Sunday 7 December 2014

Review: Good Choc Bad Choc: Fascinating Origins, Sexy Tips, Amazing Facts & Delicious Recipes for all Chocolate Lovers by Marcus Juelle

Everyone reading this blog knows that I love chocolate and that I love books. So, imagine my enthusiasm when I came across this book about chocolate! And, amazingly, Amazon offered it for free! (Probably just for a limited time, but I was lucky.)

The book is written in a very casual tone, with smilies included. Typos crop up rather frequently. This makes it appear amateurish rather than a reliable source of serious chocolate facts – but, then again, the author never claims this to be a scientific publication but a collection of fun, weird and interesting facts, and this is definitely delivered.

The book introduces various types of chocolate and their use, discusses the history of chocolate, tells you what chocolate has to do with sex, love, romance and religion, how chocolate was believed to cure fever and alleviate pain, and how it works as an anti-depressant as well as an aphrodisiac. There's a list of “weird facts and true stories” and advice for including chocolate in your “diet program”. This is all amusing and entertaining. What I didn't care for so much was the section including celebrities who regularly eat chocolate – not only did that seem like useless information, I didn't even recognise most of the so-called celebrities.

And, of course, there are the health benefits and drawbacks of eating chocolate. If you need an excuse for indulging, you'll find it here: there are 20! The drawbacks, however, don't all sound very serious (which is good, if you love chocolate). For example, chocolate “only provides temporary happiness.” Well, better temporary happiness than no happiness at all, so I'll take that any day! ;)

As a delicious bonus, the book includes recipes. There are main courses, desserts and drinks, and they all feature chocolate! I didn't try any of the recipes yet, but there were a few I'd like to give a try later on.

If you want serious scientific facts about chocolate, this is not be the book for you. But if you want something small and cute with a little bit of everything – like a little box of chocolates with different flavours – then read “Good Choc, Bad Choc”.

2 comments:

  1. The book sounds ok, if you like chocolate. It's a collection of "curiosities" about it and probably reads a bit like a magazine. To me, that's fun. (I've always thought of writing a book called "magazine". ;D) Besides, sometimes, a less pretentious book may contain some info that somehow is important to you and that you wouldn't have found anywhere else. So, all in all, it's all good. :) Thanks for reviewing.

    i-reader

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    1. Thank you for your comment, dear i-reader. :) Yes, the book is short, sweet and easy to read. I love chocolate, but I have no need to know everything about it, so this was just right (many of the facts were familiar to me, but there was also new info).

      A book called "magazine"? Well, that would get my attention for sure and make me ask, "What is this about?" :)

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