The following are my mini thoughts. The numbers correspond to the ranking. 1 is my fave, 8 is my least fave…

1. I couldn’t put this book down. I just love the elegance of the prose: the sentences seem effortless and flow together so beautifully. There is also a real feel of being in the time and place of which Towles writes- my senses came alive when I read this work. I think he does a great job of getting inside the heads of multiple characters. Beautifully shows the beauty and tragedy of the choices that we make.
2. I don’t normally read celeb books. That being said…this book is a wonderful. I love Tucci’s dry, understated humor- while reading I felt like he was my friend. Plus- he loves food…I mean loves it. This is a beautiful love letter to the joys of cooking and eating and how food brings us together.
3. I love a good Christie mystery, and there is just something about Miss Marple that I appreciate on page (I think I prefer the Marple books to the Poirot…don’t hate me for that) This is just a fun, light, clever little mystery. One of my favorite Chistie’s.
4. If you want to read about how crappy people can be, and how resilient one can be…this is your book. To be able to pick up the pieces again and again…to dream and plan and achieve…solid memoir
5. I loved Klune’s Cerulean Sea….the new Klune doesn’t really do it for me. I’m not exactly sure why, but I felt that things were too forced and not organic enough. I felt it was missing something- it jumped from an idea to a done deal, and I didn’t think there was enough of a bridge to get there.
6. I know. I just said that I don’t normally read celeb books…But this is a lightish read told in Foster’s voice, which is all sorts of plucky and fun. Again, I felt like I was talking to a friend.
7. This book had a great premise. However…the story has so many parts that are so clunky I stumbled through them. It’s told from multiple perspectives, and the voices really aren’t individual- they just say different things. Characters come across as whiny.
8. There were parts of this book that I thought were brilliant- clearly this author knows how to write. Conversely, there were parts of this book that were horrible- just because you know how to write doesn’t mean everything needs to be on the page. I get that this is a solid novel…i understand the acclaim. However- I just didn’t enjoy it cover to cover.