It's MLB playoffs. What are you reading?

Recommended reading during the World Series playoffs:

Wait Till Next Year, Doris Kearns Goodwin (earned one of my only Goodreads' five stars this year)
This Dark Road to Mercy, Wiley Cash (earned one of my only other Goodreads' five stars this year)
Calico Joe, John Grisham
The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron, Howard Bryant
Beyond Belief: Finding the Strength to Come Back, Josh Hamilton

What other baseball books have you read?

And, Go Cubs!

Gun Violence in Literature - A Sign of the Times?

I've just read both In the Language of Miracles (review here) and Jenny Hubbard's And We Stay. Both books focus on those left behind in a tragedy, and a high school shooting tragedy in particular.

(Fun side note: Jenny Hubbard and I have the same alma mater, Meredith College, and she was an English major like me. You should follow her on Twitter: @hubbardwrites.)

I can't imagine how tough it would be on a girl like Emily, the main character in And We Stay, to witness her boyfriend's suicide in the school library, and within a few days she's been forced by her family to undergo an abortion and has been transported from her school where she knows everyone and where her support system is, to a private all-girls boarding school in another state. She's forced to figure out what about her story to tell and what to keep private. She's forced to make new friends, go to new classes and be away from her family. She's fortunate to land a roommate who respects her privacy and cares about Emily.

But most of this tragedy Emily must bear and sort through emotionally alone. She finds solace in her own poetry writing and that of Emily Dickinson, a former student at , now Amherst School for Girls in Amherst, Massachusetts. As it turns out, Emily Beam is a good poet on her own and is encouraged by her peers and one of her teachers to enter her work in a contest.

It's this support system who helps Emily dig out of her deepest despair, and by the end of the book we get the sense that she'll be OK. 

Our country has experienced some terrible gun violence in recent months. It's my hope that with time, love and support, those affected will all be OK just like Emily and the tragic family in In the Language of Miracles.

A Recent (and Fun!) Read: The Art Forger by BA Shapiro

A year and a half ago I read The Forger's Spell by Edward Dolnick. I'd just visited Atlanta's High Museum of Art's Dutch painters exhibit. I loved the exhibit, and the highlight was seeing the real "Girl with a Pearl Earring" as the last painting in the exhibit. I had built the book up and was so excited to read it, but was disappointed.

The Forger's Spell was a let down. Only a few parts interested me as a person who enjoys art but can only draw stick figures (my recent visit to a BYOB and paint-your-own-canvas thing produced a piece I'm not sure is worth hanging in my house).

Fast forward to this summer. I borrowed The Art Forger by B. A. Shapiro from a friend, and this book has made up for the other in a sense. The book begins 25 years after the robbery of the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum in Boston (right about now). A talented painter named Claire has been trying to make it as an artist and win back a good reputation after accusations of a forging a painting a few years before. To earn money to supplement her own original works, Claire is paid to paint copies of famous paintings sold as fakes online by a large retailer. When she's approached by a trusted friend from the art world with a secret project with a large paycheck, Claire struggles to make a decision that's ethical and true to herself.

While I'd still be interested to read an interesting nonfiction book about the underground world of forging the works of famous artists, and the theft at the Gardner Museum, I enjoyed this book. The Art Forger was fun fiction, and was just the right amount of art for a person like me with good pacing and a character I could understand.

It's an interesting time to be reading a book like The Art Forger, as the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the U.S. Department of Justice have just released new information on the heist this month. The two men who stole some of the world's most valuable paintings are now confirmed dead, though their names haven't been released. Now the investigation to locate those paintings continues.

Here's hoping they catch the thief and someone writes a good book about how they got away with it.

Book Review: In the Language of Miracles by Rajia Hassib

In the Language of Miracles by Rajia Hassib

Published by: Viking

Published on: August 11, 2015

Page Count: 272

Genre: Fiction

My Reading Format: ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley

Available Formats: Hardcover, Kindle

My Review:

The Al-Menshawys, who immigrated to the United States from Egypt 15 years before, are living the American dream. Father Samir, mother Nagla, grandmother Ehsan, and teenage children Khaled, Hossam and Fatima are living comfortably in a suburban small town outside of New York City. For over a decade they've been best friends with the Bradstreets next door. Hossam's relationship with the Bradstreets' daughter Natalie has become more than a friendship until suddenly and violently, the worlds of both families are changed forever. What the Al-Menshawys chalked up to teenage moodiness was more serious than they anticipated. When Natalie ends their relationship, Hossam takes her life and his own in a nearby park. 

When the book begins, these two families have spent the year since the deaths of their children quietly removed from each other. The Al-Menshawys have carefully navigated their community. Samir's medical practice has suffered, Ehsan is keeping house while Nagla is still coming to terms with what has happened and Khaled is still getting harassed at school.

To commemorate the anniversary of their daughter's death, Jim and Cynthia are planning a tree planting and a memorial service at the park, and the public has been invited to attend. As a courtesy, Cynthia stops by the Al-Menshawys to make sure they're aware of the service. It's the first time the two families have spoken in a year.

Though the Al-Menshawys have grieved and struggled to make sense of Hossam's actions, the anniversary of the deaths brings to the surface the emotions that each family member individually has tried to keep quiet.

I liked so many things about In the Language of Miracles. The back-and-forth of the storyline works well as a structure, as it keeps the information dripping out for the reader a little at a time. I liked learning about the Egyptian culture of the Al-Menshawys and how it both changed and stayed the same as they settled into their American life. I liked this family of sad, believable characters. Hassib wrote convincingly about three different generations that although they still lived together under one roof, they were growing further apart. 

This book is a good reminder to appreciate and forgive cultural differences, realize that the grief process goes on long after a funeral service has ended and that everyone handles a loved one's death in their own time and on their own terms. This book is a good reminder to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, as you never know what they may be facing underneath the surface.

Four out of Five Stars

If you liked this book, you’ll like Zeitoun by Dave Eggers and And We Stay by Jenny Hubbard.

Book Review: Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

So many people have asked me for my take on Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman: A Novel that I figured I'd just write about it.

The short version:  I really, really enjoyed it. I started it almost as soon as it arrived Tuesday a week ago and finished it about 48 hours later.

The long version:  To Kill a Mockingbird is my favorite book. Ever. When that is where the bar is set, everything else falls short of it. GSW is not TKM. But, it's a story that helped me feel satisfied, for the most part, about how characters turned out (GSW is set about 20 years after TKM in the 1950s). The best part about getting to revisit some of American literature's most memorable characters is that we get to see what tomboyish, precocious Scout is like as an adult. The best parts about her haven't changed. She's still sassy and she's still thinking for herself.

Scout's heart is still the same, but when she returns home for a long visit to Maycomb, Alabama, from New York City, she's aghast that it's not the same place she remembers from growing up there (Thomas Wolfe, anyone?). That's something I can relate to. After almost three decades in one county in North Carolina, I relocated to suburban Atlanta. My visits back were often at first, but since the first couple of years, the time between visits has increased. Now I go back once or twice a year. Something amazes me each time. Downtown Raleigh has become a place with great restaurants and other places to go after work and on the weekends instead of the ghost town it was after 5:00 15 years ago. The nearby town where I went to elementary, middle and high school has changed dramatically. Young families actually move there from Raleigh because it's a great place that's tripled in population size since I was in high school. I could go on.

What some readers and critics have focused on is the difference we see in Atticus, who is, in GSW an elderly man who has passed the torch on to another, younger lawyer but still shows up to his law firm most days. He's still a pillar in the community. Just as Scout sneaked up to the courthouse balcony to watch her father defend Tom Robinson, she finds her same spot one afternoon to see where all the men in town have gone. As it turns out, it's a meeting that has a pro-segregation bent to it.

Don't many of us have an idealized notion of who are parents are and what they stand for when we're kids? At some point, for most of us, that changes. Suddenly, we find out that our parents are real people. And most of the time, real people are complicated. Discovering who are parents actually are as people is a big part of what it means to grow up.

Seeing Scout as a grown up is my favorite thing about GSW.      

Go Set a Watchman - I'm reading. Are you?

Yesterday was a great day. Around midday, my mail carrier dropped off what I've been looking forward to receiving for months.

I was able to get some reading in before bed last night, and I'm looking for more today.


Are you reading Go Set a Watchman, or are you planning to?

Book Review: Re Jane by Patricia Park

Re Jane by Patricia Park

Published by: Pamela Dorman Books
Published on: May 5, 2015

Page Count: 352

Genre: Fiction

My Reading Format: ARC ebook for Kindle provided by NetGalley

Available Formats: Hardcover, Kindle ebook, Audible

My Review:

Jane is a college graduate living in Queens, NY, with her uncle and his family, and working in the family business, an international grocery store, while she is job hunting. As she is unappreciated and brushed aside by her uncle and his family, they are the only family she has outside of Korea. When a friend shows her a want ad for an au pair in Brooklyn, she puts her dreams of a job on finance on hold and applies for the job. This live-in job will ensure that she can quit her job at the family business and move out from under her uncle's roof.

In her new role, Jane is caregiver for Devon, the Chinese adopted daughter of Ed Farley and Beth Mazer, two professors. In their home, she is out from the watchful eye of her uncle and his high expectations that she'll act according to her Korean upbringing. Jane feels freer to be herself and forms a friendship with Ed over late-night conversations in the kitchen, which develops into a deeper relationship. As Jane is falling more deeply in love, she and her New York family are summoned to Seoul for a family funeral.  

Jane stays in Seoul longer than expected, and while she is gone, September 11, 2001 happens in New York City, changing everything. She finds a job teaching English and makes new friends. In Seoul, Jane also becomes more self-assured. Her time in Korea makes Jane's attempt to balance the two parts of her life (Korean and American) and her family's wishes with her own even more difficult.

Overall, I liked this modern interpretation of Jane Eyre. As a modern woman, I wished Jane had a stronger resolve against her attraction to her boss. I was disappointed that she was so intrigued with Ed without getting a connection from his end. I found their relationship to be creepy, as Beth wasn't the madwoman in the attic but a very present parent in the same household as this developing romance. Ed went back to Beth, which I expected. Becomes more self-assured once she spends time in Seoul. She's tired of doing what's expected of her. Jane leaves Ed. She knows she can do better for herself. He knows it too.

I very much enjoyed watching Jane navigate her world, which included living in two cultures and balancing what she wanted to do with her life with what she was expected to do. By the end of the book, I was satisfied with the decisions she made for herself. And, even though she dreamed of a job in finance, she made a good au pair and I liked watching a warm relationship with Devon develop. 

Three and a half out of five stars

If you liked this book, you’ll like Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (of course!), The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford and Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland. 

Book Review: Lena Finkle's Magic Barrel: A Graphic Novel by Anya Ulinich

Lena Finkle's Magic Barrel: A Graphic Novel by Anya Ulinich

Published by: Penguin Group USA

Published on: July 29, 2014

Page Count: 368

Genre: fiction, graphic novel

My Reading Format: Paperback provided by the author via NetGalley

Available Formats: Paperback and Kindle ebook

My Review:

Lena Finkle, recently divorced, is navigating a new world. She's raising her two teenage daughters on her own and she's dating for the first time since the Internet was commonplace. She chronicles her dating life in this graphic novel, nicknaming each of the men she dates, as well as her own personal journey to find fulfillment as a mother, author, teacher and significant other. She has a tough go at it. Most of the men don't work out like she hopes, even the one ex-boyfriend who has never quite left her life and with whom she finally may have a chance at love.

Before Lena Finkle, I've never read a graphic novel. Several of my students are interested in them, and this seemed like a fun one to try out first. Not that I didn't enjoy the plot, but I was surprisingly drawn to the pictures and liked the detail involved in each one. Facial expressions, for one, were really useful in telling me more about what a character was thinking a feeling. And, it was fun to have speech bubbles and thought bubbles above a character's head in the same frame. I thought the way Ulinich used a semblance of a journal-like notebook to convey flashbacks and background information was creative and great, as side notes from the forward motion of the plot that made sense visually. 

While I can't say I can relate well on a personal level to Lena's life as a single mom, immigrant, author and dater, I enjoyed her story and the way Ulinich chose to tell it.

Three out of five stars

Do the classics get better as we age?

One of my favorite classes in high was (not surprisingly I'm sure) my freshman English class. With Mrs. Reardon I experienced for the first time Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Lady or the Tiger, The Lottery, The Odyssey and countless other important works of literature. One of them, To Kill a Mockingbird, quickly turned into a favorite of mine. In fact, I revisited it again in college and wrote my undergraduate thesis on its critical response. 

Near the end of our time in Mrs. Reardon's class she mentioned that she and a fellow teacher had recently discussed whether or not To Kill a Mockingbird was wasted on high school freshmen. Were we really capable of digesting all of the complicated themes and grown-up world ideas as 14 year-olds? Of course we thought we were, and we told her so.

Since that first reading more than 20 years ago, I've read the book several more times, and Mrs. Reardon was right. With more life experience, the book means more to me each time I read it.

Fast forward to last week. With my American Literature class at the homeschool co-op where I teach once a week, we began discussion of Willa Cather's My Antonia. Cather is one of my favorites too. I find her prose lovely. It really makes me want to visit Nebraska and see those rolling prairies for myself (one day).

If you're not familiar with My Antonia, the basics with regard to the point I'm making involve a narrator named Jim looking back on his time growing up on his grandparents' rural Nebraska farm, particularly around a special friend he made, Antonia, who was the oldest daughter of Bohemian immigrants on a nearby farm. There is some question of whether Jim falls in love with Antonia (it makes for good class discussion).

But, years later, Jim is a successful New York City attorney, and his job requires some travel across the country. On one trip out west he arranges to visit his hometown. He's heard bits and pieces from Antonia and about her over the years, but it's been decades since they've seen each other. He borrows a horse and buggy and drives out to the farm where she lives with her now-husband and nearly a dozen children. Antonia is surprised and happy to see him. Jim relishes their time together catching up and meeting her children.

Jim is struck by how time and hard work on the farm have changed her appearance, though her personality has remained very much the same. After their visit, Jim returns back to his life in New York City and his wife.

During our class discussion last week, I had a Mrs. Reardon moment when I almost let slip out of my mouth, "Read this book again right after you've been to your 20th high school reunion!" I thought better of it, both because as homeschoolers they may not ever attend a high school reunion and also because they might have had the same indignant reaction my classmates and I did.

I imagine that, like To Kill a Mockingbird, My Antonia would have not had such a profound effect on me in high school. 

Thoreau's Walking and The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

This is my second year I'm teaching American literature to high school sophomores and juniors at a homeschool co-op in Atlanta. We started with Puritan poetry and moved into Transcendentalism, focused on Emerson and Thoreau. Instead of having them read "Walden," to cover Thoreau I chose another essay to read and discuss in class: "Walking."

On the day of our class discussion we took a walk through the community garden outside the community center where our classes are held and had a pretty good discussion about how to enjoy solitude in nature amidst the urban sprawl of Metro Atlanta. 

At the same time the book I was reading for fun was The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. I didn't choose to read the two at the same time on purpose but I liked that it happened that way.

In Joyce's book, Harold Fry is a retired man living in a small town in the southwest corner of England. He and his wife are going through a bit of a tough time in their marriage and Harold is searching for new purpose for his life. Then, a postcard arrives from a former coworker from two decades before. Queenie is in her final days of a battle with cancer and writes Harold to tell him goodbye. Harold struggles to write her back an adequate letter, dashes something off and leaves the house to go mail it. Except he doesn't mail it. He decides to hand-deliver the letter 600 miles away and starts walking.

On his journey Harold meets memorable characters who want to share in the journey with him, receives the support he desires from his wife who's still waiting for him back at home and sorts out things from his past that have been bothering him.

It tied in nicely with Thoreau's ideas that walking to experience nature is how you sort through the tough things in life and figure out how to live your life as an individual. 

Book Review: Ruth's Journey: the Authorized Novel of Mammy from Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind by Daniel McCaig

Ruth's Journey: the Authorized Novel of Mammy from Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind by Daniel McCaig

Published by: Atria Books

Published on: October 14, 2014

Page Count: 384

Genre: Historical fiction

My Reading Format: ARC ebook for Kindle provided by NetGalley

Available Formats: Hardcover, Kindle ebook, Audible book

My Review:

This is the life story of Ruth, better known as Mammy, in Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind. We are first introduced to Ruth when she is a small child in Saint Domingue (modern-day Haiti) during the unrest of the 1820s. Ruth is owned by Solange Escarlette Fornier, the wife of a weathly planter and army captain named Augustin. Like her granddaughter Scarlett is described, Solange is not beautiful but is green-eyed and striking. She longs for the exciting life she left behind in Normandy. Ruth comes into Solange's possession and is an agreeable and self-sufficient child. The three leave for Savannah and Augustin joins the American army. Soon they are immersed in the social life of this busy, diverse city, and Solange is determined to improve the family's social status. 


I liked all the similarities between Solange and Scarlett. It was fun to get to know Scarlett's grandmother and much more about her past. I liked learning about Ruth's life outside of her time with the three generations of Scarlett's family. Getting a window in on her own personal journeys and heartaches was interesting and made her a more well-rounded character to me across both novels. I also particularly liked getting the back story on on how Scarlett's parents, Gerald and Ellen end up together. 

The narrative point of view changes mid-way through the novel. It begins in the third person, giving us an objective perspective on Solange, Augustin and Ruth. However, Ruth becomes first person narrator later in the book. I enjoyed the well-written, authentic voice of Ruth as an adult and all her opinions on the bustling O'Hara household. I wish McCaig would have told the story in Ruth's voice all along. I think I would have enjoyed Ruth's childlike observations of Solange and the events of her life. The first part of the book would have seemed more personal, and readers would feel, I think, closer to her innermost thoughts and feelings by hearing them from her first-hand. The two points of view are a little jarring. Ruth's first person account is authentic while the third person feels aloof and removed from the action. However, the first time Ruth sounds like the Mammy from Gone With the Wind is more than halfway through the novel. I wish she would have found her voice earlier. 

Also, this isn't just the story of Mammy. Much of the book turns away from Mammy in favor of Solange, enough to make me wonder when we were going to get back on track. In fact, Ruth disappears from the story for a time and we know not as much as I'd like to about where she is and what she's doing. It's during this time that Solange takes center stage. When Ruth comes back, her dialect is different, perhaps because she is an older, more self-assured woman, but it was hard to make sense of.

Don't go into this with false expectations, but do enjoy it for its perspective from one of the novel's most powerful characters. Authorized or not, Gone With the Wind is a tough act to follow. I'm not sure any writer, no matter how talented, will ever be able to write the perfect sequel or prequel to this book. That said, I liked some parts of McCaig's book, while other parts of it didn't quite come together.

Two and a half stars out of five

If you liked this book, you’ll like Rhett Butler's People by Daniel McCaig and (obviously!) Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

It's Monday. What are you reading?

 

Here's what I'm reading this week:

In the car on audiobook:
11/22/63 by Stephen King


For review (coming soon): 

Ruth's Journey: The Authorized Novel of Mammy from Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind by Daniel McCaig (in time for its publication date October 14)

Reading for work:



The Leadership Challenge, 4th Edition by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner
"Young Goodman Brown" and "Rappaccini's Daughter," both short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne

And reading for fun:

A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar: A Novel by Suzanne Joinson

What are you reading?

This event is hosted by Sheila from Book Journey. 

Two Fictional Takes on Zelda Fitzgerald

I liked the window in on Zelda Fitzgerald and her tumultuous marriage to writer F. Scott Fitzgerald by fictional psychiatric nurse Anna Howard in Call Me Zelda: A Novel by Erika Robuck. Anna becomes a Fitzgerald family employee, leaving her job at a Baltimore residential psychiatric clinic. She has a way with Zelda as much as anyone else does, and Zelda and Scott come to depend upon Anna for help. Soon she is spending most of her time at their home, caring for their daughter and completing other household tasks that fall outside the scope of her original agreement with the Fitzgeralds. As those interested in the Fitzgeralds' personal lives already know, their marriage, home life and finances were in a constant up-and-down motion, and good moods could shift at any moment.

What I liked about this book is that we got to know Anna both during and away from her work with the Fitzgeralds. We had a window into her world too, and it was one I was very interested in reading about. Anna has experienced tremendous loss in her personal life before the novel begins but remains very close to her extended family. Not only is she a gifted and devoted nurse, but she is a caregiver for her aging parents and close to her brother, a priest. At the risk of giving the book away, I like that Anna got her happy ending.

The book pulls away some from the Fitzgeralds in the second half of the book when Anna remains in Baltimore and Zelda Fitzgerald goes to stay at Highland Hospital, Asheville's psychiatric hospital. Though Anna thinks of Scott and Zelda often, she has not been in their employ for over a decade when a letter from Zelda causes Anna to make another journey for her former patient. This trip ends in Asheville the day before a fire destroyed the main building of the hospital, killing several patients who were not able to escape from their locked rooms. Zelda was one of these patients.

Directly after finishing Call Me Zelda, I dove right into Guests on Earth by Lee Smith. I had the pleasure of hearing Smith read from this novel a few months ago, which really makes a story come alive for me. I liked Guests on Earth for many of the same reasons I liked Call Me Zelda: it's an observer's description of the Fitzgeralds, except this time mostly Zelda. I thought Guests on Earth was a good one. I enjoyed reading it (I've never met a Lee Smith novel I didn't like), but it had less Zelda in it than I envisioned before I started reading the book.

Using a similar technique, Smith writes her novel using Highland Hospital as the setting and the narrator is a fellow patient, a girl named Evalina. Evalina's life at Highland, including her encounters with Zelda, is what makes up the plot of this novel. Evalina Toussaint is a misplaced young girl in need of a caring environment in which to grow up, and ends up at Asheville's Highland Hospital where Zelda is also a patient. The two get to know each other during Zelda's early days at the hospital, but in later years the two don't have a close relationship, though each of the women is still a Highland Hospital resident.

This book really is about Evalina's life, most of which happened at Highland Hospital. Evalina befriends many fellow residents, takes a leave of absence to see the world with a man she doesn't end up marrying as planned, and winds up back at Highland as a part-time staff member. Like Call Me Zelda, Guests on Earth ends with the hospital's tragic fire but the getting there (even though I knew it was coming) seemed rushed at the end.

Both books paint Zelda as troubled but extremely talented at writing (Call Me Zelda) and dancing (Guests on Earth). I'm just fascinated by the Fitzgeralds.

Book Review: A Wedding in Provence: A Novel by Ellen Sussman

A Wedding in Provence: A Novel by Ellen Sussman

Published by: Ballantine Books

Published on: July 15, 2014

Page Count: 288

Genre: Fiction

My Reading Format: ARC provided by publisher via NetGalley

Available Formats: Kindle ebook and hardcover

My Review: 

Have you ever been a part of a wedding (your own or a family member or close friend's), and in the days leading up to the big event, tensions and relationship drama and past issues all begin to surface, layers peeling away like an onion? We all have. Weddings bring out the best and worst in people. All that togetherness can really make things interesting.

That's the case in A Wedding in Provence for the soon-to-be wed couple Brody and Olivia. They've arrived in the French countryside a few days before their ceremony, to be held at the inn owned and operated by Olivia's best friend Emily and her husband Sebastian. As the other wedding guests arrive, we learn about their relationships with one another and their past and present lives. There's Brody's womanizing best friend Jake, Olivia's two adult daughters Nell and Carly, Brody's mother Fanny and Nell's date Gavin who all bring their (literal and figurative) baggage with them for the weekend. Also present are the shadows of others who aren't attending the wedding: Nell's recently deceased boyfriend Chaney, Nell and Carly's father, Carly's workaholic boyfriend Wes, Brody's father and widower Brody's first wife and first love.

The relationships are complicated and still in progress in many cases. Olivia wants to relax as the bride-to-be but is mothering her two troubled daughters, both of whom are working through issues from their lives back home and undergoing a period of self-discovery. Their father is still a part of their lives (as much as he can be), and Nell and Carly are unsure about letting their mother's new husband into their lives. Nell still struggles with her boyfriend's suicide months before, and is still making the rash decisions she has made her whole life, such as bringing her seat mate from her flight with her to the wedding. Gavin seems like fun at first but is sketchy, not surprisingly bailing on Nell as soon as he gets the chance. Carly, the put-together, predictable sister, is rethinking her boring life with a boring boyfriend and let loose a little. Brody is navigating his parents' failed marriage, and father's sickness and absence from the wedding. Even innkeepers Emily and Sebastian have hit a rough patch in their marriage.

Overall, this book is a fun read. I would have loved to see this French town on the Mediterranean, and its fabulous wine and food take more of a central role in the book. At times I found the characters and their sex lives to be tiring. But, the characters are complex and were enjoyable. At the end of the book Olivia is the beautiful bride and Brody the happy groom, and they are married surrounded by their favorite friends and relatives. The book ends but not neatly, which is, I think, just like real life, which has many of the same themes this book has: second chances, making up for lost time, healing, forgiveness and love.

Three and a half stars out of five

If you liked this book, you’ll like French Dirt: The Story of a Garden in the South of France by Richard Goodman and Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes (for an American take on visiting the European countryside), and Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin and Once Upon a Time There Was You by Elizabeth Berg (for stories about weddings).