The Bauer Confidential

When returning my last book club selection to the library I decided to pick up something else to read while feeding Jocelyn. I perused the new fiction section and decided to give The Secret Papers of Madame Olivetti by Annie Vanderbilt a try since the summary sounded interesting and the book was an easy size for reading with limited mobility. I’ve mentioned before how I’m not really a fan of romance novels, so from now on I’m reading the reviews for books before actually devoting my time to one. The story of Lily, an adventurous and passionate woman who has lost her husband of twenty-plus years, this book recounts her attempt to recover from loss by escaping to a sea-side town in rural France, where she under-goes a great deal of self-indulgent reflection on her life. Lily is a strong woman, but she’s also pretentious. The characters in the book are all ridiculously well rounded and perfectly flawed. No one talks like these people, the dialogue is so stilted as to be unintentionally funny at times. The varying locales described in the book are the most interesting thing about it. I think the author has aspirations to greatness, she goes to great lengths to use flowery verbiage and detailed descriptions that are designed to immerse you in the story, most of the time they are just distracting. I had to make myself finish this book, though many times I thought about just giving it up. The end is ridiculously trite, destruction, love lost, love found. This book might be a decent beach read if it weren’t for the snobbishness of the characters. I think my upbringing has made me particularly sensitive to certain things, and one of those things is arrogance. Unfortunately for me this book reeks of self-importance and has very little substance to make it compelling. If you like romance novels (and you know who you are), you might like this one, if you don’t have a high tolerance for for neuroses and people who think too highly of themselves, then pick up something else.