Cuisine. Culture. Commentary.
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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If you’ve seen Rain Man, you’re familiar with the extremely rare Savant Syndrome, which affects a small portion of those with Asperger’s, on the autistic spectrum. Daniel Tammet is the real deal. In this memoir, he describes what was going through his mind as a child while he struggled with the anxiety of social interaction. He also describes…
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The Sinclairs are a perfectly WASPy family, which of course is never perfect behind closed doors. All of the blonde haired, blue eyed clan spends the summer on their private island, Beechwood, where each of the patriarch’s three daughters have their own home with their families. The eldest children from each of these families have…
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Peaches to Apples 