The short version of this review is that I enjoyed Geraldine DeRuiter’s If You Can’t Take the Heat but not as much as her first book, though that’s likely because the first one is basically a series of bonkers stories, while this one is going after heavier topics.

The longer version is more complicated, like the book.

If You Can’t Take the Heat lives in a world where backlash against misogyny exists on a scale we’ve never really seen before, while Roe v. Wade has also been overturned. And the undercurrent for the book is that it’s written by a woman on the internet who gets vitriol, largely because she’s a woman, for posting seemingly harmless jokes (or saying it’s ok to buy instead of bake pie for Thanksgiving).

I can’t say for certain, and I’m too lazy to Google around for an answer, but this book comes on the heels of two blog posts that blew up so much the DeRuiter ended up getting mainstream media coverage and enough traffic to break her website.

The first is her making pizza cinnamon rolls that accompanied Mario Batali’s apology letter for sexual misconduct. The second is when she, her husband, and some friends had what was possibly the worst meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant.

The nexus of her work is largely food and sexism. Sometimes only one is talked about. Sometimes she’ll talk about other things entirely. But this is the core of understanding her work.

There are stories in this book, but really this one is about feelings and emotions. Yes, there’s food. Sometimes there’s travel. But it’s about how food makes you feel. It’s about how food connects you to the people around you.

Her first book was more enjoyable to me because it was largely a bunch of insane stories that get woven together into a cohesive narrative. It probably didn’t get edited as well as it could have (some things get a touch repetitive), but it’s fun. 5-star read for me. This one is more 4-star read, but it’s also probably a more technically sound book. The closest thing to an issue is that it just isn’t 100% for me. In my recent rash of reading feminist books, that’s almost certainly why the don’t resonate with me as much as they do other readers.

But it’s good. It’s worth the time. I enjoyed reading a chapter in the evenings. It wasn’t quite something that helped me reset my brain before sleep, but it also felt better than doom-scrolling.