Appetite

“Sometimes a book comes along that hits all the right notes and makes all the right moves. Paramita’s ode to wrestling and food is a deliciously fun book. The novel digs deep into what happens to a person who finds fame and the fandom that comes along with it.”—Debutiful

“For fans of The Bear and WWE wrestling, pop culture reporter Paramita’s debut novel is a tautly told story about an up-and-coming young chef whose life explodes when she crosses paths with her favorite professional wrestler.”—The Seattle Times

“What is it they say about never meeting your heroes? With reflections on parasocial relationships and lots of delicious food descriptions, [Appetite is] a story you’ll love sinking your teeth into.”—Susie Dumond for Book Riot

“Heartfelt and original . . . Both unsettling and uplifting, Appetite makes all of us question where we are in the torture of discovering who we might become.”—Electric Literature

“There’s a magic in the food writing here that nothing could have fully prepared me for. This novel expanded my idea of what a meal can do. . . . [Appetite] could be easily described as a love letter to Bangladeshi cuisine and to professional wrestling. But to say that would be an oversimplification.”—Autostraddle

“Deeply personal and sharply attuned to our cultural moment.”—The New Haven Indpendent

“Paramita travels through her world of wrestling and cuisine with genuine enthusiasm, optimism, wonder, and hope.”—The Daily Star

“A tender debut . . . reckoning with fame, fandom, race.”—Tanaïs, author of In Sensorium: Notes for My People

“P. Paramita’s Appetite is a love song to fusion, to kitchens, to wrestling, to mustard, to FaceTime across time zones, to risks on all scales . . . and most of all, it’s a love song to dreaming and friendship, and the ways care and creativity and hunger make everything else possible. This is a deeply modern story about the relationship between our digital and embodied lives, and also a tale that feels timeless, told from the heart, about heritage and reinvention and hope.”—Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams

“A delicious debut full of warmth, ambition, and what it means to peel back the mask of performance and take the stage anyway. Warning: have snacks on hand before reading. A lot of them.”—Haley Jakobson, author of Old Enough

“Paramita’s gorgeous, hilarious, and deeply relatable debut is ultimately about claiming identity, forming meaningful connections, and discovering what true passion means in a world where one often has to make their own place.”—Booklist

“Women’s wrestling and high-end cooking collide in Paramita’s delightful debut. . . . Paramita tackles myriad themes with aplomb, from the hazards of one-way friendship to the class and racial differences Zarina has difficulty navigating at Zero’s. This offers plenty of rewards.”—Publishers Weekly