Cuisine. Culture. Commentary.
The only thing perfect about the Post family vacation is the location. They are all set to spend two weeks is picturesque Mallorca. They have a mansion to themselves in the countryside and not a care in the world since husband Jim is embarking on early retirement and daughter Sylvia is heading off to college.…
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Wednesday Martin’s memoir about life as an Upper East Side mommy made waves across Manhattan and the nation. She was an inhabitant of the trendy West Village until she and her husband decided to make the pilgrimage uptown to raise their son, where it is more conservative and label conscious. Martin feels utterly out of place and…
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By the sheer luck of being Ev’s college roommate, Mabel gains entree into the Wislow’s blue-blooded world. The Winslows are society folk of Kennedy – nay, Vanderbilt – proportions. Mabel does not just want to spend time with them, she wants to be one of them. When Ev invites her to Winloch, the Vermont camp/estate where…
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Ani has carefully curated a perfect life for herself. She’s an editor at a top magazine where her bosses adore her, she has a closet filled with all the top labels, and she has snagged herself a Kennedy-esque fiancé. She worked hard studying the lives she wanted to emulate and made it happen for herself,…
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Anne, Neely, and Jennifer are three bright eyed young women in New York City with the world at their fingertips. They each knew they needed something bigger and shinier than their humble beginnings and – against all odds – they all manage to find stardom. At first the girls lean on each other, but as they…
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On the small island of Alice, off the coast of Massachusetts, everyone sees bookshop owner A.J. Fikry as a loner and a bit rude. He doesn’t engage with the townspeople and is very much set in his ways. As a widow who lives off frozen meals and wine, Fikry knows he lives an unhappy life…
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I came of age in France so I am drawn to a coming of age novel set in the country. Isabel is an American from California that I would categorize as flighty. She has dropped out of film school and has moved to France to help her pregnant sister, Roxy, prepare for the arrival of her…
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Like pretty much everyone else, I was obsessed with “Gone Girl” so I made sure to read Gillian Flynn’s next novel, “Dark Places” and it did not disappoint. Libby Day is the victim of a gruesome crime. When she was just seven, her mother and two sisters were brutally murdered – we’re talking strangled, chopped with an…
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The “marriage plot” is a common literary [and now film] device wherein the storyline is developed around courtship rituals. Two people are perfect for each other only they can’t see it because a) there’s a love triangle (“27 Dresses”), b) religious/political differences (“My Big Fat Greek Wedding”) or c) other “insurmountable” obstacle (“Monster-in-Law”). In the end,…
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Since these novels are true YA (that’s the Young Adult genre), I read all three in 3.5 days. I mean, I’m an almost-30-year-old reading stories meant for teens. Whatever, it’s still juicy fun. This is yet another series in the growing dystopian romance/female empowerment sub-category. It was described to me as Hunger Games meets The…
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Peaches to Apples 