Heartburn

Rating:
Summary: Carl Bernstein gets a taste of his own medicine
Review: At the 7th month of her pregnancy, Nora Ephron learned that her husband had fallen in love with someone else. "The most unfair thing about this whole business," she writes, "is that I can't even date." That line sets the tone for this novel that Ephron based on her own marriage breakup. A court case resulted from the publication of this book, which tells you just how funny and potentially devastating it is. Her ex got a court order that she could never again write about him or their children. In the novel, instead of being a journalist, essayist, and humorist, the protagonist is a cookbook writer, so there are plenty of recipes sprinkled throughout. Published in 1983, Heartburn marked a turning point not only in Ephron's personal life but also in her writing career as she immediately gained entry into the film world as a writer, director, and producer. She wrote the screenplay for the movie based on this book - but don't see it. It's too angry; all the hilarity and subtle humor and caustic asides are missing.
I own a 1st edition of this book, and I'm NEVER selling it.

Rating:
Summary: Far superior to the film
Review: HEARTBURN is Nora Ephron at her finest. Through her pain, she manages to find the comedy. This thinly-disguised autobiography makes for compelling reading; it almost could be a primer on surviving a spouse's marital infidelity. As always with Ephron, her writing is facile and her insights are overwhelming. Through the darkest moments, her own acute sense of the absurd shows through, and this humor is her salvation.

Anyone who merely saw the film into which this book was turned can have no sense of how wonderful the printed text proves to be. And Ephron's recipes are fabulous, too. HEARTBURN probably was the first novel which had recipes integrated into it. After twenty years, I still use many of them.

HEARTBURN offers solid clues to the genius that Ephron is, as evidenced in her subsequent career as a screenwriter (WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, to name just one film) and as a director.

Rating:
Summary: Funny as heck!
Review: Hell hath no fury like Rachel scorned. Seven months pregnant, she discovers her husband Mark is "not sleeping with" the woman he "is in love" with. She endures the humiliation of being dumped, a robbery at her "group" and her slimy husband's attempt at reconciliation.

Rachel, a "bourgeois," a cookbook author, a mother, a daughter of nutty parents, rambles on about this and that - about the airline shuttle (this takes place mid-1980s), about her first husband and his hamsters, about her arch enemy who used to be her best friend, about the people in her group therapy session. She is NOT hard to follow; it's like listening to a conversation of your best girlfriends over lunch. Altogether funny! Brilliantly written in such a way that the reader stays interested and does not become confused or lost (despite the rambles) -- and throughout, she sticks in recipes as does, much later chronologically, author Diane Mott Davidson.

I read this book shortly after the US waged war on Iraq. I needed something to lighten my soul. "Heartburn," for a few hours, most certainly did the trick.

Rating:
Summary: Sorrel soup seasoned with heartache
Review: I didn't like this book. Truth be told, I still haven't finished it, and I bought it over six months ago. The characters are boring; the situation (while ripe with potential) drags; and the recipes don't even sound good. I am supremely disappointed, as I usually love what Nora Ephron does. Bummer.

Rating:
Summary: Second-rate writing, boring characters
Review: Nora crafted one of my all-time favorite books. Why I picked up a paperback copy as a freshmen in high school is beyond me. Why I finally got around to reading it at 18 is also a mystery. Why I've reread it more times that my dogged copy can tell is no mystery meat; sadness steeped in life's tea. In real life, I've played the part of the toddler in this tale. Wish I could say my folks were class acts, such as the author and her former spouse, but chicken fried steak is more common in middle America than Lillian Hellman's Pot Roast. --Laurel825

Rating:
Summary: Funny, witty and sharp commentary on modern love.
Review: Nora Ephron's "Heartburn," is one of my all time favorite novels. I read it whenever I'm feeling blue, especially if I'm blue about relationships. Ephron writes funny, and does it better than just about anyone, with many dead-on observations about life. She is a true romantic disguised in cynic's clothing, and a food lover to boot. I've adopted several of the recipes that are sprinkled throughout the book, keeping my dogeared copy in the kitchen for years until it became too grease-stained and precious. It reminds me of Laurie Colwin's "Home Cooking," only with more bite. It is true that Ephron tends to recycle some of her best material: readers will find quips from this novel popping up in Ephron's screenplays. No matter; for fans of Ephron, they play just as well the second time around. The movie "Heartburn," didn't do this book justice.

Rating:
Summary: Shallow story, cardboard characters.
Review: The jacket blurb says "story that will leave you laughing through the tears." Tears, maybe.

Rachael Sandstad and her friends have been wondering who Thelma Rice's new lover is. They've been gossiping and speculating about it for weeks. Well...guess who it turns out to be. Yawn.

<sigh> It's sad that some editor probably turned down a good manuscript and published this instead. The redeeming feature is the collection of recipes scattered throughout. And the pink cover is pretty.

Rating:
Summary: Heart Medicine
Review: This book took a little getting used to (This was my first of reading books with recipes within the storylines) , but once I did... boy did I laugh! Great story along with recipes. Who couldn't beat a book that was funny, witty, and full of recipes!! A great read for anyone whom wants to curl up with a good book.

Rating:
Summary: Really its only 3 1/2 stars
Review: This is one of contemporary fictions first books. It was written in the early eighties before Bridget Jones became a household name. It is a thoughtful novel about the breakup of a marriage. It is a quick read, but its not an earth-shattering premise. I recommend it for the beach or the bathtub.

Rating:
Summary: Sorrel soup seasoned with heartache
Review: This is the fact-based story of Rachel Samstat and Mark Feldman, two Washington hotshots whose marriage is rocked and ultimately destroyed by Mark's infidelity. As Rachel is a cookbook author, the story is intermingled with various recipes related to different plot points (she gives the recipe for the key lime pie that she smashed into Mark's face after learning Mark bought a necklace for his mistress--but regrets it wasn't blueberry, which would have ruined his blazer.)

This story is light and forgettable. While clever, it was only laugh-out-loud hilarious in two spots: where Rachel describes her parents' relationship and her mother's deathbed behavior; and where Rachel describes the hamsters that plagued her first marriage.

However, I enjoyed reading this tell-all tale. While it wasn't memorable, it was an entertaining way to pass the time--much better than watching this old movie reair on Lifetime TV (Skip it--the book's better.)