Saturday, July 16, 2011

Discovering Arugula

Discovering Arugula: Book Two in WHO GOT LIZ GARDNER SeriesElizabeth Allen
ISBN: 978-1432766627
Publisher: Outskirts Press
Purchase link: Discovering Arugula
Source: Author for Review
Discovering Arugula is the follow up novel to “Who Got Liz Gardner.”  If you haven’t yet read “Who Got Liz” I suggest you do!  I think this is a series that is best red in order as the first novel makes way for the second and gives insight and appreciation for it as well.  In this sequel, Liz, the main character, continues her story after meeting “The One,” her husband Eric.  After a quick courtship and engagement sends Liz and Eric down the path of wedding planning, in-law discoveries and the loss that life brings at random moments, leaving us to deal with our grief.  Of course the novel wouldn’t be complete without deep insight into the life, struggles and feelings of the main character, Liz.  Liz’s honesty about her struggles with her past life and now monogamous relationship, insecurities, issues with trust, jealousy and a mother –in-law from hell kept me hooked to this novel. 
Elizabeth’s writing is every bit as good as her first novel.  I couldn’t put it down!  Elizabeth possesses an ability to tell her story with honest, unguarded emotion and thought.  As I read this book I was able to identify with the thoughts and feelings of the characters.  I had many laugh out loud moments as well as heartbreaking and thankful moments. (Thankful if I never have to plan another wedding again!)  I connected to this novel in a way that I didn’t connect with “Who Got Liz.”  My life style was vastly different from Liz’s life in the first novel.  This made the first novel interesting but not fully relatable.  However, Discovering Arugula was different for me.  This novel had the same wonderful writing but a new tone.  It had a voice of maturity and an air of confidence in the midst of the insecurities that plague the best of us.
One of my favorite lines in this novel is “Falling in love with Eric was like Discovering Arugula.”  Prior to this line, she explains what it was like to discover Arugula.  I never knew lettuce could so perfectly explain what falling in love can be like.  I was amazed by her ability to make this fact so understandable.  This novel is highly entertaining and raw.  Elizabeth has an amazing ability to write a piece of fiction that reads like an honest memoir.  I enjoyed this novel and Elizabeth’s writing and would recommend the series to fiction lovers looking for something different to read.  She makes five hundred pages feel like two hundred.
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