Rating: 
Summary: Perfection Accomplished
Review: Poppy Z. Brite, unlike so many authors in today's modern world is not afraid to evolve. Her book Liquor is just another testimony on how the artistic spirit never stops roaming. She began writing gothic fiction, vampire erotica, and other such works, and now she is writing about the restaraunt world. The novel tells the story of two lovers that decide to start up a restaraunt that serves everything with Liquor.
Poppy Z. Brite continues to refine her style and will never stop getting better. The language flows, and the story always keeps you on the edge of your seat. Buy the book today, and it will be finished tommorrow!
Rating:
Summary: A Spicy Treat
Review: Realistic, non-stereotypical characters who happen to be gay (rather than rainbow-flag-waving GAY CHARACTERS), luscious food details, and a liberal spicing of humor made this my favorite book of the year. I've always enjoyed Brite's work, but I must say she has come a long way. Few authors will display this much versatility in a fifty-year career, leave alone in the dozen years between "Lost Souls" and "Liquor." Bravo, bon appetit, and bring on the sequel!
Rating:
Summary: "ONE OF THE TOP TEN BOOKS OF 2004" in Frontiers Newsmagazine
Review: She's said in the past that she feels like a gay man trapped in a female's body, but has since revised her quotation and concluded, "It's not that simple anymore."
Brite is a tremendously gifted artist who's proven she's anything but easy to pigeonhole either as a person or as a writer. In the past, short-sighted critics accused her of being 'mired in the horror genre,' while her two most recent releases are testament to the fact that she *does* have range. (And how!) Picking up after _The Value of X_, this culinary tale is no shoddy buffet; it's a fully realized feast.
In short, I want to extend congratulations to this wildly prolific writer. You've earned it, PZB!
Rating:
Summary: Liquor? I hardly--
Review: So: some thoughts on this book, which I just consumed in the course of 24 hours around a full day of work and sleeping. (...) 2: I am SO HUNGRY. I CRAVE good food. I DESIRE IT CARNALLY. And I normally just am not that much of an eater: I'm one of those who eats to live, as opposed to living to eat. So that says something about how lovingly the food stuff is written.
This is food porn, Gentle Reader. 3: (...) In a novel this small, it'd be all too easy to paint your villain dead-black and your heroes chalk-white: Poppy doesn't do this. They're multi-textured characters, all of whom have traits that call up sympathy or dislike. 4: I don't normally read THIS fast. It's quite addictive. I strongly STRONGLY recommend this novel. (...) It's very charming. And very witty. And damn funny in places. And very... real.
Rating:
Summary: It Takes Balls
Review: Somehow some people forget that it takes balls to write something in a genre in which you leave your entire original fanbase behind, and start over. Where everyone expects a horror novel which should induce some nausia, this book still talks straight to the stomach: it'll make it growl. As always Poppy served up a well-written piece of art, and I do have to say that though I got to know her work when I first picked up Lost Souls and Drawing Blood, this has been everything but a disappointment. The style and Big Easy grace remain, and she seems to have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it doesn't matter what genre she ventueres in to. Talent will not be denied.
Rating:
Summary: Brite's best yet
Review: Start out with likable and believable characters. Add equal parts suspense, humor and romance and season with the most realistic portrayal of New Orleans you're bound to ever read and you have Liquor, by Poppy Z. Brite.
It's hard to say what impresses me most by this book. It could be the fact that it has neither too much or too little of anything. It's a perfect balance of romance, suspense and humor. All fitting perfectly to tell a very satisfying story
Maybe it's the dialog. Liquor manages the rare feat of having characters say things in the way that, you know, people naturally speak. Ms. Brite is known to say that dialog is her weak point. Either she's artificially humble or the woman needs to have her head examined. Her dialog is brilliant!
It could be the completely believable characters. People who fit to no literary or P.C. stereotype, yet you can't help but love and root for each and every one of them (with a couple of exceptions)!
The book manages to be funny without being ridiculous. Maybe that's my favorite thing?
Her descriptions of New Orleans show a complete love and knowledge of the city, warts and all. No sappy romaticizations (as with other local authors) here, folks. Just the beautiful, dysfunctional city I've been blessed and cursed to live in for the past eight years.
Having worked a number of years bartending and waitressing, I was almost offended by the attitude toward front-of-house restaurant workers. Then I reminded myself that this is exactly the way most cooks feel about us and Ms. Brite was forgiven. I could definately relate to the bartender, Laura's, reaction to being called a waitress and confess to laughing coffee right out of my nose when I read it
Some of the characters were obviously based on real-life New Orleans celebrities (including one VERY famous New Orleans chef, who's reaction to his character I would have gladly paid to see).
The relationship between G-Man and Ricky was both touching and believable. I almost went a little misty reading the description of how G-Man felt about Ricky. Why can't all men be like G-Man?
All in all, Liquor managed the almost impossible feat of being a novel I wouldn't change a thing in.
Well, I might cchange one thing...
Poppy Z. Brite's husband is a very good chef and Liquor IS the perfect concept for a New Orleans restaurant. So, where is it??????
Rating:
Summary: Great Read, Better Cuisine
Review: Technically, this isn't a brand new direction, since the short novel *The Value of X* and a few stories in her recent collection, *The Devil You Know,* visited this direction before, but those were small press hardcovers (Subterranean Press, in fact), and this is a mass market trade paperback. All I can say is: excellent. (...) So much food... The plot in a nutshell, G-Man and Rickey are a couple of 27 year old best friends and lovers, who work the mean kitchens of New Orleans. After dealing with jaggoffs and jerks, Rickey gets mondo inspiration for a one-of-a-kind restaraunt that'd do great in the N'Awlins atmosphere -- Liquor, a place whose gimmick is straightforward: every dish served incorporates alcohol in some form. This novel is about the difficulties in getting said restaraunt going. What's more, it's about the challenges involved in going for your dreams and taking a stand for what you feel in important. What's more it's a novel about fear. Not the traditional 'BOO!' kind of fear, but the all too real world 'what if I'm not as good as I think I am?' terror. I once heard the notion that our fears change as we grow older. This is a novel, which demonstrates that development. Poppy Brite is the only person who could've written this novel. The characters are exceptionally drawn, the writing is honed (though passive sentences creep in once too often for my taste), and the text's flavor is at once saucy, sweet, salty and sexy. (...) This is probably Poppy Brite's best book, thus far.
Rating:
Summary: Deliciously witty, savory writing, redolent of Nawlins,
Review: Terrifically delicious and funny novel about two friends/lovers who, after working for more than a decade in the underworld of New Orleans restaurant kitchens, begin the process of opening their own establishment in which all recipes will feature a component of liquor. This being New Orleans, they figure the gimmick ought to go over well, together with some fine cooking. Oh, this is such a wonderful book; read it just as soon as you can. VERY Nawlins (lots of Ninth Wardese), very hip, wondrously foody, with a pinch of dark. Mighty fine reading. Brite is a marvelous raconteur. FINEST KIND!
Hey, Poppy, where'yat? You got a friend in California.
Rating:
Summary: Great Writing and Great Food
Review: The amazing Poppy Z. Brite delivers what may be the most unusual book of her career - although those who express disappointment at it not being a transgressive goth horror novel like LOST SOULS or EXQUISITE CORPSE just don't get the point: She already WROTE those books (and wrote them brilliantly)! Now she's written this one, a tasty slice of New Orleans life and food following the adventures of Rickey and G-Man, chefs and lovers, in their quest to open a restaurant where every dish is made with, you guessed it, liquor. Brite manages to give the conception and birth of a restaurant (with ups and downs, reversals and intrigues) all the drive and energy of a suspense thriller: If Elmore Leonard were a food writer, this the book he'd write. And, it probably goes without saying, but when you're done with LIQUOR, you're going to want to fly to New Orleans and beg or bribe PZB into taking you on an eating tour.
Rating: 
Summary: Brite Lite
Review: The newest novel by Poppy Brite is sure to evoke many different reactions. Those who love the author and are predisposed to adore everything she has written will undoubtedly love it. Those who miss the horror-based realities she drew with the over-ripe prose of her previous works will probably despise it. And then there will be those, like me, who waited and waited for this book and Brite's new direction, who simply shrugged and walk away, feeling as if they were promised a delicious meal only to partake of something served up by Chef Boyardee. The problem with Liquor is that it is not bad, nor is it particularly good. The problem is it just lies there, languishing with nothing to make the reader feel very passionately one way or the other. Whether it is Brite's toned-down style, the lack of an interesting plot or dialog which tends to trivialize the characters is not quite clear to me yet. I won't go into plot details. That is amply supplied above. However, for the first time in Brite's career she seems to have resorted to simple exposition to draw her characters and the result is a book peopled with one-note protagonists who we are to believe are street-wise because they grew up in the Lower Ninth Ward, a place apparently devoid of any character excepting that bestowed by repetition of the word "tough". Our two lead characters, unfortunately, are not particularly likeable. G-Man is so laid back as to come off without any discernable personality traits other than to calm down Rickey, the poor but still 90210-bratty father of Liquor, the restaurant. Additionally, while the age of the characters is not readily discernable from the text, it is presumed that they are late 20s although their dialog (especially that of Rickey) paints them closer to petulant teenagers, more spoiled than rough and tumble. [yes, indeed, the age of the characters are indicated on page one as others have stated, a fact I obviously forgot by the time I finished the book; however, I stand by my assesment of them based upon their dialog]. The villain Mike Moulton is largely forgettable and Rickey's "benefactor", famed celebrity chef Lenny Duveteaux (read that Emeril meets Wolfgang Puck), is serviceable but flat. The descriptions of characters and locales, whether they be physical or emotional recitations, tend to be simplistic, bordering on cringe-worthy. I actually shuddered when I arrived at the line: "He looked down at Mike for a moment, his eyes burning like twin blue lasers of hate." The dialog fares no better, and probably worse, being littered with healthy smatterings of "Dude" or forced-anti-stereotype observations such as: "When I get scared I think of the Mailman taking it to the basket....Karl Malone doesn't stop to be scared..." Unfortunately, these words paint characters that we should like as simplistic, cartoons rather than real people. Given all that, one would hope that the book would fly with its description of culinary delights. However, the descriptions of food are mere recitations of ingredients rather than the effect of the food upon the diner, or the smells of the food as they linger around the characters. Here, again, there was such potential. All in all, the ingredients are all there, ready, willing and able to be stirred, but they never come together. One is left with the feeling that Liquor should have been left on the stove a little longer before being served up to the patrons.
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