Bought at a cute little second hand book store in Fargo, ND.

I finished this in one day. On the surface it’s a story about Sabrina and her 30th birthday dinner with her theoretical dinner list companions. I went into this thinking that it would be a light, fluffy read. Then I was concerned that i wasn’t going to like the main character. I ended up being wrong on both counts. It’s a story of love, loss and beautiful second chances.

On its way as part of the wishlist Tag game- hope you enjoy it!

Thanks for sending this book to me!

A wonderful book about finding closure and moving on. This book is based on the premise of picking five people, dead or alive, to have dinner with. Sabrina's ultimate dinner party comes to fruition for her 30th birthday. All five guests represent a part of her psyche to help her deal with a painful breakup and I really enjoyed this book. It was so much deeper that I thought it would be.

I sent this book to GoryDetails in relation to the 2020 USA & Canada Wishlist Tag Game .

The book arrived safely on this rainy day; many thanks!

This was... not at all what I expected, and in a good way! An odd mix of surreal, introspective, and touching, with elements of regret for past choices, grief over losses (opportunities, futures, people), and a strong sense of the value of friends (old and new).

From the premise - woman has 30th-birthday dinner with the five people she'd put on a "most want to have dinner with" list a decade before. Since one of those people is Audrey Hepburn it's pretty clear that something's a bit odd here: at first I wondered if "Audrey" was going to turn out to be an impersonator (which would have been an interesting twist in its own right), but not so - and she's not the only guest who's dead, so... yeah. One could put it all down to an intense hallucination on the part of our protagonist, who has issues over her relationships with several of the attendees, or one could happily accept the departure-from-reality and roll with it. [I'm on the side of the Red Queen, who could "believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast" {wry grin}.]

The story unfolds in alternating sections - the dinner itself and the conversation around the table, and the looks into the past as Sabrina recalls early days with her best friend Jessica, her long-disappeared father Robert, her college professor Conrad, and her ex-lover Tobias - and the ways in which Audrey H. influenced her life (including the fact that her parents named her for a famed Hepburn character).

It seemed clear early on that the point of the evening was to get Sabrina to deal with past issues, possibly to forgive or at least come to some level of detente about wounded feelings and broken relationships, and maybe even to renew some close ties. Whether and in what form these resolutions take - that's part of the charm of the novel, along with a lot of introspection as the characters' stories triggered memories of past relationships of my own. Paths not taken, choices we might like to un-make - and perhaps the decision to be content with what can't be changed and to work a bit harder at those that can still be affected...

Guidelines for safely visiting and stocking Little Free Libraries during the COVID-19 pandemic, from the LFL site here.

I left this book in the Little Free Library outside the Church of the Good Shepherd; hope someone enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in NH here.]

*** Released for the 2021 Wine+Food challenge. ***

*** Released for the 2021 Keep Them Moving challenge. ***