Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES

 

Ratings Explanation

Violence: Characters often in peril and fighting to stay alive. The Master Pastry Chef is killed, but no details are given. A Lieutenant’s uniform catches on fire and he screams in pain. He fires his gun and a man drops to the ground.

Synopsis

For all 11 years of his short life, Guster Johnsonville  has been hungry. Everyone calls him “picky”, Guster prefers “careful”, but either way, he’s always starving. If his mother could cook anything besides barf-casserole, his life would be much easier, but nothing he eats tastes good, until one night, in absolute desperation, his mother drives him to New Orleans to visit the Master Pastry Chef’s patisserie. There, Guster finally discovers delicacies worthy of his taste buds and receives a strange gift from the aging chef – an old metal eggbeater. But suddenly, before the pastry chef can explain his gift, a mad chef wearing a blood red hat and apron storms into the shop, kills the Master Pastry Chef and hurls a knife at Guster. Barely escaping, Guster and his family flee for their lives and embark on a perilous adventure that will take them to distant lands, a mythical island and a chateau in France before they solve the mystery of the eggbeater and The One Recipe. A perfect dish that has the power to change humanity – and fill Guster’s stomach forever.

A deliciously fun adventure, Evertaster is creative and clever, especially the bonfire of the processed food vanities. My favorite icky food quote was, “Hot dogs were like the sweaty vinyl back seat of a station wagon with its windows rolled up in the sun. Frozen burritos were like buttery squirrels infected with the flu.” Yum! Maybe this book will make kids think about what kinds of food they are putting into their bodies, but probably not.

My one complaint is that the conclusion seems a little convoluted. I feel like I need to go back and read the ending again, so I’m not sure young readers will follow it. Aside from that, lots of fun and appropriate for readers 4th grade and up.

Thanks to Adam Glendon Sidwell for a complimentary Kindle version of Evertaster.