Sweetbitter: A Novel by Stephanie Danler

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A thrilling novel of the senses and a coming-of-age tale, following a small-town girl into the electrifying world of New York City and the education of a lifetime at one of the most exclusive restaurants in Manhattan. • "Brilliantly written.... Outstanding." —The New York Times Book Review

Newly arrived in New York City, twenty-two-year-old Tess lands a job working front of house at a celebrated downtown restaurant. What follows is her education: in champagne and cocaine, love and lust, dive bars and fine dining rooms, as she learns to navigate the chaotic, enchanting, punishing life she has chosen.

The story of a young woman’s coming-of-age, set against the glitzy, grimy backdrop of New York’s most elite restaurants, in Sweetbitter Stephanie Danler deftly conjures the nonstop and high-adrenaline world of the food industry and evokes the infinite possibilities, the unbearable beauty, and the fragility and brutality of being young and adrift.

STEPHANIE DANLER is a writer based in Los Angeles, California.

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Praise for SWEETBITTER

"Brilliantly written. . . . Outstanding."—The New York Times Book Review

“Outstanding.” —Gabrielle Hamilton, The New York Times Book Review

“Vivid and exquisite.” —NPR
 
“[A] heady first taste of self-discovery, bitter and salty and sweet.” —Entertainment Weekly
 
“Meticulously rendered.” —Los Angeles Times
 
“Ravishing. . . . It tantalizes, seduces, satisfies.” —O, The Oprah Magazine
 
“Smart, delicious. . . . A sexy, sweaty book of sensory overload.” —The Washington Post
 
“[Sweetbitter] is going to make a lot of people hungry.” .—The New York Times

“A heady mix of youth, love, gastronomic delights and determined self-invention. . . . [Danler] is a writer of prodigious talent.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“A raw, shucked, pungent, wild love story.” —Marie Claire

“Sexy, astute. . . . Anyone who’s ever tied on an apron will think, ‘Finally, someone wrote a book about us.’ And nailed it.” —People
 
“This dynamite book is filled with the heart-wrenching indignities of self-discovery, and gives a gritty, inside look to the fast-paced, drug-filled, whirlwind scene of restaurant life.” —Bon Appétit