basically expected him to marry a sicilian woman and by marrying 

A black american woman he like broke a lot of rules basically in their family and so you see the consequences of those choices and sort of how they deal with it as a couple and sort of how her in-laws family basically deals with

It and the results and consequences from all of that but then once hemiblock becomes a widower she also has to try to figure out what's going to happen in her life 

But also her daughter's life now that she is the only one around like she has to make the choice of like how much of her in-laws family and her sicilian side basically 

This her daughter is going to have exposure to and what she's going to know about and all of that stuff and it's obviously like a really difficult choice because she's dealing with her own grief 

Then she also has to deal with her in-laws who she doesn't have like the best relationship because she knows like her marriage was sort of like this thing that was looked down upon 

You see the sort of like how all of that gets dealt with over the course of this book in a really great way it's this really beautiful book about like love and loss and reconciliation 

There's also a lot of really great discussion about food in here because not only was tembelak's husband Sicilian and therefore food is part of the equation

But he was also a chef and so you see a lot of discussions about sicilian food and the way that he cooked and tambilac learning to cook herself there's also a discussion about the way this award of sicilian community works that i really appreciate it 

Because it reminded me a lot of the way that like the indian community works like how close and tight-knit everyone can be and at the same time like the way that that can feel like weirdly invasive like americans don't know 

How to handle stuff like that because like everyone in a community knows everything about everyone all the time kind of like small town life is the closest thing you can get to 

But also that like sense of community is like really strong like everyone in this town knows who tempi lock is because they know her husband and her husband's family 

So when she comes to town like people are providing their condolences even though she has like no idea who these people are but they like care for this family and therefore they care about her and sort of like the connectedness that that community creates is like something that 

You don't really find here in the united states or at least not quite as often and especially depending on where you are and things like that but it feels slightly more rare here so yeah it's not a very long book 

I ended up listening to this one on audio because tempi Lockett narrates it herself so that is just like beautifully done uh tambac is an actress and so like the reading of this audiobook is like beautiful I feel like even 

If she wasn't reading her own book she would be a really great audiobook narrator but obviously like her telling her own story it doesn't really feel like you're reading a book at times 

You just feel like you're listening to her talk about her life which basically she is so yeah if you want to pick up this book 

I definitely recommend the audiobook i ended up reading this book in the week leading up to valentine's day which felt like really apt in my opinion because like it is this beautiful love story even though

It obviously deals with like loss and grief and things along those lines like following this couple like meet each other and like fall in love with each other was honestly like really really sweet like i feel like 

They have a really fantastic sort of like meat cute almost so yeah i think that this is just like a really sweet really well done memoir it's not one that goes like super deep into details about like every aspect of 

What it was like for tempe luck to be a caretaker or anything along those lines but again i think she just provides these really nice highlights and anecdotes that give you a glimpse as to 

What their life was like what their relationship was like and some of the struggles that they dealt with as a couple and sort of how they overcame them and the you know struggles that they dealt with with their family and sort of the reconciliation there as well 

So this is very much like a high-level view of a very specific part of someone's life but i feel like honestly like this is like a really great readable book like this is a book that i would recommend to someone 

If they want something to read while like on vacation or something like that because i found it to be like really engrossing but it's like light enough that it's also a book that i can imagine like being perfect for a vacation 

But maybe that's also because part of it takes place in sicily so that might have had something to do with it as well so yeah those are my quick thoughts on from scratch by timmy lock 

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