Carol of Carol’s Notebook reviewed this story back in March , 2010.
The narrator of the story is a 25 year old underachiever who works as a cook in a busy restaurant.  Every time he gets the courage to ask his boss for a raise his boss asks why a customer got a burnt grilled cheese sandwich.  He knows not to bring up the raise then.
He thinks to himself that perhaps he could have done something better with his life, as his family expected of him.  However, as the valedictorian of his graduating class categorized,he fell in to the  “entering directly into the workforce” category.
Once the new waitress entered the story it got a bit quickly.  She extremely thin is anorexic however he secretly feels some attraction to her.  He doesn’t ask her our though because of his obvious lack of ambition in life.  It would be too much like work to take the initiative to ask someone out on a date.  She however, doesn’t leave it up to him after all. At first she calls him ” funny boy”, then “boy”, and then all of a sudden “pretty boy’, which surprises him.
Said Sayrafiezadeh’s writing is good.  He really get’s into the narraters head, or as much as the narrator gets into his own head.  I liked this story but didn’t love it.  However, I did take the time to ponder the meaning of the title, ‘Appetite’.  I think it refers to his appetite for something better, even though he doesn’t do anything to achieve anything.  I also saw his “appetite” for a woman although again, he does nothing to achieve it.  The narrator seems stuck.  Perhaps the new waitress will help him but we will never know.
You can read the story over at The New Yorker. 
 
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