Nancy Mauro

I had just finished a really intense book, so i wanted something a little lighter. I received this book as a SweetReads book, and haven't read it until now. It's quite a different take than your usual dysfunctional family book. The book is set around two young women-one is a podcast baking personality and the other is a young woman with formidable computer and screening skills. Sabine Rose is the podcast personality whose career is perched to go sky-high with a Netflix cooking series in the offing. Wanda, along with their cameraman, is accompanying Sabine to her hometown (Thunder Bay, Ontario). The visit is to serve as background for the upcoming proposed series, but when they arrive, they know almost immediately that nothing is going to be the same. Sabine's baker father has suddenly died, and with his death all of the many family secrets are just waiting to get out. This book highlights immigrant families, and their struggle to survive in a new country. The book covers so many issues, and has quite a complex storyline. As Sabine unlocks the dark truths of her father's past, her whole world implodes. She finds out nothing is as she imagined, and everything is susceptible to cause imminent disaster. I liked the book, and its surprisingly well-written prose kept me going. I found that I did not like either of the protagonists very much, but that didn't detract from the storyline. The book is worth a read, mostly because it is quite different from the usual books in this genre.… (mehr)

At it's best this book merits five stars. The opening scene -- in which the husband runs over a feral hog and the wife finishes him off -- is a masterpiece of psychologically insightful black comedy. And the advertising campaign developed over the course of the book for a company that makes both flared and straight blue jeans tops anything Mad Men has come up with. Overall, the book is highly original, funny, and psychologically insightful as it diagnoses a marriage that is falling apart and then comes back together. That said, it is also somewhat repetitive at points and aimless the second half is at times aimless. But I'm very much looking forward to Nancy Mauro's second novel.… (mehr)