Most helpful customer reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Dark but very compelling, Jul 20 2004
Mirabelle Dartigen is a brilliant cook whose legacy to her daughter Framboise is her talent and a notebook containing her recipes. She is also a widow who is plagued by blinding migraine headaches, and addicted to the morphine she needs to survive them. These debilitating, crippling headaches are always preceded by the smell of oranges, so she will not permit an orange in her house.Tormented by pain, drug addiction and mental illness, Mirabelle attempts to raise three children alone in war torn France after her husband is killed by the Germans. She is not up to the task, physically or mentally, and the children are left to raise themselves. Framboise, wild to begin with, has hardened toward her mother, whose afflictions have made her distant, mean and unapproachable. In order to ensure that her mother doesn't interfere with her plans, which alternately involve telling the town's secrets to a charismatic German who brings her and her siblings presents, and trying to catch a giant pike thought to grant any wish to whomever catches it (and to bring tragedy upon anyone who sees it without catching it), Framboise steals an orange and places it in her mother's pillow in order to trigger one of her migraines. Throughout the book, she uses oranges to control her mother, who reacts to the odor by shutting herself into her room for days in screaming, sleepless pain, while the children fend for themselves, and do as they wish. Years later, the elderly Framboise, looking back and reading through her mother's diary-like notebook, gains some insight into the woman's agony and her own part in it. She has returned to her home after decades, hiding her identity from her town, which remembers her family as conspirators with the Nazis, and responsible for the murder of a German and the execution of several townsfolk. She lives among them because it is her home, but is terrified that she will be found out and recognized as "Mirabelle Dartigen's daughter". The book alternates between the nine-year old Framboise, and the elderly Framboise. It also follows two dramas, the one during WWII where her and her siblings' best friend is a Nazi who trades chocolate for secrets, and the present day where one of her relatives is blackmailing her and threatening to expose her. The complexity of the relationships and the characters is outstanding, and the story's suspense keeps building and building. The writing is excellent. This isn't a book to read if you're in the mood for something light. Pick this up in your deeper moments when you can shift into Framboise's dark world, which seems all the more frightening because it all seems so plausible. Excellent book.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Dark but very compelling, Jul 20 2004
Mirabelle Dartigen is a brilliant chef whose legacy to her daughter Framboise is her talent and a notebook containing her recipes. She is also a widow who is plagued by blinding migraine headaches, and addicted to the morphine she needs to survive them. These debilitating, crippling headaches are always preceded by the smell of oranges, so she will not permit an orange in her house.Tormented by pain, drug addiction and mental illness, Mirabelle attempts to raise three children alone in war torn France after her husband is killed by the Germans. She is not up to the task, physically or mentally, and the children are left to raise themselves. Framboise, wild to begin with, has hardened toward her mother, whose afflictions have made her distant, mean and unapproachable. In order to ensure that her mother doesn't interfere with her plans, which alternately involve telling the town's secrets to a charismatic German who brings her and her siblings presents, and catching a giant pike thought to grant any wish to whomever catches it, Framboise steals an orange and places it in her mother's pillow in order to trigger one of her migraines. Throughout the book, she uses oranges to control her mother, who reacts to the odor by shutting herself into her room for days in screaming, sleepless pain, while the children fend for themselves, and do as they wish. Years later, the elderly Framboise, looking back and reading through her mother's diary-like notebook, gains some insight into the woman's agony and her own part in it. She has returned to her home after decades, hiding her identity from her town, which remembers her family as conspirators with the Nazis, and responsible for the murder of a German and the execution of several townsfolk. She lives among them because it is her home, but is terrified that she will be found out and recognized as "Mirabelle Dartigen's daughter". The book alternates between the nine-year old Framboise, and the elderly Framboise. It also follows two dramas, the one during WWII where her and her siblings' best friend is a Nazi who trades chocolate for secrets, and the present day where one of her relatives is blackmailing her and threatening to expose her. The complexity of the relationships and the characters is outstanding, and the story's suspense keeps building and building. The writing is excellent. This isn't a book to read if you're in the mood for something light. Pick this up in your deeper moments when you can shift into Framboise's dark world, which seems all the more frightening because it all seems so plausible. Excellent book.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A Childhood Completely Unlike Most of Ours, Jul 14 2004
The story follows a little girl and her family's life in a town during occupation during the war. She manages to get involved in the sordid blackmarket running going on in the town, with her brother and sister getting presents and attention from ratting on their nieighbours, in a way they convince themselves is harmless. Her adventures as a girl are told as a memory, when she returns to the town under a different name as a middle age woman. She sees all sorts of battles, as a girl and a woman, but will warm your heart, the way she has survived, and managed to return. A fiesty, courageous read. I'd recommend it to anyone.
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