Fatima was a brilliant chef to watch on Top Chef and so I couldn’t wait to read this. I really appreciate all the effort that made this wonderful and heart wrenching story possible. Fatima and her mother didn’t hold back in writing and sharing. As a Top Chef fan I loved hearing about Fatima’s time on the show and her friendships with Carrie, Joe Flamm, & Joe Sasto. Really well done and bring the tissues.

Thank you to NetGalley for this advanced copy.

Savor: A Chef’s Hunger for More by Fatima Ali with Tarajia Morrell

This book was hard to read but excellent. I love a good food memoir so I jumped when @netgalley and @penguinrandomhouse offered me this ARC. I’m so grateful to have been able to read this. Not only is this a food memoir but there is also a medical component.

Fatima was a chef from Pakistan with fantastic goals and dreams. She was the Fan Favorite on Top Chef season fifteen. Then she was diagnosed with Ewing Sarcoma. I am horrified by their experiences with American health care.

Fatima and her mother alternate chapters. They are unflinchingly honest about so many hard things. There voices beautifully complement each other. Fatima was so driven. She wanted to feed children who needed it and to help the world fall in love with Pakistani food.

“If this ordinary Pakistani girl could pursue the thing she loved most—cooking—and could make it to the tippy-top and do what she loved on TV, then what was to stop all of us little brown girls from carving out new paths, from calling attention to the hungry children, the silenced dreamers, the oddballs and rebels who longed to go against the grain?”

I loved this book and would love to talk about it with other readers. If you enjoyed the novel Before We Visit the Goddess, this would be a great book flight to read with it.

#savor #netgalley

Fatima has always wanted to be a chef and own her own restaurant. She was from Pakistan and through her Nona she learned how to make many dishes using local produce and everything that local farmers and markets had to offer. She later went to New York and worked in restaurant kitchens to expand her cuisine knowledge. She appeared on Chopped and Top Chef cooking shows on TV. She also stayed in California and enjoyed the different favors there. Unfortunately, she never managed to achieve her dream as she developed cancer. Her family was always with her and made sure she received the best care.
As I also studied cooking, I enjoyed the recipes she explained and could associate with the areas of India she described as I had also visted there.
Heartfelt, inspiring story.
I thank the author, publisher and Netgalley for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Oh, this is sad but sad in a good way? I am glad to have read the book and for the author to have invited me into her life. I expected a book about recipes and instead found heartbreaking cancer and strength. I wish I had watched the Top chef episodes she is on - I am glad to have read this book.

Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley for the opportunity. My review opinions are my own.
This is a moving memoir about a remarkable young woman Fatima . She has a gift as a chef she shared with the world on Top Chef. As her career of her dreams came true she was diagnosed with stage four cancer. This is her story of resislance to cancer, her ability to see the positive in every day and live her dreams. You will be moved to tears throughout this book and her lessons on life will stay with you forever. Her life lessons here are of placing value in the ordinary days and never giving up on your dreams no matter what obstacles you face. A wonderful read. Very touching and heartfelot . I highly recommend this book.

This was a really interesting memoir, of a young girls desire to be a chef. Born in Pakistan Fatima Ali, grew up around the wonderful food her Grandmother and mother cooked.
After her parents divorced, she and her brother would visit their father and something they had in common, was watching food shows on Television, and this was another reinforcement to what she wanted to do.
Having been a very good student all of her life, Fatima was able to go to New York and study at the Culinary Institute of America, and from there she was able to jump start her career, by working at many different restaurants, excelling at all she did. She was invited to be on the shows, Chopped and Top Chef, and her dreams became more and more. She and her brother had hopes of opening their own restaurant one day.
Soon after she became ill with and incurable cancer.
When they told her she only had a year to live, she knew she had to put in motion a book of her life, which she had already started, to help other young women.
She herself had overcome so much to get to where she was by just being a woman and from a different country.
She wanted it to be a story not only about her days in the kitchen, but a story of her life from childhood and she needed to get her mother to be very honest about things that went on.
Fatima found a woman, Tarajia Morrell, who's credentials she liked, to help with what she and her mother had written and what they also retold to her. She did a great job at bringing this memoir to fruition.
It was so interesting to see the behind scenes of restaurant work, the stresses, comradeship, prejudices etc.
There is so much to learn from this book and many interesting stories lived. A great read.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Random House publishing Group-Ballantine for a copy of this book.

The tears started rolling down my face on page 1. I requested this book not knowing who Fatima Ali was (I stopped watching Top Chef after season 13), but just by the description I knew it was a book I needed read.

I am trying to organize all the things I want to say about this book and the words fail me. If you are reading this review trying to decide if this is a book for you: IT IS.

Fatima’s life needs to be shared with the world, I’m so sad that I never got to taste her food, but her passion for Pakistani food was infectious and now I cannot wait to try it.

Reading about her struggles with the US healthcare system to get the answers and the care that she needed was very infuriating and triggering for me, as my siblings and I had a similar experience when our Mom was dealing with cancer.

A wonderful read, it definitely changed my life.

Love this! What a lovely and thoughtful (and thought-provoking) memoir. More food writing from people of color please. Full review to come in time for pub date.

Hits you in the feels! I enjoyed this memoir. Great storytelling and descriptions that make you feel like you are right there. Seeing, feeling, tasting…

Savor by Fatima Ali is a story of a young chef and her dreams. I watched Top Chef and saw a charismatic young woman on a journey to find herself amid her Pakistani upbringing and her desire to experience the world. She had a talent for affecting those people around her with her passion for cooking and the comfort she derived from food. Her close relationships with her older brother Mohammad and her Mom instilled in her a desire to do the best she could while challenging herself to go further. It is a story of love and loss amid the backdrop of her culinary achievements. But it is also the story of her struggle with a terminal cancer and her ability to adjust her dreams. This book is the culmination of Fatima’s legacy to being true to yourself. It is also a story to inspire other cancer patients as they undergo treatment. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is seeking inspiration about their own lives and dreams.

I’d never watched Top Chef before, but I must have caught the episode of Ellen that Fatima Ali was on because I vaguely knew her story before reading this memoir. I have a lot of admiration for chefs, and I was a fan of the show Chopped, which Fatima won when she was super young—I think she was just out of the Culinary Institute of America and 22 years old.

Fatima earned a degree of fame from being on Top Chef, but before she could move forward with her plans to bring Pakistani street- and upscale-fare to America, she was given a terminal diagnosis of cancer. She decided she wanted to spend the last year of her life traveling and tasting all the greatest restaurants in the world. When her illness hobbled her much more quickly than she thought it would, she decided instead that she would spend her final days writing a book. She writes some of the chapters and her mother writes others and a professional writer helped out in between. Much of this is about Fatima’s childhood in Pakistan. She has a great love for her country and cuisine, but it’s even more sexist than America (somehow being a chef is a testosterone-laden profession that discriminates against women even though traditionally women are the main cooks and bakers at home). Her mother got a divorce, which was a huge scandal for their socioeconomic group in Pakistan.

This memoir is a fast, compelling read about the challenges both Fatima and her mother faced in Pakistan and here in the States. It’s really a tragic story of someone with so much promise having her life cut short way too young.

After I read this, I streamed Top Chef Season 15, which is set in Colorado. It was fun for me to see Denver-area restauranteurs judging these chefs. I kept thinking, oh! I love that restaurant!

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book, which RELEASES OCTOBER 11, 2022.

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. This is the memoir of Fatima Ali, who lost her battle with cancer after appearing on Top Chef. She was well-loved and missed, and this is an excellent book about her travels and adventures with food before she passed.

*Received an e-ARC through Netgalley.

Savor is a heartbreaking memoir written by Fatima Ali, her mother (Farezeh), and Tarajia Morrell. I have to admit, I did not know much about Fatima before reading this book, except that she was on Top Chef and that she died at a young age due to cancer. Fatima’s story is truly extraordinary. Despite all the adversities, she paved her own unique path to accomplish so much. Her zest for life and her goals was remarkable. I really enjoyed reading all that she wanted to share with the world even though some aspects of her story were extremely challenging and required putting the book down to digest. By the end, it felt as if I lost a really close friend.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this well-written memoir about an extraordinary young woman who lived life so exceptionally. And it was extremely infuriating to read about her experiences with the American healthcare system as she battled cancer.

This book was both beautiful and devastating. I've become deeply consumed with the world of food lately and I am saddened to not have known of Fatima Ali while she was cooking in a city so near and dear to my heart.

Her story is both awe-inspiring and heartbreaking. A woman who has been through so much and continued to endure and never lose sight of her goals. This book has me both wanting to call and tell my friends how much I love them and sign up for culinary school. To say yes to every moment, to take full advantage of life because you never know how much left you have to live.

I'm so glad that I got the chance tox read it and learn a bit about Chef Fati's life and love of food and bringing people together. Her name will definitely live on through this book.

*This book was received as an Advanced Reviewer's copy from NetGalley.

I came to this title with a bit of caution because of the memoir written with assistance fact of it, but ended up appreciating it very much. It is written in alternating voices, Fatima's and her mother's, and Tarajia Morrell stays very much in the background. It's amazing that she only had one week with Fatima- she must have used that week very well as there is so much of Fatima in this book.

This title combines several things I love in a book: a cross cultural theme, a foodie focus, and a medical aspect. Unfortunately Fatima was terminally ill and her life very short, but she was a force of nature and successful in her brief life. She fought hard to resist the limitations imposed on upper class young women in Pakistan, the suffering she experienced in childhood, and the sometimes misogynistic culinary world. All of this makes for a fascinating reading experience. How wonderful of her family to support her in spending her final days working to get her memoir out into the world. I hope they are managing to thrive despite their loss.

I requested this book based solely on the cover and the fact that it was a chef's memoir. I had no idea it was written by Fatima Ali, one of the fan favorites from one of my favorite shows Top Chef. Once I realized that was the memoir I was about to read I knew I was in for a tear-jerker.

Fatima Ali was a fan favorite on Top Chef and became the youngest winner as well as the first Pakistani woman to ever win Chopped. She was finally getting recognized for her talents when she was diagnosed with Ewing's Sarcoma. She was given a year to live.

Fatima, along with her mother, reflect on her upbringing and how she clawed her way to the top to become a well respected chef in the industry she so badly wanted to change.

I loved this book and reading from Fatima's perspective gave a new meaning to the word heartbreaking. The relationship she had with her family (especially her brother and mother) brought me to tears. If you love cooking and/or memoirs this one is definitely for you!!

Pakistani chef (and Top Chef fan favorite) Fatima Ali's star was only beginning to rise when she was given a terminal cancer diagnosis. She was determined to complete her bucket list in her last year, traveling the world and eating all the delicious food she'd always dreamed of trying. In this memoir co-written by Ali, her mother, and writer Tarajia Morrell, we hear her life story, her passion for food, and her tragic end at the age of 29.

Sure, I would expect a book about someone who died of cancer at a young age to make me cry. But reader, this book made me SOB. It DESTROYED me. I went through a whole box of tissues. I literally had to take a shower to wash off all the tears and snot after I finished it. Would I recommend it? A hundred times over. It's beautiful and full of so much passion and excellent food writing. Grab those tissues and buckle up.

I devoured this book, the way Fatima Ali devoured life. A sumptuously written memoir told chronologically – from her childhood in Pakistan (and Austin, TX) to the final days of her life in California, surrounded by the community she spent her far-too-short life building and cultivating – 'Savor: A Chef's Hunger for More' is one of the best, most powerful and emotional books I have read in years. Fatima's voice was singular, strong, and ripped from the world; 'Savor' lets fans (like me) and newcomers alike get to bathe in her light. A must, must, must read.

Not what I was expecting, I misunderstand what it was about. I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review

I read this remarkable book in no more than two days, and at the end of it I was speechless; it took me at least three weeks to figure out how to convey the sheer magnificence of it.

Fatima Ali, a rising young chef from Pakistan, was on the cusp of opening her own restaurant when she was diagnosed with “the white boy’s cancer” - Ewing’s Sarcoma, so nicknamed because the population statistically most likely to have this dreadful bone cancer are young white makes. This is no spoiler - we learn about it in the prologue.

When Ms. Ali was near death, she wanted to tell her story and chose a writer to put it together from her own telling as well as that of her mother and brother. What emerged beautifully and heart wrenchingly is the story of her life, from her childhood to her death,; a story on the surface about her love of food and her journeys in it. From Ms. Ali’s earliest memories of accompanying her grandmother to the food markets in Pakistan, to her first foray into cooking for a crowd at the age of sixteen, when she cooked a holiday meal for her extended family, to studying at the Culinary Institute of America, to working her way in, up, and around food and restaurants, this is a story about how food shaped and made her short life.

We learn not only about Ms. Ali’s meteoric and diverse food experiences, though, but the story of her life, and it is the story of her relationship with her mother, brother, father, and other family members and friends of the family that give this book such depth. An early childhood experience of sexual abuse, which her mother chose to sweep under the rug, led to a long conflict between mother and daughter, one that is only openly addressed as Ms. Ali and her mother finally talk about it as she lays in her hospital bed.

The story of her life, as told from the different points of view, skillfully woven together like the Tales of A Thousand and One Nights is something to be cherished, indeed, savored. I can’t say enough wonderful things about this book, because it’s just that - wonderful.

And, like any fine meal that one savors when dining on a multitude of taste experiences and delights, eventually becomes a memory, so, too, does the fine meal that was Fatima Ali’s short but shining life. I am grateful that she and her family decided to tell her story, and that they chose someone who is such a fine weaver of tales in her own right, to bring it to the world.

I highly recommend this book.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher.