69. Hunting and Gathering

By Anna Gavalda
Rated ★★★★½

This is another one of those books that I really liked but for the life of me I could explain exactly what I liked so much about it. It starts off very slow and is written in a choppy style, the punctuation is awkward and the story is long and drawn out.

But the characters are lovely and since the book deals with suicide, addiction, eating disorders, poverty and abandonment I had to stick with the book to make sure they came out all right. The characters, Camille, the intellectual artist waif; Philibert, the stuttering young aristocrat who rescues her from a freezing garret; Franck, the angry, overburdened young chef; and Paulette, Franck's ailing grandmother become an impromptu family.

It's a sentimental fairy tale and I loved it, warts and all.