The Townsend Family Recipe for Disaster by Shauna Robinson

 Welcome Back, Booklovers! I met Shauna at a book event back in March and decided to add The Townsend Family Recipe for Disaster to my TBR and went in without really knowing much about it. So keep reading to hear my full thoughts.

The Townsend Family Recipe for Disaster is about a biracial woman named Mae who is about to get married and feels out of place both in her own white family and the one she's marrying into. Her father passed years earlier and she's never had a connection to his family. When her grandmother passes she decides to take a trip to the South for the funeral and try and reconnect.  Secrets are revealed, longtime grudges are exposed and Mae must confront some harsh truths in between attempting to keep family traditions alive.

The book sets itself apart from similar books by having the harder conversations around biracial heritage and the way individuals navigate that identity that is different than someone whose parents are the same race. Which I appreciated because so often it's not discussed and it's presented as if there's no difference. Mae and her father had a habit of just shrugging off the racism of her white family over the years and she has to finally acknowledge the harm behind that and learn to stand up for herself. There were some very honest and uncomfortable conversations about race here. So many books I pick up that discuss racism and have Black and biracial characters in mostly white spaces still don't talk about the way in which those characters enable the white people around them by keeping quiet. Mae has to really reckon with the privileges she has due to her proximity to whiteness.

There's also a very good exploration here about how to navigate relationships with family after the death of the relative that was connecting you. Having firsthand experience actively navigating that I found that part of the story to be very well done. It didn't expect one of the big twists here and it was refreshing to see the conversations around it. My biggest gripe is there's no recipe for the much talked about mac & cheese!