Review: Sourdough by Robin Sloan

Title: Sourdough
Author: Robin Sloan
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Farar, Straus, and Giroux
Publish Date: September 5, 2017
Source: Owned

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "Lois Clary, a software engineer at a San Francisco robotics company, codes all day and collapses at night. When her favourite sandwich shop closes up, the owners leave her with the starter for their mouthwatering sourdough bread.
Lois becomes the unlikely hero tasked to care for it, bake with it and keep this needy colony of microorganisms alive.  Soon she is baking loaves daily and taking them to the farmer's market, where an exclusive close-knit club runs the show.
When Lois discovers another, more secret market, aiming to fuse food and technology, a whole other world opens up. But who are these people, exactly?"

My Two Cents:

"Sourdough" is the story of Lois, a computer engineer, who lives a relatively boring life. She goes to work, she goes home. She is so busy at work and so pushed by peer pressure that her sustenance consists of this weird protein that is terribly boring but fills her hunger. One day, she decides to order some spicy soup in and it comes with the most wonderful sourdough bread. This simple deviation from her normal life will change everything for Lois.

This book is soooo quirky and I really enjoyed it. It's a strange little story but I really liked that it was so off the beaten path. Filled with good food, people learning to become friends, and a good message of embracing the unknown, this was a good read for me. It also has a good dose of magical realism, which is always one of my favorite elements that a book can have!

Lois is such an interesting character. She finds a lot of comfort in routine, even if it doesn't make her life that exciting. When the two brothers that make the spicy soup and bread are forced to leave the country and they leave her the mystical sourdough starter, Lois's life changes for the better. She isn't so afraid to shake up her routine and do something different. I thought this was a really good message that sometimes you do have to make yourself a little uncomfortable in order to make things better!