I've never reviewed a cookbook before, but let's try.
As someone from the Midwest with a mix of European ancestors, I was really interested to see what kind of recipes this would include. It seemed to say it was going to include recipes that A) were popular in the Midwest because they came from Europeans originally (most specifically from Scandinavia and Germany, I think) and B) recipes that were just straight up popular with Midwesterners, regardless of origin.
This was...kind of weird though. I appreciated some of the storytelling that went along with every recipe, but some of them are ridiculously fancy ways of making pretty simple desserts. Take for example the Poke Cake. Super common around here. Sever seemed to act like it was offensive to her senses and then created a more complicated version of it. I haven't tried her recipe--I'm sure it's tasty--but like, what's with the condescension?
Some of the recipes are completely foreign to me, which is expected. Where I grew up, it's mostly French/German roots, not Scandinavian or Polish, so most of the recipes from farther north (Minnesota, the Dakotas, even the Chicago area) aren't really things I've ever seen or experienced before. That's not a bad thing (a few of the recipes looked really good), but I felt like most of the recipes were tilted toward this Scandinavian background and I just had no interest in making those.
But there are definitely a few winning recipes in there. I'm going to make the After-School Special cookies this weekend, which look delicious. And her take on some classic recipes looks really interesting. She has a recipe for Coffee Caramel Monkey Rolls that looks really interesting.
Overall, this is a book that might be worth checking out, but it wasn't one I would buy and have sitting around. There weren't enough recipes I liked to warrant that.