I found this book at times hard to follow, and I ultimately wish Juliette could have been picked up and put into a different story because while I adored her, I was less enamoured with the rest of the book.

This took me quite a while to get through not because there was anything particularly terrible about it but simply because at no point did it ever completely draw me in. I felt rather removed from the other characters and their drama.

I loved Juliette and I loved her Frenchness. I loved her back story. I loved her restaurant. I loved her life in Paris and the reasons she had left. I loved her presence and the phrases she threw around. I loved learning more about her as the story progressed, although the addition to her plot felt rather meh.

With the other characters, I got so confused as to who was who. They all felt bland and though they each had attributes that were abundantly clear, they didn't stick to me at all and I had no desire to remember their names, really.

I really appreciated the honesty. I appreciated the realism. I appreciated that this panned out the way it would in real life as opposed to how one would expect it to in a fictional world. However, I never really cared about this book and read most of it in a very detached sense.

While the premise was intriguing, I'd pass on this one.

An absolutely delightful and fun story to read about six college friends and a 40th birthday celebration. The anticipated weekend takes place on the coast of Brittany with plenty of wine and food to honor the occasion, with plenty of secrets and old romances thrown in. I thoroughly enjoyed not knowing what to expect and the comfortable setting of old friends! Thank you for the opportunity to have read this advance copy -- I totally loved it!

A tight group of college friends get together for a weekend to celebrate one of their 40th birthdays . It's the story of the group and the outsiders they have relationships with. It's intertwines the stories of their youth and their lives now. It's of friendship, love, aging and it has twists and turns in it. I couldn't put it down. It was an easy read and well developed. Thanks Netgalley for letting me read this!

First, thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday Books for providing me with a digital ARC of this novel, in exchange for an honest review.

I'll start with what I liked and what drew me to the book: the cover, which is gorgeous and so evocative of a summer day with friends; the blurb about a tight knit group of friends coming back together, keeping secrets, and the teaser of a wedding.

What I didn't like: the execution of the concept. The story felt disjointed with all the different third person POVs that still didn't have a significantly unique voice to differentiate them so I failed to see why the author even bothered pretending they were really different POVs when it could just have been told by a traditional omniscient third person narrator.

The characters were stereotypes or boring blank canvasses. I couldn't, for the life of me, bring myself to care about a single one of them. Max, the cliched bad boy in a band/ cliched middle aged man in crisis, complete with drugs and meaningless sex. Helen the pixie manic dream girl, even at 40, whose "twist" you could see coming from a million miles away. Juliette, the "salt of the earth" kind of character that's supposed to act as contrast to all the others but was so bland and had such a predictable backstory that she was a waste of story line. Rosie, the disappointed middle aged woman in an empty marriage who has regrets about her ex-boyfriend. Soleil, the young annoying millenial who is also hypersexualized for no reason. Sophie, the angsty teenager who's angry for... no reason, also. And on and on.

The characters had no chemistry among them/ between them. A bunch of them were supposed to be best friends but there was no evidence of that. The one supposed to be funny fell flat to me.

The plot... well, for about 2/3rds of the book there was very little plot, a lot of exposition, and nothing but my commitment to review this book inviting me to turn the pages. It was absolute page-filler writing. Most of the actual action happens in the last third of the book and the big drama was really not that big at all, it felt out of place too. You never doubt that it will be resolved favorably. There are no stakes here.

You can guess who's getting married almost from the start because the author is as subtle as a hammer to the head, giving hints that are basically spoilers.

The prose is lengthy but empty. Paragraphs and paragraphs describing food that have no purpose other than to occupy space. There's also a lot of "dialogue" that's also there just to occupy space. I don't have my copy at hand at the moment but some of the dialogue felt like this:
"Oh, Rosie, we can't tell anyone."
"But, Nina, we must."
"No, we can't, not yet."
"Oh, but we must."

No one talks like that. The characters often said the names of the person they were talking to in the dialogue. Be honest, when you're chatting with your mates, how often do you say their names to their own faces?
"John, what shall we watch tonight?"
"Oh, Mayela, I don't know, why don't we watch something on Netflix?"
"Excellent idea, John."
"Indubitably, Mayela."

For me, nothing worked in this book; not the characters, not the plot, not the writing. I had high hopes for it, loved the cover and the blurb, but the execution was irredeemable.

A French Wedding tells the story of Max, an aging rock star, and his old friends from his university days. They get together for Max's 40th birthday at his beautiful house in the French countryside.
Max has a chef/housekeeper named Juliette, who cooks some some amazing food for the group and becomes involved in their lives. There is a wedding, but it's not the focus of the book.

I enjoyed the book. The descriptions of the French countryside were beautiful, and the the details of the food were amazing and made me hungry! There were a lot of characters to follow and although their stories were interesting, I didn't feel connected to any of them. I enjoyed reading Hannah Tunnicliffe's other book Season of Salt and Honey more, although I would still purchase this one.

Friends since art college, a group of friends get together for a weekend which will reveal many cracks in their relationships. Add to the group one outsider, Juliette, a chef getting over the death of her parents, returning to her small town from running a successful restaurant in Paris. I liked the development of the characters, the closeness of Rosie and Nina, and the setting. Juliette's story, as well as rock star Max's, are the most developed, and serve as the backdrop for the others. I liked it.

Wow! I really enjoyed this sophisticated and fast paced novel. Tunnicliffe creates a modern BIG CHILL with a group of fascinating characters. Yesterday, even with several major players, the reader has enough insight to feel close to all of them.

This group gathers for the 40th birthday of the rock star friend, Max. Of, course, truths are revealed, memories are inspired and twists are unfurled. This is probably the ultimate summer reading book for 2017. Beautifully written, interesting characters and a very modern view of their world and all the possibilities in the future.

Yes, I really enjoyed it!

A group of lifelong friends meets to celebrate (mourn?) the 40th birthday of one of the group. This story stars with Juliette, a restaurant owner on her way to meet with a critic who can make or break Juliette’s Paris restaurant. When she receives a call that her mother is seriously ill, she leaves everything behind to journey into the French countryside to be with her parents. One year later, and Juliette is working as a private chef for Max, an aging rock star, in his grand French country estate. His friends gather to celebrate his milestone birthday and old freinds and lovers get tangled up in the past and the feelings of the present. I wish the entire book had been about Juliette, her observations about food, Paris and family were the best part of the book. The other characters just didn’t come to life for me