by Darien Gee
Ballantine Books, 2011
400 pages
About the Book
An anonymous gift sends a woman on a journey she never could have anticipated.
One afternoon, Julia Evarts and her five-year-old daughter, Gracie, arrive home to find an unexpected gift on the front porch: a homemade loaf of Amish Friendship Bread and a simple note: I hope you enjoy it. Also included are a bag of starter, instructions on how to make the bread herself, and a request to share it with others.
Still reeling from a personal tragedy that left her estranged from the sister who was once her best friend, Julia remains at a loss as to how to move on with her life. She’d just as soon toss the anonymous gift, but to make Gracie happy, she agrees to bake the bread.
About life and loss, friendship and community, food and family, Friendship Bread tells the uplifting story of what endures when even the unthinkable happens.
My Thoughts
I have recently joined Goodreads and was surprised to see such mixed reviews of this book. I greatly enjoyed it, finding it to be more substantive than I expected, given the premise of the friendship bread bringing people together. The characters are (mostly) believable and the way the relationships develop over the course of the book is inspiring.
Note: This is Book #67 of my 2011 Reads (master list here).
I'm a mom with Asperger's raising an amazing son with autism, which means I'm basically the case manager/advocate/cheerleader/chauffeur. The rest of the time, you can usually find me with my nose in a book!
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