4.12.2013

Book Club Friday | Two Books This Week

This week I read:
Description from Goodreads:
While in the midst of a breakup-induced depression, Aurélie Bredin, a beautiful Parisian restaurateur, discovers an astonishing novel in a quaint bookshop on the Ile Saint-Louis. Inexplicably, her restaurant and Aurélie herself are featured in its pages. After reading the whole book in one night, she realizes it has saved her life—and she wishes more than anything to meet its author. Aurélie’s attempts to contact the attractive but shy English author through his French publishers are blocked by the company’s gruff chief editor, André, who only with great reluctance forwards Aurélie’s enthusiastic letter. But Aurélie refuses to give up. One day, a response from the reclusive author actually lands in her mailbox, but the encounter that eventually takes place is completely different from what she had ever imagined. . . . Filled with books, recipes, and characters that leap off the page, The Ingredients of Love by Nicolas Barreau is a tribute to the City of Lights.  

My thoughts:
I picked up this book at Target.  I had not heard anything about it and bought it solely from the jacket description.
It was a bit slow in the beginning but I was glad that I stuck it out.  Aurelie is very likable and you have to feel for her at times.  The characters are great, the story is sweet.  There are a few phrases in French, but they are mostly common and well known.  The last few pages of the book are even the recipes to the special dinner that occurs in the book.
It is not on my all time favorite list, but it was a nice read.
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I also read:

Description from Goodreads:
The author of Bird in Hand and The Way Life Should Be delivers her most ambitious and powerful novel to date: a captivating story of two very different women who build an unexpected friendship: a 91-year-old woman with a hidden past as an orphan-train rider and the teenage girl whose own troubled adolescence leads her to seek answers to questions no one has ever thought to ask.
Nearly eighteen, Molly Ayer knows she has one last chance. Just months from "aging out" of the child welfare system, and close to being kicked out of her foster home, a community service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping her out of juvie and worse.
Vivian Daly has lived a quiet life on the coast of Maine. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past. As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly discovers that she and Vivian aren't as different as they seem to be. A young Irish immigrant orphaned in New York City, Vivian was put on a train to the Midwest with hundreds of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance.
The closer Molly grows to Vivian, the more she discovers parallels to her own life. A Penobscot Indian, she, too, is an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past. As her emotional barriers begin to crumble, Molly discovers that she has the power to help Vivian find answers to mysteries that have haunted her for her entire life - answers that will ultimately free them both.
Rich in detail and epic in scope, Orphan Train is a powerful novel of upheaval and resilience, of second chances, of unexpected friendship, and of the secrets we carry that keep us from finding out who we are.

My thoughts: 
This is another Target find that I stumbled upon.  I knew the second that I read the jacket, it was a book right up my alley.  Mystery, love, history & present day, all together.
The fact that there were orphan trains in the early 1900's was very interesting and sad at the same time.  Vivian is wonderful.  You feel so sorry for her and can't wait for her to get some happiness.  The same is true for Molly. 
I was unable to put this book down once I started, and absolutely loved it!

I am linking up with Book Club Friday and Literary Friday.



8 comments:

  1. oooo i am so going to put orphan train on my list!! i just saw it at target too :)

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  2. I saw orphan train and thought about it... Now its on thelist thanks ffor reviewing!

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  3. I think I'm going to give the Paris book a try because I tend to love most books that take place there! Thanks :)

    http://dkeveryday.blogspot.com

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    Replies
    1. I like books that take place in Paris also. Have you read The Paris Wife?

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  4. Oh Orphan Train sounds fantastic. I love books from Target, I have found some really great ones there.

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  5. i have "orphan train" on hold at the lirbary... glad to hear you loved it!

    http://ilikebigbooksblog.wordpress.com/2013/04/12/book-beginnings-the-friday-56-5/

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