This was an interesting book. There is a lot in here-memoir of a marriage, history of Latvia (and her husband's heritage there), history of Jews in Eastern Europe, and the history of bread, specifically rye bread. I liked it, though I need up skimming most of the second half, where she veers into the histories mentioned above. She is telling her marriage memoir through very short chapters, sometimes out of order. It was a good read.

The Rye Bread Marriage is an interesting memoir written by Michaele Weissman. This is the story of her courtship and marriage to John Melngailis. Michaele describes him as a dashingly handsome Latvian refugee who loves rye bread. She is an American Jewish young college student looking for adventure. When they first meet, Michaele is not ready to get married and settle down. Years later when John is now divorced from his first wife they meet again now ready to begin a life together.

This book tells the story of their marriage, of compromise and learning to adjust to another's behaviors and ideas. How love if it is strong can keep a marriage together through the day to day disagreements and hurt.

Coming from different backgrounds Michaele works hard to learn about John's difficult Latvian childhood and learn to enjoy the rye bread that he is so passionate about. They travel many times to Latvia, John returning to his childhood memories and Michaele to learn about the family he came from. Finally they also travel to Lithuania to learn a little about her Jewish heritage.

This book shows how much we are shaped by our families and our childhood experiences. They make us the person we are and have a strong impact on the relationships we have. This is a very open look into the messiness of marriage, learning to tolerate and make concessions to stay in a relationship.

It is also about rye bread the difference between the original Russian bread and the American version. It is learning to like the dense dark strong taste of a real rye bread. The book leaves me feeling better about the messiness of my everyday life and also interesting in ordering some of the rye bread from Black Rooster Bakery, John's bakery where he has perfected the Latvian rye of his childhood. I know my husband will love the taste, it will make him happy. That is my goal.

I love to bake and I love to learn about different cultures coming together in relationships; marriage, friendships, neighbors. But I found this story to be dry and uninviting. It wasn't stale, it just wasn't tasty.

Michaele Weissman is a writer, accomplished home cook, and she throws great parties. She is also a wife. Marriage is never simple but when you combine two different personalities with two different cultures, it makes a combustible mixture. Michaele is a third-generation Jewish American with Eastern European roots and her husband is a Latvian immigrant, whose family fled from Russians to Germany towards the end of WWII. Where she is bubbly, outgoing, chatty, he is cold, reserved, analytical. She is all drama; he has “the Latvian distaste for drama and hyperbole.” She lived a life without major complications in a land of plenty, he lived through major war-time childhood trauma. Add to this the history of Holocaust and history of Latvians and Jews where each side has a long list of accusations and suspicions against another. Michaele Weissman explores her marriage with humor and introspection trying to answer the question, what is a marriage and how do you grapple with differences that probably can never be fully resolved. She does it through learning about her husband's culture and background. Big part of that culture is rye bread and to research it, they go to his roots in the Baltics. The book is very funny but it also touches on very serious topics like history of Holocaust, personal responsibility and tolerance. Another interesting topic in the book is living with a person who has mental illness. Every reader will find something they can relate to in this book, and thanks to Weissman's humorous, honest writing, they will have a good time. The book is also immensely quotable.

Sorry this book did not do it for me. Someone else may love it and I understand that but I found it quite flat, unleavened you might say. The author's relationship with her husband is meant to be charming of course but I guess you had to be there. The writing did not make me wish we'd met.

What a sweet family book. Love all the history .
Thanks to author, publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book. While I got the book for free it had no bearing on the rating I gave it.

I did learn a tremendous amount about rye bread in reading this book. Overall, I thought the book was interesting but didn’t flow super well. Some of it was straight up memoir, some was a family history, some was baking, some was about their marriage. Honestly, I felt bad for the author. Her husband clearly had a difficult life but there was nothing in the book that left the impression he was caring or kind or a good husband or father of any kind. He seemed anti Semitic and frankly a little cruel several times.

A wonderfully written intimate look at the marriage of the author.Two-very different people from very different backgrounds she a Jewish New Yorker he from Latvia but they fall deeply in love.and sheshares the ups and downs of their lives over the years.Very interesting emotional moving entertaining.#netgalley #algonquin

I liked reading about the author's relationship with her husband and how they came to be.
I thought it was funny how she doesn't really like the rye bread her husband loves, but it indears her to him.
This is a book about musings on a marriage and how even though we have differences a marriage can still work.

The formatting was different, but I guess the author likes that to organize her thoughts.


Thanks NetGalley for this ARC.

Synopsis: (from Netgalley, the provider of the book for me to review)
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A beautifully told, often humorous, unusual and also universal love story. A memoir about learning to live with another human being and about how every relationship is a mystery—and a miracle.
When they first meet, John, a dashing European, a Latvian refugee, and a physics Ph.D., is hoping to settle down. A fast-talking American college student, Michaele is hungry for an independent life as a writer and historian. When they meet again some years later, Michaele is ready. Or so she thinks. And opposites attract, right?
The life Michaele and John build together intermingles sweetness—their love of good food, entertaining, and family—with complications, including their ethnic and religious differences (Michaele is Jewish; John is not), the trauma John endured as a child during WWII, Michaele’s thwarted ambitions, and even John’s preoccupation with Latvian rye. When he opens a successful company marketing rye bread, Michaele embarks on a European journey in search of her husband’s origins, excavating poignant stories of war, privation, and resilience. She realizes at last that rye bread represents everything about John’s homeland that he loved and lost. Eventually, Michaele comes to love rye bread, too.
An enticing memoir for readers of Dani Shapiro’s Hourglass, Bess Kalb’s Nobody Will Tell You This But Me, and Heather Havrilesky’s Foreverland, The Rye Bread Marriage asks, how do the stories we live and the stories we inherit play out in our relationships? After forty years of marriage, Michaele Weissman has a few answers.



1. I loathe the numbering format of this book as it makes for a very discordant read.
2. Is it supposed to be scientific? or psychological?
3. Isn’t all this numbering annoying.?
4. A good read but…
5. All these numbers drive me nuts.
6. It’s not a smooth read as one wonders why the need for numbering every idea and paragraph.
7. It meanders all over the place
and
8. The number drove me nuts