⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.25/5

The Ex-Boyfriend’s Favorite Recipe Funeral Committee is an entertaining, hopeful story about food, love, and the power of friendship.

This was a delightful read. The characters were vivid and complex, and I enjoyed their development and the found family aspect. I was especially impressed by how Saki Kawashiro beautifully and thoughtfully explored a wide variety of life experiences and lessons in this novel. The hopeful, funny, and sweet plot was delightful, and the pacing fit the story nicely. I appreciated the incorporation of the recipe discussed in each chapter. The story was atmospheric, although I longed for longer cooking and food descriptions. Although the translation occasionally felt stiff and a bit formal, I overall enjoyed it and the prose. This story was creative and fun, and I would absolutely recommend it!

Thank you to the publisher for the free ARC!

As soon as I read the title, I knew I was in for something different and refreshing: The Ex-Boyfriend’s Favorite Recipe Funeral Committee did not disappoint. From the very first page, this book had me picturing a soft-focus Japanese romantic drama playing out in my head. I’m a huge K-Drama girl, so the emotional beats, the quiet intimacy, and the unexpected humor felt like curling up in my favorite warm blanket.

What made this book stand out most for me were the recipes sprinkled throughout the chapters. It’s such a charming, unexpected element. It was like flipping through someone’s grief journal and finding not only their pain but also their comfort food. I found myself bookmarking pages, not just for the story, but because I wanted to try the dishes myself. There’s something so healing about food tied to memory, and this book captures that beautifully.

As a Mortician, I found the concept of a “funeral committee” for an ex to be surprisingly profound and deeply human. Grief isn’t reserved just for death. We grieve breakups, estranged friendships, aging pets, and versions of ourselves we’ve had to let go. This story treats all of that with a light touch but doesn’t diminish the reality of those feelings. It’s the kind of book I’d recommend to someone who’s not ready for something heavy, but still wants to feel seen in their sadness.

It’s heartfelt without being overly sentimental, quirky without being forced, and comforting in a way that makes you want to hug the book when it’s over. If you’re looking for something refreshingly different with a dash of nostalgia, a pinch of romance, and a generous helping of healing. I can’t recommend this one enough.

Food heals the soul in a way words sometimes cannot. Although, Kawashiro’s words are just as flavorful as food with sweet characters that overcome bitter experiences with a warm and comforting system of connecting through cooking. The cherry on top are the recipes between every chapter, now my stomach will be as full as my heart after this unique story of friendship and renewal.

The Ex-Boyfriend's Favorite Recipe Funeral Committee is Saki Kawashiro's first novel and was born out of her real-life experience while working at bookseller and inventing a recipe (along with a vignette) for the store's menu that went viral. The main character, Momoko, is dumped by her boyfriend but finds community and healing as a chef at a cafe that starts up the titular program. Each chapter features a break-up and has its charms. As a complete work, I wish there was a little more continuity and development of Momoko before the denouement. But it was perfectly enjoyable and a strong first book.

For whatever it might be worth, I loved Hirashi Kashiwai's The Kamogawa Food Detectives and the similarities between it and the initial description of Kawashiro's book was what inspired me to read it. But Kawashiros' book is very much its own story and shouldn't be compared with Kashiwai's work. Still, if you liked The Food Detectives, there is a good chance you will like The Ex-Boyfriend's Favorite Recipe Funeral Committee too, especially if you match the demographics of the main character.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a bit slow starting off, but once I got into it I just really enjoyed all the characters and their efforts to help others heal. Not being japanese there were certainly subtleties I'm sure I didn't quite get, but they didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the story. Very powerful in a gentle way.

I was given an ARC of this book in return for my honest opinion.

This book was such a fun and cute concept and it was even more delightful to find out it was inspired by the author's real life experience! There is something so healing about coming together over food, but it can also be something that has a lot of memories associated with it and Saki Kawashiro does a lovely job navigating the ways food becomes intwined in our relationships. I found the rhythm of the book a bit repetitive, there isn't a grand rise and fall in action, rather each chapter is a similar structure, but the main character does grow and develop as she helps others and it is a sweet quick read!

I didn’t know what to expect going into this but I was pleasantly surprised. I have never read a story with this type of plot. This restaurant struggling to stay afloat gets a chance to revive itself with new recipes that are given to them by customers. The recipes all somehow bring us back to a break up the customer went through which is so healing and endearing. This was a beautiful book that is a beautiful insight on how food can be nostalgic and healing for so many individuals.

🤍🍴 BOOK REVIEW 🍴🤍

𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙧𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨 𝙙𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙘𝙪𝙧𝙚 𝙖 𝙗𝙧𝙤𝙠𝙚𝙣 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩? 𝙏𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙨𝙤𝙪𝙡-𝙣𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙞𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙖𝙣𝙮𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙬𝙝𝙤 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙙 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙩—𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙞𝙣.

The Ex-Boyfriend’s Favorite Recipe Funeral Committee
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Release Date: October 14, 2025
🫶🏼 Friendship Fiction

🥢Thank you @netgalley for this sweet ARC with recipes! Based on the author’s heartbreak story, this is a novel about a woman who uses the power of a warm meal to bring together the fellow lonely hearts in this small suburb of Tokyo.

🍵Twenty-nine-year-old Momoko has been tragically dumped. She thought her boyfriend was her soulmate. She believed he was going to propose. Instead, he broke things off at a love hotel.

So Momoko does what many broken-hearted people do—she gets incredibly drunk. So drunk that she passes out in a nearly empty café. When she awakens, she’s eager to tell her story to anyone who will listen and pours her heart out to a curious manager and the sole other customer in the café, a Buddhist monk in training. As Momoko describes how she doted on her ex and how he loved her cooking, the manager decides to indulge her by allowing her to slip into the kitchen and cook up her former beau’s favorite dish: a warm, delightful butter chicken curry.

As Momoko finishes telling her story, she realizes that this combination of cooking and sharing has stopped the flow of her constant tears. And the manager has a brilliant idea.

What if they started doing this regularly, inviting patrons to share stories about heartbreak while cooking dishes that held significance in their relationships? Thus, an unconventional therapy group, the “Ex-Boyfriend’s Favorite Recipe Funeral Committee,” is born.

#friendshipfiction #friendship #netgalley #japanesebooks #whattoreadnext

This was such an unusual trope and I enjoyed the story of how new friendships (and cooking!) helped Momoko process her break-up. The little snatches of humor here and there were very welcome too.

Thanks to Netgalley, the author and publisher, for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Momoko has been dumped by her boyfriend and as a result gotten incredibly drunk and ended up crying in a cafe. The manager offers to let her cook and explain the story of her relationship and it becomes a cathartic experience.

I went into this book looking for the cozy healing fiction genre that has been taking over the translated fiction genre lately and I don't think I quite got that. The book wasn't as quite or healing as I anticipated, so it felt more like a mismatch for my expectations and what the book brought to the table.

A solid read though.