Supper Club

By Lara Williams Hamish Hamilton, £12.99

Supper Club is a bold and fresh story about food, friendship and feminism. When troubled protagonist Roberta cooks up the idea of a transgressive dining society for women with best friend Stevie, she starts letting herself live free of expectations for once. But it also begins to put pressure on her relationships. The novel is peppered with hunger panginducing food writing, which could have comfortably been given even more space. There could also have been more time for Bacchanalian supper club scenes, which give us a rare glimpse of Roberta coming out of her shell. The narrative, which jumps between the present-day and Roberta’s traumatic university years, makes for compelling reading. As we learn more about her past we root for her to take up space in a world that seems determined to make her feel small.

Alys Key