The Unbearable Sweetness of Sugar is an invitation to tour the plantations of La Réunion, a former French colony whose cultural identity has been shaped by the monoculture of sugarcane. Through a rush of short chapters, the book follows the stories of locals whose lives have been affected by the plantation system. As the threads of these stories begin to unravel, some of their twists and turns lead the reader far away from the plantations, reminding us that colonialism is not just an abstract system, but also a smell, a taste, a sound, and a landscape.