College Students! discussion

We are trying something new this month as we talked about in the Feedback thread:

We are going to have one thread for each book as now Goodreads has made a spoiler tag that you can use to put before anything that is a spoiler. Use your discretion as to what would be a pretty big spoiler and label it. Please put up to what page the spoiler is for.

To create the tag simply do this:

< spoiler> Blah blah blah spoilery stuff < /spoiler>


*Take out the spaces in the parts of the spoiler tags.

It will look like this:


(view spoiler)[This is a spoiler. Spoilers should be labeled so you don't ruin books for others. (hide spoiler)]


Discuss away...

I just finished this earlier today, interested to hear what other people have to say about it.

I thought that the idea of tasting feelings in food was great because I used to work with a really angry lady and it was kind of a joke around the deli that my food tasted happier than hers.

I read this book last summer. This was my review:

My brother told me about this book because he thought it had an interesting premise: A girl can feel the emotions of others when she eats food they made.

I thought it had a cute cover. So I decided to read it.

This book is a little over 300 pages, but it's a really quick read because the writing is sparse on the pages. Also, about the writing, the author doesn't use quotation marks. Dialogue is just written on a different line. Some people might be driven insane by this, bu...moreMy brother told me about this book because he thought it had an interesting premise: A girl can feel the emotions of others when she eats food they made.

I thought it had a cute cover. So I decided to read it.

This book is a little over 300 pages, but it's a really quick read because the writing is sparse on the pages. Also, about the writing, the author doesn't use quotation marks. Dialogue is just written on a different line. Some people might be driven insane by this, but I thought it just added to the uniqueness of this little story so I didn't mind.

As for the story itself, it's not just about a girl who can feel emotions of others through food. It's really a book about her whole family and all their quirks: the dissatisfied mother, and the dad and brother who also possess odd gifts. And when I say odd, I really mean it. I really loved this book, but the reason I could only bring myself to give it 4 out of 5 stars was because the story of the brother was just so damn odd. I like quirky, but you need to really like quirky to love this book. I couldn't quite handle the level of quirkiness sometimes.

That being said, I'd still recommend this book to some of my friends. Some. Not all. This is not a book that everyone will enjoy. I'd recommend it to my friends who have a strong imagination and enjoy weird things.

It's definitely not a book that is forgettable.

I agree about the brother. I thought his "gift" was interesting but seemed out of place in the whole book. I guess it does provide a sort of turning point but two really quirky strange kids in one family is too much. I would have much rather the book just focus on Rose and save the brother character for different book.

I know I'm crazy late on this but I just finished the book Sunday. I didn't entirely get what exactly the brother's power was; he turns into inanimate objects?? And what with the dad? Couldn't she have at least explained more about his power? It was a decent book, but (like Jenna says) definitely quirky. I wasn't entirely satisfied with the ending either. I think I was expecting something more similar to Like Water for Chocolate. Idk, it was okay.

I felt like their was a disconnect in the book when she turned into a young adult. After that I was like, "Am I reading the same book?"

Sashana -- I agree, it was a pretty sudden shift. The end of the book seemed pretty rushed, with the time jump and everything.

I definitely meant to post on here 2 months ago when this was a group read, but oh well.

Anyway, I liked this book on the whole, but as I wrote in my review of it for The Broke and the Bookish, I spent the whole novel feeling like I was kind of on the outside, only occasionally seeing Rose’s real thoughts, even though it was told in first-person. The novel as a whole was very fragmented. It definitely seemed like it was supposed to be that way, but it would have been nice if a little more was actually explained.

I agree with the level of quirk in this book being more than I expected. As Anna said ^ I didn't think the idea of emotions coming out in food was that crazy, so when her brother's (view spoiler)[gift was revealed I was pretty confused. I did feel that when the father revealed that both him and his father also had gifts it tied the story together a little bit more. (hide spoiler)]

The time jump didn't bother me either because I knew it was coming from the way she was narrating the beginning of the story. I just didn't know the shift would be that much further in her future.

The only thing that I was kind of bummed about was that (view spoiler)[Rose and George didn't end up together. I feel like even if she had ended it with just the fact that they had kissed and that there could have been a relationship between them after the book ended, I would've been content. Having him marry someone else, though, made me sad. Maybe it would've been too cliche for them to end up together, but it's what I wanted. (hide spoiler)]

Overall I really liked the book and got through it really quickly. I guess I just wish I would've known before hand that this was going to be such a strange book.