#10: Waiter Rant, The Waiter

I finished Waiter Rant about a week and a half ago and while I liked it, I didn't love it. And, because I'm not much in the mood to blog (is it the humidity?) but want to return books to the library (I'm purging), I'm just going to go over it quickly.

The book is ostensibly by an anonymous waiter – author of an apparently popular blog of the same name – who sheds light on the ugly side of the restaurant business. (I say he's ostensibly anonymous because that's what the book jacket says; the Internet has just told me that The Waiter is a guy named Steve Dublanica, who was outed in 2008.) The parts about the actual restaurant business I enjoyed, and Waiter Rant is certainly well-written; it's also made me think twice about how to tip.

But then, at some point, the book starts veering into confessional mode as the Waiter's blog grows in popularity, he gets an agent, and freaks out about the writing of a book. I found those parts to be so self-indulgent – I think it's hard to feel invested in an anonymous story – and fairly annoying since for all the whining, it clearly worked out okay, since I was holding the book in question. I wanted to read a book about restaurants, not about some guy's existential crisis, and as Waiter Rant went on, it focused more on the personal travails of the Waiter and less on the biz.

Still, it was a quick read, which was a plus. He's a talented writer and it was easy to get through. It would be a good book to take on vacation (vacation!).