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I love reading short stories that are done well. They are quick and satisfying. Perfect if you’re trying to break up a few longer books, or have just read something heavy or just want to try a genre but don’t want to commit to full length. However, at the same time, short stories can sometimes suffer from not having enough time to fully flesh out the storyline and/or characters… I found this book while browsing aimlessly on Amazon. I purchased it along with a random variety of other books. I have some bigger books on the go at the moment but thought Saturday night was the perfect opportunity to start and finish this 1 hour read.
Menton
This book is set on the Riviera and is based around a woman named Cecile, who sells Lemon products at the markets in Cannes. In this story we revisit her past adventures and love and watch how she came to end up where she is today.
This isn’t usually the type of story I go for, although from reading the blurb I thought maybe a piece of romantic descriptive writing might be exactly the change I (briefly) needed. And it was ok, but for me it veered towards the ‘needed more story space’ rather than the former. However before I get into any of that I did want to start with the positive… The descriptive elements. I literally could imagine myself in the Mediterranean. The author did a beautiful job of making every element; from the surroundings to the food seem so realistic you could taste it, see it and feel it.
However for me, that’s the best of what the story had to offer. I found the storyline pretty predictable. This also meant that inevitably the characters frustrated me. Sometimes a lot. At least twice I wanted to jump into the book and shake Cecile. And at the end it just… well it just ended. It almost felt like someone had ripped out the last chapter. I wanted more, but not in the good way of wanting more. So while the descriptive elements of the Riviera couldn’t make this book a ‘love’ for me, they at least made me feel like I had escaped to a beautiful place overseas, even if was just for an hour.
onceuponabookblog.com 