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A review by visceralreads
Voyage de Gourmet by Paul Tobin
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.5
Voyage de Gourmet is a journey of forgiveness and learning to be a better person. It follows Layne Green, a teen cook selected for a reality cooking competition 'Voyage de Gourmet', as he fixes his relationship with his ex-best friend Jang-Mi Pipper, and finds some flavor in his life.
The story is simple and it flows well as a graphic novel. The main character Layne is very flawed and it took me until about 60% of the book to start to warm up to him as he realizes the extent of his jerk-ness towards Jang-Mi and admits it to her. I love his character development throughout the book, and there's a really cool section at the back on how to apologize properly to a friend.
Voyage de Gourmet (the competition) is wild, and the last challenge is definitely unethical to some extent (on human and marine life) but anyway, I like that the contestants get to travel to different countries like Indonesia and Belgium to experience the atmosphere there and make use of what's available to them in those countries. The foods are also diverse (shoutout to (filipino) Adobo!!) and I like that they included ingredients for the dishes in the first part of the book.
In addition to food diversity, the cast themself is also quite diverse. I love the biracial, fat, muslim, queer, and disability representation in this book. However there was one team with two (divorced?) men who were astronomical jerks to everyone (and Frog, Jang-Mi's dog) and I might be reading too much into this but they were just horrible gay rep. Jang-Mi lives with her lesbian aunts and their many adopted kids, and Karla and Tuck are married, so I like that casual sapphic rep, but I was just really annoyed with Flip and Flop, the gay assholes. In another book with a different tone, I would've liked them, but this graphic novel is geared towards young adults (maybe even 11+ based on the story tone) and I don't think I want them to have this idea about gay men.
Final rating: 3.5/5
Thank you NetGalley, Mad Cave Studios, and Maverick for this ARC! My opinion is my own
The story is simple and it flows well as a graphic novel. The main character Layne is very flawed and it took me until about 60% of the book to start to warm up to him as he realizes the extent of his jerk-ness towards Jang-Mi and admits it to her. I love his character development throughout the book, and there's a really cool section at the back on how to apologize properly to a friend.
Voyage de Gourmet (the competition) is wild, and the last challenge is definitely unethical to some extent (on human and marine life) but anyway, I like that the contestants get to travel to different countries like Indonesia and Belgium to experience the atmosphere there and make use of what's available to them in those countries. The foods are also diverse (shoutout to (filipino) Adobo!!) and I like that they included ingredients for the dishes in the first part of the book.
In addition to food diversity, the cast themself is also quite diverse. I love the biracial, fat, muslim, queer, and disability representation in this book. However there was one team with two (divorced?) men who were astronomical jerks to everyone (and Frog, Jang-Mi's dog) and I might be reading too much into this but they were just horrible gay rep. Jang-Mi lives with her lesbian aunts and their many adopted kids, and Karla and Tuck are married, so I like that casual sapphic rep, but I was just really annoyed with Flip and Flop, the gay assholes. In another book with a different tone, I would've liked them, but this graphic novel is geared towards young adults (maybe even 11+ based on the story tone) and I don't think I want them to have this idea about gay men.
Final rating: 3.5/5
Thank you NetGalley, Mad Cave Studios, and Maverick for this ARC! My opinion is my own