When Tess moves to New York, she is seeking something that she can't quite define. She finds answers when she lands a job at a famous high-end restaurant: belonging, experience, and identity. Both the insular world of the restaurant and her fellow employees with their singular areas of expertise quickly have her in their thrall--an attractive bartender and a worldly server in particular. This book started out strong for me--the organized chaos of the behind-the-scenes machinations in the restaurant was richly drawn and I could feel Tess's confusion, headiness, and determination to master the secrets of this new world--even as we sense that it's a place where one could, but should try not to, get stuck. As the book progressed, however, it often veered into pretentiousness and a frustrating lack of growth or progression in the relationships of the characters, who we mostly saw through the haze of Tess's heavy drug and alcohol use. I wanted to love this, but it unfortunately fell flat.