Erica BauermeisterCritiques

I think this was a case of right book, wrong time. I really wanted to like this one more than I did. It has lots of elements I normally enjoy: father-daughter relationship, whimsical writing, coming-of-age storyline.

I never miss an Erica Bauermeister book because she simply writes a character driven , plot appealing novel . This one has you thinking differently about the books we read and where they take us and what to do when we get there.

This book is a tribute to the power of books, and the fact that every book touches the reader in a different way. Alice's brother, Peter, dies young, and Alice, always wanting to write, pours her grief into a book, Theo. After many rejections, an agent decides to publish it. Various readers read the book, and each reader takes a message from the book - as if it was written for them.
It is touching and heartfelt. It resonated with me, because I have always believed that there is a book for everyone - and reading special books can really touch your heart, and help you through various situations.
This book was a treasure to read. I enjoyed each story and each character.

I've never read anything quite like this. The first chapter is about a young woman who writes a book. The following chapters are about people who come in contact with the book, and their relationships with the book. So each chapter almost reads as a short story, but what they all have in common is this one book.
A really interesting concept for a book.
I liked it, and the concept. I liked how every once in awhile, in some of the chapters, there is an interconnection with a character from another chapter. All of the characters were interesting.½

The story explores the meaning of home and family through a series of broken relationships, fairy tales, and concealed truths. Beginning with a father & daughter on an isolated island off the coast of Washington and an obsession with scents and fairy tales. The obsession leads to disaster, and Emmaline (the daughter) is taken in by an elderly couple who own a remote resort.

After spending her first 13 years in social isolation, Emmaline struggles. She comes to love the couple and their dog, whose reliance on scents helps her to integrate her experiences. School is a more difficult social problem for her. Her classmate, Fisher, is also an outsider in the school and they establish a relationship based on that. He helps her to read facial expressions human behavior.

They try to escape their unhappiness together, which fractures both of their families in different ways. Fisher runs away to Seattle. Emmaline runs away in search of him and also finds her mother, who is also obsessed with scents.

The story arc is a familiar one. The vehicle of using scents to explore the drives and motivations of people is novel. The writing is okay, I could have done without the repetitive phrasing through out the story: "Once upon a time, Emmaline...", "My fault, my fault".... These may have been more noticeable to me listening to the audio version of the book.

A story of scents and how a tell your life?s story. A beautiful story of finding oneself in the scents that surround us through our life. Kirkus: Ayoung girl with a unique talent for identifying scents embarks on a journey of self-discovery when she's ripped from her intensely isolated childhood home.Emmeline has lived with her father on an otherwise uninhabited island in the Pacific Northwest for as long as she can remember. Her father teaches her to read, to forage for food, and to hone her sense of smell. Emmeline doesn?t question their isolation, as she?s known nothing else. She adores the long days learning from her father, listening to fairy tales, and watching him use his mysterious machine. The machine produces ?scent-papers? that her father stashes inside small glass bottles, each paper preserving a one-of-a-kind scent. When tragedy strikes, Emmeline is forced to relocate to the mainland. She is taken in by a kind, childless couple in a seaside village. Similar to a wild animal suddenly brought into captivity, 12-year-old Emmeline struggles to adapt. As she slowly establishes a new life, beginning school and navigating adolescence, questions about her father, her absentee mother, and her own identity continue to grow. The more she learns about her past, the harder it becomes to reconcile her childhood with her future. Told entirely from Emmeline?s perspective, the novel contains three distinct sections. The first, where Emmeline is living in the wild, is suffused with wonder and enchantment. The author deftly describes the lush island and the awe of a little girl watching her father fill a cabin with mysterious bottles full of scents and dreams. Once Emmeline moves to the mainland, the patina of her youth wears off, and much of the magic of the story goes with it. Even so, the author?s ability to describe scents, the nature in which they evolve, and how deeply they are tied to memory and emotion provides sufficient heft to keep the novel engaging and worthwhile. Told in a lyrical, haunting prose, the story provides fascinating information about the ways in which different fragrances can impact human behavior and the struggles of finding one?s own identity.An artfully crafted coming-of-age story that will take the reader on an exquisite olfactory adventure.

This is a tough one. I wanted to love it but I didn't. I love the concept of the cooking class and the lives of the students coming together but I found the message (food is sexy & sensual) overpowering and some of the writing cloying.

I guess I say read it from the library but go into with with a grain of salt. Do not but it.

Joy For Beginners is a story about seven women who are all at different stages in their lives, but have managed to become best friends anyway. One of the things that has tied them together is nursing Kate through breast cancer. At her victory party, she agrees to go white-water rafting with her college-aged daughter if each of her friends will face her own fears within the next year.

Kate has listened, both with her ears and her heart while her friends talked about their lives during her illness. She picks the one task for each woman that will give her hope and bring back the joy in her life. Some of the tasks sound mundane and pointless at first, like learning to bake bread, but there is a reason for every choice Kate makes.

The author has done her research well for this book. One of the women is "assigned" a Breast Cancer 3-Day. Having done the walk myself, that part of the story, with the vivid and accurate descriptions, was bittersweet.

This is a story of love, friendship, hope, and heartbreak. It's about moving on and starting over and remembering that life is for living.

I won this book in a GR First-reads giveaway. (Thanks, GR!)

I took a break an hour in and almost didn't go back! If you can make it through the weird what "kinda world is this set in" beginning you'll be glad you did. Lived up to the hype

Cute quick read, one of those lots of stories brought together, at least one story teller will "speak to you" for sure

A rare time when the second book is very close to as great as the first. Enjoyed the deeper journey into characters from the first book

A not cheesy book about a book and its readers. Really special and unique

A book about a book. The book impacts lives and changes people. A lovely book. The characters in the book are amazing and all so different. A lovely read.

A wonderful celebration of fiction and how it touches and changes lives in so many ways.

The second book in the School of Essential Ingredients series and it's quite possibly as delightful as the first. If you've read the first in the series you'll see that several of the characters return and you get to know them much better and really care for them as they go through their lives filled with happiness, struggles, love, and woes. New characters are added into or written about from their lives that you grow to care for as well. Erica Bauermeister has a true gift for writing in a way that gives you a true sense of who the characters are ... they're completely filled out, not one or two dimensional as in so many other novels. These are people you come to feel you really know through her stories. Personally, I was looking forward to a third book when I wasn't even halfway through this story. Excellently written. I want to sit down to a meal with these characters.

Any book lover will love this book! It's almost like 10 short stories, of different people who read the same book (or have the book affect them in some way.) How the characters are all subtly intertwined was brilliant as well! Loved it!! (I wanted to give it 5 stars but it didn't have that "Gasp!" moment for me.)

And, I absolutely love the cover!

More like a 2.5 stars but i rounded up to 3.

A debut novel by a young writer makes its way out into the world. The book consists of nine people who are affected by the book, either in their professional lives or in a personal way. It's an interesting take on the book about a book concept.

I liked this story but at times found the descriptive language to be a bit indulgent. I loved how the characters were introduced and developed within the story. I especially loved the mentions of life in the NW. I miss it.

“I think each story has its own life. In the beginning, it lives in the writer’s mind, and it grows and changes while it’s there. Changes the writer, too, I’d bet.” He smiled at her, then continued. “At some point it’s written down, and that’s the book readers hold in their hands. But the story isn’t done, because it goes on to live in the readers’ heads, in a way that’s particular to each of them. We’re all caretakers of the stories, Alice. Writers are just the lucky ones that get to know them first.”

No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister is a story about a book, “Theo” written by Alice Wein. It is also the story of the twenty-five-year-old author, Alice, who has poured her heart and soul into her debut novel. It is also the story of nine people who read her book – or rather, a collection of stories each of which features someone who has read “Theo” and the difference it has made in their lives - a literary agent and her assistant who is also a new mother, an actor turned audiobook narrator, a homeless teenager, a professional diver who tests his own boundaries, an artist seeking inspiration from the world around her, a bookseller who embarks on a personal relationship only to find it less than fulfilling, a coordinator who works in the movie business and a widower in his sixties grieving the recent loss of his wife - people from different walk of life, in different stages in life, facing his/her/their own set of challenges. While I wouldn’t call these stories interconnected in the true sense of the term, they are connected by a common thread – “Theo” by Alice Wein.

No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister is a special book. Beautifully written, intimate and thought-provoking with characters who are real and relatable, these stories made me think of some of the books that I have loved and the stories that have stayed with me through the years – the books that came to me at the very right moment and left an indelible impact. Overall, this is an emotional read that I would not hesitate to recommend. I believe this book would appeal to those fond of character-driven short stories.

“No two persons ever read the same book, or saw the same picture.” -The Writings of Madame Swetchine, 1860

Like all books, this one will touch us in different ways. But I am confident that all of us who love to read would agree that books are much more than a hobby for us – they are our friends, our refuge, our sanctuary - they teach us, they make us cry, they make us smile, give us perspective and so much more. It is this sentiment that the author expresses so beautifully through this novel.

“Maybe not consciously, but that was the beauty of books, wasn’t it? They took you places you didn’t know you needed to go.”

Many thanks to author Erica Bauermeister, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for the digital review copy. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Very interesting concept of one book, many readers, and how the book affected them.

This is a brilliant idea for a book.

It shows how the same book affects different people differently but in most cases (and in one particular case) this was unexpectedly and kind of brilliantly done.

It was hard to read each chapter and want to know more about that character and then never have the focus on them again and having to go on to the next character, and the next. Some of the characters know or are connected to characters in other chapters. Many characters reappear and for that I was grateful. I love the connections between the characters. Not too, too much. I loved how things were wrapped up. Also not too much.

I felt interested in all of the characters. I loved some chapters more than others. I loved the entire story arc. My favorite parts were Nola and Madeline. Madeline on her own but when Nola became a part of it I enjoyed it even more. The ending/Epilogue was great too. Those three parts had me feeling the most emotionally invested.

I appreciated how in the acknowledgments section readers are given some information about how the author came up with these characters. I loved the author’s note at the very end and got a much needed smile from it.

Most of the chapters were long and there was no Table of Contents. I wish there had been. I marked it down as I read.

I

Maine 2010 The Writer Alice
NYC 2010 The Assistant Lara
British Columbia 2011 The Actor Rowan

II

The Internet 2012

III

Washington State 2012 The Artist Miranda
Florida 2013 The Diver Tyler
Northern California 2014 The Teenager Nola
Maine 2016 The Bookseller Kit
Northeastern California 2017 The Caretaker William
Southern California 2018 The Coordinator Juliet
New York City 2019 The Agent Madeline
New York City December 2019 Epilogue

Acknowledgements
Author’s Note

Just a couple of (many) quotes that I liked:

“Wandering is a gift given only to the lost.”

“Miranda was used to coded meanings, though. She liked to say it was her mother’s private communication system. Like sign language, only quieter.”

This was a page-turner for me. 4-1/2 stars

What a fabulous premise for booklovers. This captivating novel in linked short stories follows the path of a book from writer to reader along so many different plotlines. Even to specify the chapter titles gives too much away.
I loved going into this blind and was so delighted at what I found. The author paints each character as a fully fleshed out person in a tight, well written vignette. I couldn’t get enough of this. I was sorry to see it end, yet it ended perfectly. Highly recommend for a thoughtful, entertaining and totally satisfying read.

Just a beautiful book for everyone who loves books and the journey they take you on when you just can’t put it down.½

Those who love reading will find this new book by Erica Bauermeister a must-read.. She presents in story form what avid readers have always know about reading, and she does this in a most enjoyable way.

Reading like a collection of short stories, the characters are tied together in some way and each stumbles across the same book at pivotable times in their lives. The book illustrates how each of us can be affected by the words on a page and how whatever stage we are in life can affect our reactions and opinions of the book.

I stumbled across this one at just the right time in my life and am happy to recommend it to others who love reading.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for allowing me to read an advance copy. I am happy to give my honest review.