Pedro Rolo Rolo itibaren Semenovskoye, Ivanovskaya oblast', Rusya, 153504
I love Jen Lancaster and if you have read her memoirs then this book will be very familiar to you. She has kept her signature snarkiness, hilarious footnotes and crazy pop culture references but put a fictional twist on the whole thing. I gave Lancaster's memoirs five-stars, and I stand by that, because I love what she has done. I love her sense of humor and her writing style and because of that I started off with a five for this book too .. but I had to knock off a couple points and here's why: The book was knocked down to four stars because, frankly, if she had replaced "Mia and Mac" with "Jen and Fletch" I would have totally believed it. This book just ran too true to her real-life (per her memoirs). I mean, this was supposed to be fiction, right? I'm all for "write what you know" but I guess I was just a little disappointed because I was hoping for something new and instead got recycled. The book lost it's second point because I got a little bored halfway through. I like HGTV as much as the next person and I understood all of her references .. but I just don't really care about all the minute details that go into a remodel. I mean when you start going into paragraphs upon paragraphs about door knobs .. well .. you've lost me. I think this book ran true to Lancaster's style and wit but next time she tackles fiction I really hope she goes a little further outside of her comfort zone.
I really enjoyed this book. I was able to learn a lot about what the Chinese went through during the 30's and 40's in America. The only reason I didn't give it 4 stars was because gave "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan 4 and I enjoyed that book a little more. Good read.
Awesome!
I'm pretty sure I read this earlier too, but I was impressed with how sweet I found it.
A delightful read! Not the deepest thing in the world, but whatever it lacks in depth (and it certainly has enough) it makes up for in just-plain-fun reading. The letter form (suprisingly enough) never got old for me, and while there wasn't much differentiation in the voices of the characters, the overall voice was entertaining enough for me. This is one of those rare books that lacks anything offensive, yet also doesn't offend with overdone sentimentality.