Veraz Human Strategies Blog | June 2026 Book Club

Land of Milk and Honey — A Hazy, Belated Review

So, as it happens, I'm far from perfect.

Despite my best intentions, I missed my book group meeting this month. I was deep in end-of-school-year logistics and a long-overdue family beach escape, and I just... didn't log on. UGH. Executive dysfunction is the worst.

That said, I read the book. I actually read it early to make sure I had time to finish — so here we are. My review, short and hazy as it may be.

Land of Milk and Honey is a dystopian novel set in a near-future where smog has blanketed much of the earth, crippling the ecosystem and wiping out the ability to grow food. Animal and plant life alike are affected, global famine follows. Good times.

Our protagonist — whose name is never revealed — is stranded in Europe, unable to return to her mother in California due to closed borders and her apparent lack of "desirability" to the US. She lies her way into a position as head chef for a so-called utopian community perched high in the Alps, on a pocket of land formerly belonging to Italy where the smog hasn't yet reached. There, obscenely wealthy people compete for the privilege of staying while scientists pursue de-extinction and other moonshot feats — ostensibly to save humanity, though mostly the well-heeled portion of it.

It's a story about survival, morality, and the tension between individualism and collectivism. And food.

The food descriptions are genuinely fantastic, even as our chef — affected by the famine and the foods she’s had available to her — can no longer eat or even taste what she creates for her employer.

The author does an impressive job contrasting the lives of the haves and have-nots, and rendering the particular blindness that comes with privilege. The questions she poses — who deserves to be saved? what will we sacrifice? who do we become in the act of saving ourselves? — are genuinely interesting ones.

I appreciated the twists and turns, though I didn't find the character manipulations especially surprising. Whether you're supposed to see through them or not, I mostly did. The main character's introspection felt a little thin to me, and her relationship with her employer's daughter, Aida — the only named character in the book, worth noting — didn't feel fully earned.

When I asked my bookish compatriots for their take, the consensus was that the book is "a vibe." And honestly? I agree. The author paints a genuinely moody picture. The characters aren't particularly likable, but the atmosphere is real.

So. That's my take, belated and all.

In the end, this lands squarely in what I lovingly call Category 2.

• Category 1: I hated this book. I would actively discourage others from reading it.

• Category 2: This book was fine. I finished it and didn’t regret the time, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it.

• Category 3: I loved this book. Everyone should read it, then call me so we can discuss it at length over coffee and chocolates.