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Chop Chop

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About this listen

Penguin Presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Chop Chop, by Simon Wroe, read by Daniel Weyman.

Two months behind on his rent, young graduate Monocle swallows his dreams and takes the only job he can find: the lowest-rung chef in a gastropub in Camden. Here he finds himself surrounded by a group of deranged, criminal hoodlums (his co-workers) and at the mercy of an ingenious sadist (the head chef, Bob). What follows is a furiously-paced, ribald, raucous and deeply touching tale of loyalty and revenge, dark appetites and fading dreams, and a young man finding his way in the world as he is plunged into the fat and the frying pan and everything else besides.

 Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Chef Dream

Critic reviews

Brace yourself for this lively, amusing and alarmingly informative novel
A greasy, hilarious tale of loyalty, revenge and dark appetites
Confirms all your worst fears about professional kitchens in a debut novel that is dark, pungent, twisted, surprising and above all genuinely funny. If you enjoy eating out, don't read this book (William Sutcliffe, author of Are You Experienced?)
Raucous and inventive, peopled with technicolour characters and savagely funny, Chop Chop announces Simon Wroe as both an heir to Martin Amis and an oven-fresh talent unto himself (A D Miller, author of Snowdrops)
A complete page-turner. Reminiscent of Kitchen Confidential but with an entirely fresh voice that is a pleasure to read (Thomasina Miers, founder of Wahaca)
Perfectly baked [with] a rich, gooey pool of dark comedy hiding beneath the surface. Despite straying into the realm of sabotage, blackmail and secret dinner parties serving stomach-churning illegal fare, Wroe's novel makes for fresh, appetising reading
A brutally funny look at the world of professional cooking. Sometimes the truth is so strange it needs to be sautéed in a pan of fiction (Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story)
Furiously funny, fast, surreal. The heat and the profanity feel painfully real; the prose, masterfully stylized, definitely the stuff of fiction (Anya von Bremzen, author of Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking)
Arch comedy ... Dave Eggers channels Anthony Bourdain
Depicts the literal underworld of a restaurant kitchen with wit, vigor, and gleeful, necessary profanity
All stars
Most relevant
I loved this book! At the beginning I found the story really dark and not enjoyable at all but as I kept listening I realised that there's more to this book than a bunch of peculiar people working in a pub in Camden: it's about people controlling other people, manipulation, willpower. Chop Chop is a hilarious tale of friendship that's not obvious and it's about the everyday life in North London. This book is a great debut and I'm really looking forward to listening to more audiobooks by Simon Wroe.

Weird and dark... but really good!

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Very highly recommended.
brilliantly written.
narration, Daniel Weyman.
don't need to say anymore!
I could (and often have) listened to his voice all day.
I don't search for authors anymore, just Daniel Weyman!

The narration "serves" justice to this great story

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