PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewStephanie Danler’s first novel, Sweetbitter, is the Kitchen Confidential of our time, written from the cleaner and infinitely more civilized front-of-the-house perspective...It would be a tired story if it weren’t so, well, for one thing true and for another so brilliantly written. A coked-out girl who sees the sun come up as many times as Tess does might cause her writer to run out of metaphors for unwelcome daybreak — 'a dagger of morning prowled outside the open windows,' 'sunrise came like an undisclosed verdict' — but Danler never does, and her description of the panic of the unannounced health department inspection was so engrossing to read, I missed a flight even though I had already checked in and was waiting at the gate.
