Julia's Chocolates

I wanted to like this book, I really did but it was too cliched and trite, with too many stereotypes. While I applaud the author for dealing with serious issues the story was just silly. I like happy endings but not at the expense of at least a little realism. Out of 4 women, one repressed minister's wife leaves her small town for NYC to pursue her art and becomes a literal overnight success, a housekeeper leaves an abusive husband and has a book published practically instantly, one has her home-made chocolates featured on an Oprah-like TV show, thereby assuring wild success, not just for her but for the whole town when tourists arrive, and one psychic, although living nearly penniless, is actually from a well-known billionaire family. show more Oh yes, along the way true love is found, 2 abused children are adopted by a single woman when her lawyer, who just happens to be wildly in love with the woman, calls his friend the governor.

And let's not leave out the requisite breast cancer diagnosis. Along the way everyone's life improves if Julia comes into contact with them and everything she touches turns to gold.

All the Christians are the stereotypical Bible-thumping prim judgemental obnoxious characters with the exception of the minister. Men are either abusive oafs or are sensitive, caring men who cry. The incessant reference to body parts became extremely tiresome and annoying.

This book is a prime example of why I don't like chick-lit romance novels. The last 100 pages i speed read just so I could say I finished it. show less

ZERO stars

One of the worst books I’ve ever read; I finished only because I needed it for a couple of challenges.

I had heard it compared to [The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood] or [The Secret Life of Bees]. And the book actually starts with a pretty good first sentence: I left my wedding dress hanging in a tree somewhere in North Dakota. Unfortunately it quickly goes downhill.

Julia Bennett has left her incredibly wealthy, violent, abusive fiancé on her wedding day, driving cross-country to her Aunt Lydia’s home in rural Oregon. Of course he won’t let her go so easily, but before he finds her Julia will be able to bond with Lydia’s circle of women friends who enjoy regular Psychic Nights. One of these women actually show more has visions of the future – all of which, of course, come true.

The characters are all one-dimensional (yes, ONE dimension, not even two). Here’s a sample description of the women, and I quote: A psychic with a twitching eye, a bald woman chasing down her guns, and a mermaid-type mother crying. The men are either tall, handsome gentle giants or mean, evil, violent abusers.

But what really irritated me was the whole “Bohemian pseudo-feminist psychobabble” thing. One Psychic Night dinner features “Cheers to Vaginas Tacos” – really? Or how about this sage advice: If you’re confused, summon the strength in your breasts, ask your estrogen for answers, demand that your femininity give you advice. I rolled my eyes so often I made myself dizzy.

Well, at least it was a quick read. show less

What a fun book to read with characters I grew to love in small town Golden, Oregon. It makes me want to visit.

Julia goes to live with her Aunt Julia after running away from her abusive ex-fiance. Aunt Lydia is a hoot and sort of eccentric with her psychic nights with the local psychic Caroline. Her yard is full of pigs, both real and fake, with toilet seats filled with flowers. She names her real chickens and pigs and treats them like royalty.

Some of the residents are friends of Lydia's and they become a big part and friends of Julia's too.

It's not all roses in this book believe me and it was hard to read in some places.

The epilogue, as I always say, was happy and predicable but after what some of these women went through, it was nice show more to see. show less

So I finished up a re-read of Cathy Lamb's books this week. I could not get into anything last week and re-reads was all I was up for at the time. What frustrates me though is that as I read Lamb back to back, I started to see a lot of flaws in her writing and some of her latest books were just hitting the spot at all. "Julia's Chocolates" is the first book of Lamb's I bought and read back in 2008. This book works for the most part and Lamb does play with "magical realism" a bit, but not in a way that most readers will notice or appreciate I think. I thought the book went up and down (flow wise) that messed with things, but all in all I liked this one and enjoyed the ending.

"Julia's Chocolates" follows our title character, Julia. Julia show more is supposed to be getting married, but she leaves her wedding dress in a tree and flees away from her abusive fiancé and to her Aunt Lydia. What happens is that Julia meets a group of women that all have something going on with them. Her three new friends are dealing with a lot of internal and external forces with them all coming together once a week to "enjoy their womenhood" with Aunt Lydia. I saw some other readers calling this a rip-off of "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" but as someone who read that book, I have to say not really.

Julia is really frustrating and she becomes emblematic of the rest of Lamb's female heroines who are indecisive and who don't tell someone the whole truth which will drive you up the wall. Julia of course has "feelings" for a man in this one, but as I noticed in her latter books, her male characters are either evil incarnate or the best man that has ever walked the Earth. There's not a lot to really grab onto there. That said, the reason why I gave this 4 stars is that I liked the multiple plotlines (Lydia's, Julia's, the two kids that Julia befriends, the other women in this story, etc.) I have to say that when Lamb focuses on Julia's childhood the book starts to sing and really works. When the other storylines get tossed in, the book starts to drag a bit. show less

When I first started reading this book, I laughed out loud at the image of a run-away bride throwing her wedding dress up in a tree. I loved the image of feisty Aunt Lydia's front yard, complete with toilet flowerpots and large pic statues names after men. But from there out, it was more of a chore to read the book -- every female character seemed wounded, and Aunt Lydia's feistiness and feminist blend wore thin. Touched on some really tough subjects, but not a lot of life hints to help anyone in an abusive situation except to have good friends, get the heck out of the relationship, and stay alert. There are some others that should be in there, methinks, but apparently if you follow those three, you'll meet the man of your dreams, show more become a mentor for wounded children, follow your dream, have fabulous friends, and a supportive community. Still, it tidily wrapped everything up, and time wounds all heels. show less

I love this book. While the beginning was a bit hard to get through, I couldn't put it down after I got to about page 100. There are some things about this book that are disturbing. There is a lot of violence against women and a lot about their struggles trying to get away from it. I don't have much of that experience, so it was hard for me to understand.

Aunt Lydia stopped me in my tracks. She reminded me SOOO much of my oldest aunt that I had a hard time thinking of her as Lydia and not as my aunt. If my aunt had different opportunities, I think she would have been even more like Lydia.

I found that this book had wonderful descriptions and the [a:Cathy Lamb|422343|Cathy Lamb|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg] show more did a great job portraying people as they say what society expects them to say while what they really want to say goes on in their heads. As the reader, I got both views and found it to be exciting and interesting. I could also relate, because I know that I want to say something than what comes out of my mouth all the time.

All of the characters are pretty quirky, which a friend and I had a discussion about, the crux of which was whether or not the author was stereotyping the small town full of quirky caricatures or whether small towns are more prone to have quirky characters? I haven't lived in a small, so I can't really say.

The fear that Julia feels and how it affects her relationships, even with Lydia, who knows the story and loves her dearly, was a very profound part of the books for me. It illustrated the power of fear for me in a very graphic way.

The book also shows the goodness of people; people who drop off eggs to those with less, people who help a battered mother move out of her house, because it is the right thing to do, people who give someone a second chance when everyone else brands them as bad, people who chip in to make life a little better for someone. It wasn't presented in a hokey manner. The theme wove its way through the entire book as part of life.

One of the characteristics of this book that I really enjoyed was the layering. This might be a theme I am working with right now in a number of areas of my life. There was a a layer of fear, not just with Julia, but with other characters. There was a layer of love and another layer of helpfulness. There was also a layer of secrets, reminding the reader that everyone has their secrets and they keep them for different reasons.

I really want to read this book again and think I will read some others and then go back to this one. show less

One of the worst books I have read in years. I actually believe I lost some brain cells. What a waste of time. Clearly, I am in the minority here, but it was trite and predictable. It was as if the author went back to every "chick lit" novel and "chick flick" movie she had ever seen, pulled all of the eccentric characters from them, and dumped them into this crappy book in hopes that women would love it. Here's a "zany" sample: Women salting their vaginas in a group setting as part of celebrating their feminine side (yes, you read that right.) Here's another one: "Strong, lithe, commanding, tough-looking Dean Garrett strutting across the room, running his hands through his hair in agitation, was sex in motion." Really? C'mon . . . I'm show more smarter than that, and so are you. Spend your time and money elsewhere, unless you're interested in a Harlequin Romance book hidden under this cover. show less