Simple Recipes is a collection of seven fictional stories by Madeleine Thien about family, relationships, and finding hope in times of despair. Characters in these stories are faced with immense grief as they attempt to maneuver and survive these tragic moments. Most of them are faced with impossible odds that they must overcome to move on in life. Thien fills the stories with compassion, honesty, and vulnerability as she dissects the bonds created by these characters in the pursuit of love and companionship.
The author’s visualization through her words is impressive as she tries to connect her feelings with the feelings of the characters, making her narrative real, unique, and impactful. The stories explore the weight of expectations that come from maintaining certain relationships. The effects of unfulfilled expectations are devastating to these characters, who are deeply invested in other people’s happiness over their own. Many of these characters’s lives do not turn out as initially expected and the disappointment eats at them, forever changing their core personalities.
Thien values the small moments in life that eventually hold a lot of impact on what we think, want, and do in the future. She maps out perspectives from people of all ages which is insightful in decoding how people relate and connect based on their age and life experience. Human relationships are complex and impossible to decipher. Thien attempts to understand why humans do the things they do and what motivates and inspires them to live everyday life despite the pain and torment of it all.
Simple Recipes is an overwhelmingly emotional collection of stories that relates to all people of all ages. As humans, it’s inevitable for all of us to create, build, and maintain relationships that service the desires that we lacked most growing up. The traumas that humans bottle up as they go through life eventually reveal themselves in moments where they feel exposed and vulnerable. Thien does not dismiss any character’s opinion as she provides all her characters with great voices that speak honestly about their pain and struggles.
