When Amy York was preparing to leave home for college, her father warned her that most of the men she would meet over the course of her life would be one of three types: forks, knives, or spoons. During her freshman year at Syracuse University, Amy quickly bonds with her roommate, Veronica, and the two begin a near decade-long journey in search abiding love. Leah DeCesare is a very talented writer; the novel is beautifully written. I really enjoyed the narrative arc of the story. It was nice to see Amy and Veronica in two different stages of their lives. There were moments where the dialogue felt a bit stiff, but that might have been then necessary datedness of the language (it's set in the late 80s and early 90s). There are two things that would have enhanced the text.. I think it would have been great to see more of the friendship between Amy and Veronica. Throughout the book, it seemed that the romantic relationships they had with men overshadowed the bond between the two women. Additionally, the story would have benefitted from greater character development. Neither of the main characters was very robust. Veronica came off as deeply shallow and pretentious while Amy seemed overwhelmingly naïve and willfully ignorant. All in all, the book does show the illogical things we do to attain and hold ont) love, even if the love we yearn for isn't the most nurturing kind.

I wanted to like this book and was really excited to get the chance read it, because it wasn't just about finding the one, at its heart it was about Amy and Veronica's friendship, and I liked that. The problem is, it's written like a series of vignettes with an omniscient narrator that's very detached from what's going on and I had a hard time connecting with many of the characters. The dialogue is also pretty weak, and I was constantly taken out of the story while thinking, "Nobody talks like this!"

As a child of the 80s and who went to college in the early 90s, I loved how this novel took me completely back in time. Leah Decesare navigates the complexities of college relationships and the coming of age of two roommates as they move from underneath the wings of their parents and into the world of adult life. It's funny, witty and full of nostalgia. A perfect summer read to warm your heart.

Before Amy York leaves for Syracuse College, her father gives her a guide of how to navigate men in college. He’s either a fork, a spoon, or a knife.
When Amy meets Veronica, her new roommate, they both embark together on new adventures and re-evaluating old choices while classifying every guy they meet with the ‘UCS’. Between freshman year of college and their first adult job, Amy and Veronica both face their past colliding with the present and ask themselves, “What really makes a guy a steak knife?”

If this book sounds a little quirky, it’s because it is, or was now that I’ve finished it. The premise of the book caught my attention quickly, and seeing the cover, I thought it was a book that combined food and love. Two things I love the most.

But I was wrong and I’m glad.

One of the things I loved the most about this book was that although the book covered a vast amount of years, it gave you a chapter or a few chapters of the important stuff you needed and then jumped to the next big milestone. Nothing was dragged out and beaten to death, but the jumps were seamless and didn’t leave you scratching your head going, “What the frick happened between these two points?”

The characters are fully developed and while in the beginning, it felt like a YA book written about adult topics, it lent itself to see the full progression of the characters from beginning to end.
Everybody’s going to be all like “I totally guessed the ending from a mile away, blahblahblah,” but the ending is just part of the ENDING. Ya get it? No? Okay, let’s try this. This is a book about the progression of the three (yes I said three) main characters, Amy, Veronica, AND Jenny. It’s about three girls discovering that while having a boyfriend/fiancé/ husband is sometimes great, you need to be able to stand on your own and be yourself before you let anyone fill in that space for you.

Forks,Knives, and Spoons was a fantastic read about women discovering their self-worth, staying true to themselves, and navigating men. It’s funny, it’s sometimes sad, but in the end it’s fulfilling. This is the book if you care about character journeys and the nitty gritty about finding love.

You know I always want to love a book that takes me back to the 80s and 90s...but there were several things that fell flat for me. I could see the Andrew-Matt thing happening from miles away, and Andrew was so wrong for so long, I got impatient. And frustrated that it was taking so long for him to get caught and for Amy to wake up. Also, the writing was too much tell and not enough show...the author did not need to describe every possible, albeit accurate and awesome, detail about the period between 1988-1994 in order to convey the setting and build the world for the reader.