Make It Messy: My Perfectly Imperfect Life

This was a pretty quick, engaging read for me. I've started watching Chopped reruns and I enjoyed reading about Marcus's journey toward becoming a chef. I do wonder if this might go in a liiittle deep on the food terminology? But I know a lot of teens like watching Food Network and stuff, so I guess any teen who was interested enough to pick this up would probably be at least a little food savvy. I was talking to Abby, who read [b:Yes, Chef 13069213 Yes, Chef Marcus Samuelsson https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1329368167s/13069213.jpg 18329805], which is the full, grownup memoir, and it sounds like one of the biggest differences between the 2 books is this one cuts off around the time Marcus is age 25, when he gets his first head chef job (but before all the TV and stuff). This kinda makes sense, on the grounds that youths might be more interested to read about him as a youth, and also that the full version might be intimidatingly long? But, they probably want to know more about him as TV chef, so... IDK. Also: this version ever-so-casually mentions that he fathered an illegitimate child at the age of 20 and then never ever mentions that child again. Apparently, in the full memoir (and IRL), he reconnected with her when she was 14. IDK, I kind of wish they hadn't mentioned the kid at all if they weren't going to bring her up again later? But I did like how this showed how you can change paths and still find success, even without college. And I also liked the way Marcus talks frankly about race. He was adopted from Ethiopa as a baby and raised in Sweden, and he talks about microaggressions like people not expecting him to speak Swedish, or expecting him to be great at basketball. It's not the main point of his narrative by any means, but for some (white) kids reading this it might be one of the first times they hear about stuff like that.I'm planning to booktalk it to 7th/8th grade–I don't think it's going to appeal to every teen but I think there are enough kids who would be excited about it to make it worthwhile. Especially since, you know, there's a POC right there on the cover and I struggle to find enough books to those to make everyone feel represented when I do my school visits.