I really enjoyed this book! I really liked the writing style and how character focused it was, which isn't normally something I would mention as a plus for me. I tend to need a fairly robust plot too, which I don't really feel this did. It was a little meandering at times, but I thought it worked well. The religions and their takes on food and sex were very different and kept me interested. I would say a couple of negatives for me were that I found all the different religion's/people's viewpoints, areas and types of people a little hard to get hold of to begin with, so I was slightly confused at times. The second thing would be that the ending lost me slightly, I didn't really understand why it would make such a difference? But all in all, really great and I will continue to read from this author as I loved The Seep too.

The concepts of food and sex are often intertwined in our society. They’re human desires that in theory are just us following our species biological imperatives but they’re at a societal level a lot more than that. They’re how we express or supress ourselves. They’re important to all sorts of elements to our lives from relationships, religions to health. These days food tends to be the more openly discussed one but, in many ways, the vast array of eating disorders and views on what a healthy eater is raises many issues that we tend to ignore - it’s not for discussion in public. In Chana Porter’s unusual novel, The Thick and The Lean we explore a world where food is the less permissible subject and what that would do to a society and what it tells us about our own.

Seagate is a lovely peaceful town that many wish to join. But here is a price following the way of the Church and trying as hard as possible to abstain from food. Eating is something done simply for survival. Only close family will witness someone eating food. Beatrice though throughout her life is always feeling the call towards exploring food in all its tastes and flavours and that risks social rejection. Reiko is a talented artist filled with bright ideas she follows a path towards university mixing with the majority population of the town and despite being a part of an immigrant society she thinks she has a chance to succeed but the world tends to change the rules when it suits it.

This is a slightly frustrating tale of two great ideas that ultimately that I don’t think gelled as well as I wanted them to. The plot of Beatrice is fascinating, and Porter creates a world that is extremely happy with sex – from Churches that encourage teenagers to explore and no issues with queer relationships, television and even reality show being very happy to explore and rate sexual performance and casual encounters but if someone was to have a huge feast they’ll be reviewed with disgust. It’s a fascinating inversion of our world and moves into a look at how strange that society can say x is permissible why z is not. It also raises issues of body shaming – Beatrice’s society is very much against anyone showing themselves to be anything other than thin. When Beatrice escapes her society and finds life as a chef that she finds herself for the first time in control of herself from her looks, her profession and her relationships.

With Reiko we also have an interesting plot of someone from an immigrant population trying to fit within the mainstream and finds it a challenge. Prejudice on her looks, her culture and the casual attitude of the system to change the rules to trap her into debt all mean Reiko finds her choices are narrowing and crime may be the only option. They’re both fascinating stories but I didn’t feel they gelled that well. They’re both exploring the injustices of societies that are applicable to our own but the overall plot while makes sense I felt more contrived than really propelled the story. This may have worked better as two separate stories in parallel.

The Thick and The Lean is a really enjoyable and challenging read that explores our desires and also our shame over giving into our desires. Are those valid or just us being controlled by bigger societies. It is fascinating but perhaps also a little frustrating that it feels to not quite land the punch it is aiming for. Worth a look!

The Thick and the Lean is, in part, a veneration of food and cooking. Set in a world where eating is taboo, the core characters engage in a surreptitious love of the pleasures and sensations of eating well cooked food. It is also a study in deceit and power.

The plot tracks the progress of the two main characters as they navigate their love of food through a society where there is an extreme disparity between the richest and the poorest, and where there is a burgeoning climate crisis. The parallels with current events is clear, but not at all heavy-handed. For me, the story ended up with too many loose ends, but this is a personal preference and does not detract from the power of the story.

The two main characters have depth and complexity, and felt very real. I found myself drawn to them, and wanting good outcomes - albeit in very different ways for each. The supporting cast was also diverse, although with few being especially memorable.

There are themes that some people may find difficult: disordered eating and relationship with food; a free and relaxed attitude to sex, both in public and outside marriage; and the deceitful conduct of one of the main characters. To me, however, these were all justified, and contribute to the colour and depth of the dystopian world in which the author so successfully explores ideas of exclusion, class disparity, and social power.

Thank you #NetGalley and Titan Books for the free review copy of #TheThickandtheLean in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I was a huge fan of Chana Porter's 'The Seep' and I was intrigued to see what her next book had in store. The Thick and the Lean maintains Porter's familiar weird and wonderful (sometimes weird and just wild) worldbuilding and that familiar almost poetic prose while once again making you think hard about some things in the world.
The core theme of The Thick and the Lean is the reclamation of pleasure as a revolutionary act - in this case this is centred on the pleasure of eating (and all the other little rituals that surround the consumption of food). We follow two very different women in this dystopian other world where the denial of calories is the height of purity, both of whom live very different lives and approach their circumstances from different places.
This is one of those books which, like the seep, really ought to be experienced as a reader so I shall endeavour not to spoil anything. I think Chana Porter masterfully pulls off the mission of exposing things that are wrong with our society today by presenting a dystopia where those ideals are pushed to the extreme. It is entirely plausible to see our own world heading the same way as this one. But the book manages to keep an ember of hope alive, the idea of pushing back against these ideals is central to the story and I was left feeling fired up as opposed to exhausted and hopeless.
I would highly suggest considering the content warnings for this book before reading it as disordered eating is prevalent throughout. I was pleased to see a disclaimer at the start of the book. For those for whom this is not going to be an issue I think this will be a positive thought-provoking story.
Chana Porter's books always warrant multiple rereads and I am looking forward to revisiting this story in the near future and I am certain I shall experience something different every time.
My rating: 4 stars
I receieved a free digital review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley - all opinions are my own.

I'm going to preface this with a trigger warning that this book includes depictions of underage sex within the first few pages. Whilst it fits the story it's not for me.

From the pages I read this was well written but I won't be posting to any other sites.

A dystopian tale following two central characters as they navigate their way through a world where eating is taboo but public sex is celebrated.

In The Thick and the Lean, we follow Beatrice as she breaks away from the Seagate cult (?) where eating is extremely restricted, to follow her dreams of becoming a chef. We also follow Reiko as she lands a scholarship, loses it, and turns to other means to keep herself afloat.

The premise of this book is an interesting one and I was genuinely excited to read this, but I can’t help feeling a little let down. It all felt a bit chaotic and not especially well written. While I respect that one of the central themes of this book was the subversion of taboo – sexual appetite being acceptable but appetite for food being taboo – I just felt a bit grossed out by the sex in this book. It may well be that was the author’s intent but it just really wasn’t for me. It felt like the message was lost a little and some of it just didn’t need to be there, it could have been scaled back significantly and more time used to explore the background of how this came to be/what impact it had on society etc and I’d have enjoyed it a lot more.

I do have to agree with other reviewers who have suggested that maybe this book tries to tackle too much at once, which makes it hard to fully explore and unpack the issues raised. The ending left me feeling super unsatisfied and it just wasn’t really clear. There’s quite a big time hop and I just don’t understand what the reasoning behind this choice was, by the time I’d got to this part (around 70%) I was already kind of wanting the end to come and introducing new characters/a new(ish) setting almost made me give up reading.

I will give 3 stars, because I do think the premise is interesting. I think some of the worldbuilding was interesting, but did leave a lot to be desired. I liked the chapters following Beatrice and felt that her story was a bit more interesting than Reiko’s. It’s not a terrible book, it’s just underwhelming.

I’ll preface this by saying that The Seep was one of my favourite books I read last year so upon hearing that Chana Porter had something new coming soon I of course leaped at the chance to grab an ARC. Thank you of course to Titan for obliging.

The Thick and the Lean is a strange book in that it contains all of the things that made The Seep so special. It platforms Porter’s command of language and unwavering weirdness in such a gorgeous way that it sucks to say that the actual story left me a bit cold.

Weirdly this book I found to be slightly too short to get across what it was trying to say and it focused on a few too many subplots in the interest of unnecessary world building whilst also leaving a lot to the reader’s interpretation.

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it, just wish it had been dialled up to eleven when it felt slightly underbaked.