Kitchen is a short book of three short stories. Two tell one story, same characters. The third one is different but still relevant. Basically it all has to do with food and love and life and death. Feeding people to keep them alive and to keep the relationship alive. Relating to people through other people’s deaths. Finding closure even though its awkward and incomplete.

The first set of stories follows a young girl who has already lost her parents and now her grandmother. She’s taken in by a guy her age and his parent. The three of them get really close but when that parent dies, things change. The third story is about two couples. Two brothers and their girlfriends, who are all friends. But then the one brother and the other girlfriend die in a car crash together. The brother starts wearing her school girl outfit to cope and the girl takes up jogging. Neither of them really knows what to do.

The best part I think was when the girl in the middle story goes way out of her way to bring the guy a plate of katsudon. She’s on a work trip and finds this great restaurant on her own one night. She’s eating and then she calls up the guy only to find he’s alone and hungry in some random hotel being sad. So she takes a cab over to him and has to like jump up to his window just to get him a container of pork and rice. That’s love.

-Rachel Wagner

Click here to see all the short story collections I have for sale at Ten Dollar Books.

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My blogs:
–  Girtalk
–  Read or Die
–  Instagram

My books: 
– Jacob’s Hip: Poems
– FEM: New Millennium Beauty & Fashion
– Abandonment Issues: Alive in New Jersey
– Back Like I Never Left: Dating as a Single Mother

My bookstore: Ten Dollar Books
Instagram: @tendollarbooks
Twitter: @tendollarbooks
FB: @tendollarbooks

My grassroots literacy program: Not School
Instagram: @notschoolliteracyprogram
Twitter: @notschool_