Review: The Satisfaction Café

The Satisfaction Café
The Satisfaction Café by Kathy Wang
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a quiet, lovely book that started out with focusing on family and wealth and what it meant to enter a family as a third wife when your husband already has grown children. And there were bits that made me mad when she didn’t stand up for herself and bit that made me feel devastated.

But then the book moved to being about community, creating your own community and the loneliness so many of us carry in so many ways and how we can help each other and how most of us just need to talk to someone.

It was a warm and surprising book and I really enjoyed my time with it.

with gratitude to netgalley and Scribner for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

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The Joy of Art – May 04, 2025 at 06:31AM

Practicing my sketching.

“Within you there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time.”

I somehow used the same quote twice in a row!!

#sketching #art #urbansketching #watercolorjournal #watercolors #drawing #illustration #artistsoninstagram #sketchbook #creativity #artwork #inspirationalart #aradillapatreon

The Joy of Art – May 03, 2025 at 06:31AM

Practicing my sketching.

“Within you there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time.”

#sketching #art #urbansketching #watercolorjournal #watercolors #drawing #illustration #artistsoninstagram #sketchbook #creativity #artwork #inspirationalart #aradillapatreon

The Joy of Art – May 02, 2025 at 06:31AM

Practicing my sketching.

“There are only two
people whose pride should truly matter to you – not your parents, not your friends, not even your mentors.
Just two: the 8-year-old you, full of dreams, and the 80-year-old you, full of memories.
Both are watching you now. The child you once were is still inside you, filled with wonder and hope, waiting to see if you’ll chase the dreams they once believed in….And then, there’s the older you – the one who’s lived through it all and knows how quickly time passes”

#sketching #art #urbansketching #watercolorjournal #watercolors #drawing #illustration #artistsoninstagram #sketchbook #creativity #artwork #inspirationalart

The Joy of Art – May 01, 2025 at 06:31AM

Practicing my sketching.

“Between what is said and not meant and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost.”

#sketching #art #urbansketching #watercolorjournal #watercolors #drawing #illustration #artistsoninstagram #sketchbook #creativity #artwork #inspirationalart #aradillapatreon

The Joy of Art – April 30, 2025 at 06:31AM

Practicing my sketching.

“I could tell you my adventures, beginning from this morning. But it is no use going back to yesterday because i was a different person then.”

#sketching #art #urbansketching #watercolorjournal #watercolors #drawing #illustration #artistsoninstagram #sketchbook #creativity #artwork #inspirationalart #aradillapatreon

The Joy of Art – April 29, 2025 at 06:31AM

Practicing my sketching.

to live in this world

you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go

#sketching #art #urbansketching #watercolorjournal #watercolors #drawing #illustration #artistsoninstagram #sketchbook #creativity #artwork #inspirationalart #aradillapatreon

The Joy of Art – April 28, 2025 at 06:31AM

Practicing my sketching.

This morning
the beautiful white heron
was floating along above the water
and then into the sky of this
the one world
we all belong to
where everything
sooner or later
is a part of everything else
which thought made me feel
for a little while
quite beautiful myself.

#sketching #art #urbansketching #watercolorjournal #watercolors #drawing #illustration #artistsoninstagram #sketchbook #creativity #artwork #inspirationalart #aradillapatreon

The Joy of Art – April 27, 2025 at 06:31AM

Practicing my sketching.

“When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

#sketching #art #urbansketching #watercolorjournal #watercolors #drawing #illustration #artistsoninstagram #sketchbook #creativity #artwork #inspirationalart #aradillapatreon

The Joy of Art – April 25, 2025 at 06:31AM

Practicing my sketching.

“It is impossible to be lonely when you’re zesting an orange. Scrape the soft rind once and the whole room fills with fruit. Look around: you have more than enough. Always have. You just didn’t notice until now.”

#sketching #art #urbansketching #watercolorjournal #watercolors #drawing #illustration #artistsoninstagram #sketchbook #creativity #artwork #inspirationalart

The Joy of Art – April 24, 2025 at 06:31AM

Practicing my sketching.

“Live in each season as it passes. Breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit. And resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”

#sketching #art #urbansketching #watercolorjournal #watercolors #drawing #illustration #artistsoninstagram #sketchbook #creativity #artwork #inspirationalart

The Joy of Art – April 23, 2025 at 06:31AM

Practicing my sketching.

“Then death sits you down at his table and lays a page in front of you and after all these years of what you should have been doing, whispers to you, save your life.”

#sketching #art #urbansketching #watercolorjournal #watercolors #drawing #illustration #artistsoninstagram #sketchbook #creativity #artwork #inspirationalart