Welcome to Litsy!

A delightful, breezy read, but don‘t read this book if you are hungry.

Thanks, @ChaoticMissAdventures

“20 Day Cover Challenge - As we start a new year and think about what we want in a book.

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.” 10/20

#20covers

It was a little too predictable for me but I love the idea behind it!

Some nice descriptions of food, clothing, and Parisienne life, but it felt very rushed and predictable at the end, and I ultimately didn‘t care very much about the characters.

My tea matched my book! 🤭❤️

Initially I was not sure how I felt about this novel,but as it moved along,I became invested.It certainly helped that Paris has been on my mind since the Olympics.This morning I visited a local French Vietnamese bakery & indulged myself with a chocolate croissant & coffee.The sensuousness of food was a major focus & forger of relationships & family in the novel-a way for Stella to begin her self transformation & develop an understanding of love.🔽

I just cannot seem to leave Paris behind me.This library hold came in today and as it is a new book, I only have it for a short time. So I‘m starting it tonight. 🪻🌧️🍫🔆

Thanks so much to @TheBookHippie for the great #LLSS package. I read Reichl's memoir, Save Me the Plums and look forward to reading her novel. I also look forward to reading the other books from authors I haven't read before. I love the bookmark; I can always use more as I usually have several books going at once.

#litsylove

Really enjoyed it.

I understand why Reichl put in such lengthy scenes around food but they didn't move the story along and just felt like filler to create a longer book. I also am not convinced the book ended when it should have - it should have either been earlier or later but I can't decide which.

Hot, but beautiful walk today. Enjoying this book so far!

#audiowalk

I cannot read this book without getting hungry.

June 2024

I‘ve been waiting for another fiction novel from this author after falling in love with Delicious.

A wonderful summer read! I‘m immersed in books set in France at the moment, so it was perfect timing. Such a fun confection of a book. Bittersweet, with sadness (eg childhood abuse) at the beginning, but a feast for the senses overall and a love letter to Paris. Wonderful characters and history. 🧡🧡🧡🧡

This book had a great sense of place. It also had some deliciously descriptive sensations regarding the taste & scents associated with cooking & eating. You can tell the writer is a chef & food writer! She‘s also a good storyteller. ❤️💙❤️
I loved the inclusion of a mystery surrounding artwork of a real painter & important muse/ art subject of Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Alfred Stevens, Toulouse-Lautrec & others.
I hope to read her backlist.

Love the subplot involving the model/ muse for Manet & many other artists.
Victorine Meurent was an artist herself, but her paintings are lost. Another example of women being erased in history.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cz9k68IRjSf/?igsh=dDRhdjdzYjFuemJt

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/9802721/Manets-forgotten-muse-V...

https://www.google.com/search?q=Victorine-Louise%20Meurent&client=safari

Starting this novel based in NYC & Paris. Love it when real people make cameos in a novel. Evelyn Shrifte was the longtime president of Vanguard Press, which published the first books of Saul Bellow, Dr. Seuss and Joyce Carol Oates.

https://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/31/arts/evelyn-shrifte-98-publishing-house-presi...

Sometimes the universe smiles on me and gives a book that I needed right at that time. Thank you, Universe! Charming, hopeful, and essentially a beautiful French dream come true. It‘s exactly what I needed. Merci 😘

Why did her mother want her to go to Paris?

Stella liked her quiet, solitary life and her predictable job at the publishing house.

After her boss forced her to go on a vacation, she decided she might as well head to Paris. She didn‘t like it at all until….

You will love the characters - eccentric, sweet, and loving.

A delightful, breezy read, but don‘t read this book if you are hungry. 5/5

https://tinyurl.com/57b6n6m4

REVIEW - 4/24

Why did her mother want her to go to Paris?

Stella liked her quiet, solitary life and her predictable job at the publishing house, but off to Paris she went.

You will love the characters - eccentric, sweet, and loving.

And of course you will fall in love with Paris.

A delightful, breezy read, but don‘t read this book if you are hungry. 5/5

@ruth.reichl
#ruthreichl