Thursday, April 4, 2013

Review: From the Kitchen of Half Truth by Maria Goodin

Title: From the Kitchen of Half Truth
Author: Maria Goodin
Format: ARC
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Publish Date: April 1, 2013
Source: I received a copy from the publisher; however, this did not affect my review.






Why You're Reading This Book:

  • You're a fiction fan.
  • You like family stories.
  • You're a foodie.
What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "Infused with the delicious warmth of Chocolat and captivating feeling of School of Essential Ingredients, FROM THE KITCHEN OF HALF TRUTH is the warm, tender story of Meg, who can’t convince her cooking-obsessed, fairy-tale loving mother to reveal a thing about their past, even as sickness threatens to hide those secrets forever. Driven to spend one last summer with her mother, Meg must face a choice between what’s real and what we make real, exploring the power of the stories we tell ourselves in order to create the lives we want."

My Two Cents:

Meg (love the name!) lives by reason and rationality. She's eschewed the fantasy world that her mother created for her because she believes that everything is better when it's grounded in fact. When her mother gets sick, Meg has a decision to make. Does she force the issue about her difficult past and origin or does she stay happy with her mother's created world? Is it always better to have the cold, hard facts or is ignorance always bliss? On its surface, I think we all want to believe that honesty and facts are always good but it's not as clear cut as it looks. It's a difficult choice to make!

I absolutely love family stories and this is very much the story of a mother and a daughter and how they relate to each other. Meg and Valerie's relationship was very realistic to me. You can tell for the most part that they have a very loving relationship but they are two very different people. Valerie is a dreamer who doesn't want to admit that she may not have that long left. Meg buries herself in her studies and her relationship with Mr. Rationality himself, Mark.

The writing was really fantastic and definitely drew me deep into the story! This story has a lot of heart. I know this is one book that I will definitely be re-reading in the future.


 

4 comments:

  1. Looks a really good one. I too like the family type stories so much.

    ReplyDelete
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    ReplyDelete
  3. I love the book cover. Sounds like a nice story.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I enjoyed this one, too -- and it was definitely a unique story! As a fellow Meg, I bonded with her pretty quickly -- though I wanted to push Mark out as soon as he really entered the picture. I was crying by the end!

    ReplyDelete

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