Book Review - Sourdough by Robin Sloan

Sourdough by Robin Sloane! Let's talk
about it. Alright, so my latest Book of the Month Club book that I got was Sourdough by Robin Sloan. He is also the author of Mr.
Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, which I. Have not read but fully intend to.

This
book is all about Lois. She is a young woman working in tech. She moves to San
Francisco because she is headhunted for a big-time robotics job. She has a brain
that's just that brilliant.

And so she works in that and eats some kind of
nutritive gel called slurry until she discovers this little takeout place
where she gets the most delicious spicy soup and sourdough bread. All of a sudden, the takeout place has to leave. And so, one of the head guys leaves the
sourdough starter with her because she is their #1 eater. She just
has to feed the sourdough starter every day and bake with it.

So that is where
the adventure begins for her, much like yeast within the dough, her
adventure arises. For there is magic in the sourdough starter. Magic, I tells ya. She feeds it with flour and water, but also has to play special music for
it every day.

And then you can kind of tell the mood of the sourdough starter
based on the designs that it itself bakes into the bread. Sometimes she even
hears the the starter sing in the middle of the night and bubble away happily. Sounds kind of wonderful! I'm not gonna get too much further into the plot
because, again, I don't want to spoil it for you. I'll just say that the hilarity
rises as the story goes on.

There are a few things in particular that I like
about this book. #1: Carbs! So many carbs. There are so many carbs in this book
and it's wonderful. You get into the detail of her making the starter, making
the dough, letting it rise, eating the crusty bread,
and it just sounds delicious.

I really wanted to have a big hunk of crusty
sourdough in my hand as I read and was constantly sad that I didn't. #2:
The other thing that I liked about Sourdough is that it had a woman in tech. You hear a lot about how there's a real lack of women in the tech industry and
here is this woman who is almost effortlessly at genius levels of
technology. She can take the formulas for the robotics and just whip them right
out in her head.

She applies that same sort of logic and intelligence to
her sourdough starter, to building the oven that she can bake it in, and to
taking her sourdough bread to the next leaven. I mean level. Heh. Heh.

Oooh, boy. The #3 thing I like about Sourdough is that it
is witty and fun. It's not your average trajectory. It's not where she...

She doesn't really face a huge crisis of identity so much as it just kind of
develops, much like the dough does. How many analogies to bread rising am I
going to make in this video? LOTS. The friendships that Lois develops in the
novel are really special. She meets with a group of other Loises who are
completely different from her, most of them at least 20 to 40 years older than
her, and they all find each other's company just wonderful.

And she also
makes friends with all the people around her, like the the other guys in the tech
world, the other people in the farmer's market. She she just meets all of these
interesting people and takes tidbits of knowledge and inspiration from all of
them, and it's just so much fun to read. The sourdough starter, it did take a turn
at one point that I was kind of like, "Oooooh..." "I don't knoooow. Let's swing it on back." But, I won't get into detail on that.

I will just say, overall this book is good fun. You should read it. Sourdough. Give yourself a nice crusty
break...Of bread.

Thanks for watching, guys. I will catch you next time and I will
try to go a little bit easier on the puns ...And the buns...Bread...Get it? Hey-oh. All right. Thanks.

Catch you next time. Bye!.