Supper Club By Lara Williams

‘Supper Club’ is the latest book by Lara Williams.

If you feed a starving woman, what will she grow into? Twenty-nine year old Roberta has spent her whole life hungry. So she invents Supper Club: a secret society for women sick of bad men and bad sex. Fed up of being told to talk less, take less, be less, they gather after dark to feast and dance through the night. But as their bodies expand, so do their horizons, their desires – and their urge to break the rules. You look hungry. Join the club.

Supper Club is seen through the narrative of Roberta, who now in her late twenties is trying to find her place in life.

The story is written in past and present sequences, when she’s at university and uses cooking to help settle in and to make friends. Roberta is a shy woman and cooking helps express herself. Years later, she makes friends with Stevie who works with her and they become inseparable, living together and work together. Using their passion for food and entertaining, they come up with an idea for the Supper Club, where they dive dumpsters for food to use for their supper club evenings, inviting women from all backgrounds.

Roberta is an interesting character, she’s trying to find her place in life and after being sexually assaulted at university, has trouble with relationships and believing in her worth. But she has a lovely knack of bringing people of out themselves and we see this from the supper club scenes where people confide in her.

The story is cleverly written focusing on female relationships as well as touching on sexual abuse, eating disorders and the lengths women go to, to fit into society. As Roberta is such a passionate cook, the book is scattered with recipes, which I thought was a lovely inclusion to the story.

A relatable and attentive story about the dynamics and insights of life, body shaming, isolation and pressure, ‘Supper Club’ is a generous helping of feminism, and realism with hearty recipes to get lost in.

You can buy ‘Supper Club’ from Amazon and is available for 99p on the Kindle Store for a limited time.