One Woman’s Sweet Journey from Unhappy Hollywood Executive to Contented Country Baker
by Gesine Bullock-Prado
ages: adult
First sentence: “I saw the devil at age three and he gave me chocolate.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

I needed something light, something foody, something not-YA, yet something interesting, and when Andi reviewed this, I knew that this had to be my next book. And, thankfully, it was everything I wanted it to be.

One part memoir of a childhood, one part food-lover’s delight (including recipes!), one part Hollywood insider (sans names, except for older sister Sandra, though), this book follows Gesine (pronounced Geh-see-neh) Bullock-Prado’s path from high-powered Hollywood executive to the owner of Gesine’s Confections in Montpelier, Vermont. It’s not a comfortable journey; baking increasingly becomes self-described social misanthrope Gesine’s obsession before she left Hollywood, and the store had some fits and starts before becoming a smoothly operating business. And the book isn’t exactly even either: told in hour increments mirroring the arc of Gesine’s day, it’s often uneven, sometimes telling the same stories more than once, and often the lack of chronology in the stories is quite jarring.

But, given that, Gesine’s a likable person and, Hollywood gossip aside, it’s an interesting story. She grew up in Germany and with her descriptions of food and customs and traditions, made me long to visit there again. I know I have to try every single recipe (well, not the carrot cake) in the book. It was comforting to read about of someone who adores baking, someone who finds satisfaction in creating something delicious to eat. And, no, it’s not the best-written book ever, though she is often funny, sometimes sentimental, and occasionally wandering, you can’t help but love her and want to sit down with her, eat something delicious and chat a while.

Which, I’d like to think, is what she wanted you to think when she wrote this book.