The Apprentice-Jacques Pepin

A light, entertaining read that will inspire you to travel to France,  make a divine meal, or work your tail off to achieve your goals. . . maybe all three.  The book flows with the breezy cadence that anyone familiar with Pepin from TV (which is my sole exposure) will recognize, even crisis and injury are seemingly acknowledged with a shrug of the shoulders and a “say la vie!.”  One should not be deceived by the tone however, this is a brief snapshot of a life lived in pursuit of one’s love, an example of an artist doggedly pursuing, and working his craft, to achieve his goals.  Read it because you love food, read it because you want to know more about one of the most singularly influential characters in the food entertainment culture that has sprung up over the last two decade, read it because it is a lesson in living your life to the fullest. 

Guest Poster:  Leigh Rodebaugh

Beautiful Bastard by Christina Lauren

Do you ever read a book simply because of it’s title? I do. I am one of those horrible people who, on occasion, judge a book by it’s cover . . . or title. Have I been burned by this practice? Absolutely. Especially considering I have this compulsion that once I start a book, I must finish it, at least eventually (and probably the reason I am reading approximately four books at any given time).

I love the Author(s) Christina Lauren. They are a pair of best friends who write novels together and make quite the team. Besties: take note, this is my dream.

Anyway, I found this book to be quite a pleasant surprise. It was in no way epic or life changing, but a good read. Think of it as a soft version of Fifty Shades of Grey, except I didn’t want to slap the main character by the end.

The main character, Chloe is a super brilliant mid-twenties, girl. She is working at a top tier company while attending a top tier business school. She also sleeps with her boss. She does not sleep her way to the top but rather goes quite far out of her way to prove that she deserves her position. 

What I like about her character is that she is very confident. She dresses to make herself feel powerful and feminine, as opposed to dressing to impress her male colleagues. This is not the story about a supposedly strong, independent, cinderella-esque woman who is somehow rescued by a billionaire. She is a strong women who embraces her feminine side and works hard to make her way through the business world. In other words, a character I can relate to . . . minus the whole sleeping with the boss thing.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

This has to be the best novel I have read in years. And I read A LOT of books. I started reading it late one Friday evening, and about half way through I thought to myself, “just one more chapter.” I then turned the page, and was instantly awakened to a shocking twist and was unable to sleep until I finished the book.

At first, I found myself thinking the main character Amy was quite the lovesick bore. While I love a good romantic plot, swooning weak female characters really do annoy me. As the novel takes a series of twists and turns, Amy is anything but a bore. 

When I finished the novel, I almost felt a bit psychotic myself because it was just so easy to empathize with Amy’s thoughts. That is what I love about Gillian Flynn as an author. She can make you empathize with a genuinely psychotic character, making her reader find a character like Amy’s thoughts and actions not only brilliant but logical. Not that I am crazy, but I do understand having a strong compulsion to make sure everyone understands that I am right, and not only that I am right, but WHY I am right. I am not by any means a know-it-all, but if I am right . . . well, I’m right. While I do not take things to extremes as the characters in this book, I can’t help but understand where they are coming from.

In the end, I had a hard time deciding whether or not it was a happy ending. What makes a happy ending? They walk happily ever after into the sunset? Or run through meadows holding hands? Because that is not how this book ends. But on the other hand, not exactly how it doesn’t end.