Customer Reviews

Ground Up: A Novel

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I am a food literature fan, but this book left me immensely disappointed. If you want a well-paced read with interesting, less than perfect characters try Bourdin's "Kitchen Confidential." The only reason I finished this book was because I spent my money on it and didn't want to waste it completely. If it was a library book, I probably would have returned it right around 2/3 through the book. In fact, I sold it to Half Priced Books the day I finished it, because it was that annoying.

What I disliked about this book:
-utter pretension at every turn, even in the literary references of the narrator, not just of the pretensions of the characters
-the unnecessary "gotcha" ending wherein the reader learns the entire relationship and previously described impetus of the cafe was actually a lie
-the characters: You will not find one likable character in the bunch; they are all annoying douchebags. I liked Shadow in "American Gods," Odysseus in Homer's "Odyssey"--hell, I even liked Anita Blake right up to around "Cerulean Sins" or "Incubus Dreams." I even sort of like bad guys and unsavory types in other works, but wow, just wow. Idov is successful in creating the most annoying, one-dimensional, self-righteous, entitled spoiled brat protagonists. Even the last few pages don't redeem them and don't reveal any major changes in their personalities. It was very disappointing.

The most shameful thing about this book is that it is being peddled as some great statement about the American Dream. Yet, this book in no way portrays the American Dream, because the protagonists aren't interested in surviving, thriving and growing through hard work, personal sacrifices, and truly working together to achieve financial success and ultimately achieving personal fulfillment. It's as though they move backwards beginning from a state of utter fulfillment toward misery after they try to superimpose their upper crust ways on anyone and everyone remotely associated with Cafe Kolschitsky.

This is just another hobby business run by superficial, self-righteous kids who are ashamed of their hard-working parents and disdainful--no, downright contemptuous of the levels of hard work and successes their parents achieved. They have no sense of guilt or shame about being so self-centered and unappreciative; they are hollow, superficial hipsters whose only concerns are being anti-everything except for satisfying their desires to feel superior to everyone else.

I get that this is satire, but these characters don't go through any kind of redemption. They are boring, annoying and, ultimately, wasted my time.

For anyone who ever dreamed of how ideal it would be to run your own business -- a quaint bookstore or cute coffee shop -- this book should be read as a warning treatise waking you up out of your naive reverie. Idov has an expansive knowledge of food and language, which he uses with great effect here to offer of a portait who naively enter the business world, believing they can wow the residents of the Lower East Side of Manhattan with a thoroughly authentic Viennese-style coffeehouse. They quickly learn the realities of what they have to do to compete with the Starbucks-style competitors and the descent from the heights of their idealistic fantasies to the pits of their daily struggles to earn enought to even pay their rent makes for a very entertaining read. The main protagonist, his lawyer-trained wife, her domineering mother and the ex-Israeli landlord who controls the Lower East Side all make for terrfiic characters. If you enjoy the author's wonderful use of language, I can strongly recommend Robert Cohen's [Amateur Barbarians: A Novel, as I suspect you will enjoy Cohen's masterful prose style, as well.

A very fun and engaging book - read over a weekend. At a basic level, it is superbly written - great language, references to anything that can be referenced in a sentence. Humor is excellent, sharp, original and sufficiently self-depreciating; satire is equal-opportunity and leaves few characters untouched, yet doesn't go overboard. It is also much more than a story of one coffee shop's failure; rather, the plot line (with some great twists) is the canvas for a much broader picture. The author is on top of mostly everything that has been happening NYC recently, and the book contains a good snapshot of that, which New Yorkers are certain to recognize and appreciate, and everyone else should get to know, before it happens in a city near them. Read it - you are certain not to be bored.

I have always been interested in folks starting up a restaruant business and since this was pretty much autobiographical, it was facinating to know that pretty much everything that happened in the book happened in real life. I think the writing was better than the story - I'd be intereted in reading something non-autobiographical from the author.

Presumably the only review on Amazon not written by a relative of the author...this book is awful.

Here's the fundamental problem. The "heroes", being Nina and Mark the couple who start the coffee shop, are two of the most pretentious pseudo-intellectual horrible people you'd ever come across. They throw absurd dinner parties, have no actual careers, live off a ridiculous system of using the home equity on their apartment (that her mother paid for) and YET act as if they are somehow superior to the foolish masses.

In short, they are both profoundly unlikeable people.

So, the book follows these two (who know next to nothing about the real world beyond their niche interests) as they inevitably fail with their cafe in a myriad of predictable ways.

The problem is that, in this type of book, the humor comes from rooting for the protagonists. If the reader cares about Nina/Mark then their mis-adventures have meaning as we follow them through the inevitable. When we, the reader, hate Nina/Mark (and we do) then there isn't any emotional investment in their journey and reading becomes a slog.

I had high hopes for this book after reading a piece on it somewhere and was profoundly disappointed with the end result.

It's like reading "A Christmas Carol" where Scrooge stays evil. Sounds like fun hunh? Exactly.

Avoid this book.

I loved this coffee with some fluffy whipped cream story not only for the lively plot which blended satire, romance and history but also for the slightly snotty highly skilled flare that Idov has with a sentence. With hints of Waugh, Nabokov, Chekhov, and Goncharov, Idov skewers cultural pretensions as he tells about the failed coffee house built by two young, prosperous New Yorkers, both born of immigrants, at the same time that he reveals himself to be the real deal. He also refocuses New York, touchingly reminding the reader that it is far more than the flashy home of the latest downtown or Madison Avenue trend. It also represents the first waking moment of the American dream for so many of our families as they entered this country.

I read it in two sittings this weekend, and I am still thinking about it and admiring it.

What a waste of time. Too many personal details, too little plot development. Very uneven writing. Would put you to sleep even alongside a strong cup of coffee.

... I can't come up with anything I DIDN'T like about the novel.

I'm going to take the liberty to do what the author takes careful steps to avoid: indulge in cliche. That said, Ground Up is the literary equivalent of a perfectly made latte. Wait, was that a cliche?

Regardless, I'll let you decide what it means; I'm just telling you what reading it felt like to me. For some, this is probably the least useful review possible, but some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. And you who know what I'm talking about are the people who will enjoy Ground Up.