Sourdough
By: Robin Sloan
My Rating: FIVE out of FIVE stars
Best for: 14 and up

This book made me happy.

Have you read Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Book Store? You should. Robin Sloan wrote that book too. I went back to check out my review after I read it back in 2015…guess what I wrote?

“Now here is a book for book lovers. Reading it made me so happy!”

I’m seeing a trend when I read books by Robin Sloan…

Sourdough was awesome, and I didn’t expect it to be. I mean, it’s a book about bread. Obviously it’s going to be boring, right?

Wrong.

So wrong.

Sourdough was perfectly charming and immensely readable! It’s a story about Lois, a 20-something computer programmer who gets recruited from her ho-hum job writing code for a car company in Michigan by a flashy, spirit-of-a-start-up tech company in San Francisco.

Lois can write code for robots! She can change the world! 4x bump in salary! Sunny California! The big city!

The high cost of living…the pressure to deliver…the hours…the un-sustainable life style.

Poor Lois, alone in the big city–until she discovers the double spicy. Foreign and mysterious brothers who run a delivery restaurant out of their apartment make her food and change her life with spicy soup and sandwiches on sourdough. Lois is saved! Lois’s life isn’t terrible! Until the spicy brothers’ visas expire and they have to leave the country. But before they leave, they gift Lois with some of their special sourdough starter with a mind of it’s own…and Lois’s life doesn’t just change. Lois’s life finally begins.

How do I explain the magic? If you’ve read Mr. Penumbra’s, and I say it does with books what Sourdough does with food, you’ll understand. It’s light and breezy, full of truisms and quotables, and will make you laugh and ponder. There’ll be times you say, “huh, I never thought about that, but he’s right.”

And now Robin Sloan is on my authors-to-read-as-soon-as-they-publish-a-new-book list.

Sourdough is a perfect summertime read. Easy. Fun. Thoughtful. Happy.

Highly recommend!

No sex or violence. The Sh-word appears 7 times.

14 and up.

Happy Reading!