This book wasn't badly written, but it still didn't make it into the 4-star category for me.
I picked this book up from a display at the library. The title and cover caught my attention (they're cute!) and then once I had read the back, I was sold. A story that covered another part of the world I'd never read about before (Iraq) and also revolved around food-- what more could I ask for?
I'd never heard of this novel or its author before. Soffer's writing style was different and easy to read.
My problem with this story lay with the characters.
Lorca was cute and I enjoyed her POV, but I would have liked to have seen more character development in her. And I felt that the book was almost more concentrated on Victoria's half of the story - for example, we actually get some flashback chapters from her husband with his parts in the story, but we get no such enlightenment on Lorca's mother.
So although the blurb seems to suggest that the story will be shared evenly (and it almost is) the story is more about Victoria. And this is my issue exactly, because I just could not relate to or even like Victoria. She was the most selfish main character I've ever read about. Ever.
This book was filled with Victoria's possessive jealousy and Lorca's unending sadness and low self-esteem. So put those two stories together and basically you end up with a novel that leaves a bit of a bad taste in your mouth. I wasn't very keen to get back to reading this book after putting it down for a while.
And the real shame about this story was that after enduring the many (MANY) sadness's of these characters, the ending was rushed. I was hoping for up-building character development and women supporting women to be able to get through life together. Soffer nearly got there, but not quite.
All the way through the story, every chapter had been filled to the brim with unnecessary information and extra emotions and loooong thought processes filled with negativity. Suddenly, we reach the climax. The grand finale. And it is a couple of pages long. The End. Nothing more to be said. They simply all lived happily ever after (although, in reality, there was still a TONNE of unresolved issues).
This book did teach me a lot about Iraq though. I appreciate that. And I definitely enjoyed the general foodie-ness of the story. That was nice too.
This book isn't all bad. But it's only getting 3 stars from me.