The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan is a novel about a radio cooking show hosted during wartime. It is a contest where four qualified cooks enter to win a co-host spot that brings with it fame, money, and security. I personally found this novel to be a bit lengthy and contained an ending that was not comparable in quality to the rest of the novel. Keeping that in mind, I still found this worth a read and worth your time.

The Kitchen Front contains intriguing wartime recipes and independent women who are fighting not only for their country but themselves. This is a novel that will not disappoint and if you enjoy cooking, one you will highly enjoy.

The plot time wise is roughly a year-long starting right before the first of three rounds in the competition and follows the four women that have entered. The novel is separated by the cooking show into appetiser, entrée, and dessert sections.

It is a plot with straightforward progression and captures each view-point at the perfect time. It does not lack in detail or provide confusion, it is a plot you will find is well-thought out and fully convincing.

The four main characters are Audrey, Nell, Zelda, and Gwendolyn. Audrey is a war widow with three young boys and financial troubles who feels the competition is her way out. Zelda is a professionally trained cook who is trying to find her place in the male dominated field. Gwendolyn is Lady of an powerful house who wants to show her purpose in the competition and Nell is an assistant cook looking to help her partner win the co-host spot.

All four are vastly different but deeply connected. After reading this novel you'll be surprised by how tiny the world is and unsurprised by how powerful one war can be in transforming the lives of millions including these four ladies.

I found no value in the ending. I personally felt it could have been condensed to create more punch and match the intensity of the rest of the novel. You may or may not feel this when reading but do know if you decide to read The Kitchen Front, even if the ending is a bit lengthy, the conclusion is well-rounded and still satisfying.

I highly enjoyed The Kitchen Front until halfway through the dessert section and then everything became too sappy for my taste. Towards the end, it was too bright of a rainbow, too convenient, and it felt as if their personalities were dulled so the ending could happen. I mean, Audrey was so comfortable letting people stay at her home, a home she still is paying to upkeep, without requiring rent? And towards the end, four women are using her garden without any depletion in resources? How big is the garden? Was she not canning and drying stuff for the winter? There are eight mouths to feed in this house, where are they getting the fresh produce? This seriously frustrated me, gardens are plentiful but not bottomless, I need sketches to assess if the amount they were taking was sustainable.

Gwendolyn and Audrey's relationship mishap was glazed over so quickly. They 'hated' each other and then, they were fine? Are you telling me if you had turmoil with your sibling for decades that everything would be forgotten in a moment? It was such a brief discussion of them saying 'I should have been kinder and so could have she, let's be friends again,' which yes, is plausible but also, I feel sibling dynamics are so much more intricate than that. I feel their relationship would have benefited from some more tension and discussion to show growth into a family instead of instant companionship.

This leads me to explain why I was so disappointed with the ending. I understood the cooking show made them a family but how frequently that was stated drained me. The last three chapters or so discussed over and over how and why they were a family, an instant family mind you. It frustrated me greatly because the transformation was so quick and the women who I felt were initially independent, morphed into a lump. I was frustrated that Zelda stated she did not want the child and because the other three pressured her (in my opinion), she kept it. She may have had a change of heart but it was crazy how quick a woman adamant against keeping the child changed her mind. Zelda could have been going through postpartum or an identity crisis and I value how holding the baby changed her mind but I didn't like it overall because she was so strong-minded about not having it and then she did. If there had been a few more moments of contemplation, then maybe I could have accepted how easily she changed her mind. What I think would have been a better ending is Gwendolyn adopting the baby, that would have made me smile and linked them all a bit more deeply.

Anyhoo, I found the ending to be too sappy for me and transformed the characters into something they weren't during the novel. I adored the recipe descriptions, the ideas they came up with for the cooking show, and their independence until the end. If the novel had been shortened to end right after the cooking show, I would have been very content. In all, a decent novel with an ending that left me with mixed feelings.