The Ex-Boyfriend's Favorite Recipe Funeral Committee

A Novel

By: Saki Kawashiro, Yuka Maeno - translator

Narrated by: Sarah Skaer

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.

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.

Based on the author’s viral heartbreak story, this is a charming novel (with recipes) about a woman who uses the power of a warm meal to bring together the fellow lonely hearts in this small suburb of Tokyo.

Critic reviews

“In a debut novel that is touching, funny, and beautiful, Kawashiro has a wonderful gift for bringing the reader into the story.”—Booklist

Letting Go is a Kind of Grief

There is no real through plot for this book so if that is what you are looking for you can keep searching. What is here is a series of vignettes about the grief of letting go and moving on. It’s done cleverly. Gently. It’s like an almost clear broth that has a surprisingly deep, layered flavor. I enjoyed the mix of characters and the pacing was just right. If you need this book than it will speak to you. Recommended.