Feasting Season

I love this book. Nancy Coons' characters show us that life is messy, but amazingly, intoxicatingly luscious. As readers, we experience the tastes, the smells, and yes, the history of France through vivid descriptions and experiences. I love the characters with their many flaws ... the symbolism of the bunker, the conservatory and the runaway dog ... and the two lovers that make me want to book the first flight to France. Coons can't write fast enough for me ... I want the next installment now.

I was hoping this book would end on a good note but the ending left me wondering and sort of annoyed with Meg. It's a great book and I couldn't put it down. Some things about the characters really bothered me though. Her husband Nigel is a lazy father, not taking her work seriously and not spending time with the children when she is home but also making her feel guilty when she does go on trips. I found it hard to believe all those nights he spent out with his buddies were just that....what guy spends all night out with his buddies(some of which were also married) and doesn't come home until morning? Where was he all night? The author never really explained any of that. The character of JJ remained somewhat of an unfinished story as well. Meg found him so unattractive at the beginning and next thing you know they're having an affair. I never fully understood how she got to the point of liking him..Meg and JJ's emotions were never explained fully. It was almost as if the author planned to write a sequel and left out the depth on purpose. I felt like she could have gone deeper into what the characters were really feeling and thinking, especially Nigel and JJ. And those poor kids....their daddy's gone all the time and when he is home he's barely paying attention to them and Meg always forgot to pick them up from the bus and chose to leave her kids to have an affair, knowing her husband wasn't trustworthy to look after the children. Though she was gone for "work" the book turned out to be a pathetic excuse until the very end of the story. It was a good book and hard to put down and though it's probably what people are really like in this situation it's very frustrating at the same time, especially from the sidelines.

This book was great... I loved how she vividly described the food, and how it brought her and JJ together. I do not agree with the reviewer that wanted her to grow a backbone. Yes, that would have been nice, but women are known to put themselves and their needs aside to do for their children/husbands, so I think this is accurate of real life. Who knows, maybe she will grow that backbone in the sequel? I can't wait to find out...

Nancy Coons has a real talent for writing so vivid you can practically smell the scents she describes and taste the flavors about which she writes. Even after only five minutes with the book I wanted to go out and have a good meal. It's very obvious that Coons is a food writer and that she knows her subject intimately. It's refreshing to read something in which food is presented as something to be enjoyed, a pleasure to be relished, and cooking is made art by her writing. The book is certainly worth a read for that alone. On the downside, I never really could understand what drove Meg to marry Nigel in the first place. He's borderline mentally abusive, patronizing her and treating her like she's a child, refusing to take her work seriously, and disregarding her every protest against his monstrous plans to demolish part of their historic farmhouse in favor of creating a hideous glasshouse. That alone made me despise the character. In all seriousness, though, Meg's marriage is not a good one and her reasons for having entered into it are very unclear to me. I found myself frustrated with her every time her husband marginalized her and, far worse yet, their children. He's not only a poor husband, he's a poor father who stays out till all hours and takes advantage of his wife's research travels to party like a single guy while his kids are at home with their far too patient nanny. The relationship between Meg and Jean-Jacques is sensually written but I found him rather frustrating as well. He expects Meg to tell him everything and yet he does his best to keep his past from her. I'm not sure I felt that he was really a better match for her than Nigel as he is also given to patronizing her and refusing to take her seriously. Even after their relationship deepens, he still seems to take delight in mocking Meg's eagerness to pursue the historical angle of the book they're writing. He ignores her input and pretty much does what he wants with it. Still, he is kinder to her than her husband and he does seem to have more of an appreciation for her. Overall, the writing is lush and this book is a very good read. It would have been truly extraordinary if Meg would have come into her own more. I thought she spent too much time being everything for everyone else and not enough time just being herself. I wanted her to grow a backbone, to really go after the things she wanted, to make the men in her life take her seriously or disregard them altogether. In spite of my disappointment with the characters, the descriptions of Meg's and Jean-Jacques's travels, of the places they visited and the foods they ate, was nothing short of spectacular. More than anything, this book is something of a love letter to France itself, to its history and culture and, especially, its food and wine. Considering the beating France has taken in the U.S. in recent times, it was lovely to read a positive novel about France, one in which the people are human and not so

This is a delightful read -- romantic and sexy (both the food/cooking and the relationship between Meg and J.J.). Great ending, believable marriage. And France!