Hello everyone!
This one is another I managed to actually read by the seaside, and I think it came hot on the heels of something science fiction related or historic or fantasy, because it's so much NOT those categories that, even though I can't remember precisely, I can see why I would have picked it.
Because, here's the thing.
I love my personal favourite reading categories, I really do. I mean, Lord of the Rings is by far and wide my favourite book EVER, and I read it once every year. But despite the amount of stuff I read, and as much fantasy as I get into, I do like something entirely non-related to that every once in a while. Like, contemporary non-related.
I will admit; I'm not a big contemporary novel reader. For some reason, I just sit better in the fantasy niche. But after following the adventures of Jamie and Claire Fraser for a thousand pages, Frodo and Sam trudging towards Mordor over five hundred, and an angel and a demon falling in love ... I definitely need a break from all of that.
Which is why I picked up Laura Dave's Eight Hundred Grapes.
Okay, I'll be honest.
I think I'd never have picked this book out of a million others if not for a very simple fact: I actually saw it in one of those bookstore emails you get if you're on their mailing list, when they send you new releases and stuff, and this one was in the new translated section here in my country. The blurb on the back of the book was intriguing, so I looked at my pile of fantasy stuff, and said, what the heck.
Might as well read something that's normal, right?
So the book is split into two parts, although it isn't done obviously. It's more like, there are two distinct storylines and you can see them even if they overlap and merge, they're still fairly easy to pick out.
One is, obviously, about romance; Georgia Ford, our heroine, dumps her fiancé Ben five days before the wedding because she learns that he has a five year old daughter (which he only knew about for five months, but that's beside the pint) and she runs home to her family's biodynamic vineyard. Where, she learns to her horror, her parents are selling said vineyard to the big conglomerate in the area, her brothers are in a death match because the wife of one kissed the other, and her parents are divorcing. Not to mention, there seems to be weird chemistry between her and Jacob, the conglomerate CEO.
Whew.
Point in this: Georgia does actually try talking it out with Ben. But after she forgives him one time, she realizes a second thing he hadn't told her ... and forgives him again. And then a third thing. And by that point I wanted to murder the man, but luckily Georgia was smart and finally told him to hit the road. Her brothers also work it out (read: punch it out), and one heads to San Francisco; her parents actually remain together and go on a cruise around the world. And Georgia? She stays behind on the vineyard, taking over, with the help of boyfriend Jacob.
It's a fairly non-complicated book really, nothing too extravagant and definitely nothing to tear your hair out over (aside from the Ben-fiancé issue, that is). But it's sad when I'm way more interested in the second storyline of the book instead of the main one:
This one is about making wine. Did you know that, apparently, you need eight hundred grapes to make one bottle of wine? Yup. All that, and a lot of other fascinating facts, scattered throughout the book and into this love story, and I swear I was actually more anxious to read about the winemaking process than what Georgia's problems were!
All in all though, it's a book you take with you to the beach, lay out in the sun, maybe with a cocktail by your side, and you soak up vitamin D and chill.
That's precisely what I did, too.
xx
*image not mine
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