Rating: 
Summary: you critics are really too much..........
Review: for Susan's recipes and her enthusiasm for the art of cooking is what is at the heart of her books. NOT the prose! (oops, not a sentence!) Jeez! we all know you need a life out there! Susan has a life, and for that you must be a little envious? Read the cookbooks and her others for what they really are.
Marti
in
Saint Louis
who uses a LOT of her recipes!
Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyed living in France
Review: I enjoyed reading this book and livng in France vicariously through this book. The writing isn't that great, but the experiences were entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: truly enjyable read
Review: I truly enjoyed this book...I finished this book in less than a week. Some other reviewers thought the writng wasn't great, I did...it was an easy read, you didn't have to check the dictionary to find the defination for a difficult word, which in the end was a common word used daily. It was like sitting with a friend and she was telling to about her travels. Pick it up for a great read.... of you want something more complex read "Great Expectations" (no pun intened) by Dickens
Rating: 
Summary: Charmed LIfe
Review: It is hard to resist the charms of this book. Some people may find the prevailing positivity preposterous; I succumbed to Loomis' upbeat perspective. Some may complain that writings about small town life that do not contain irony are pollyannish; I thought the book was uplifting. Some people may complain about the unedited tone of the book; I felt like I was reading a manuscript from diary entries. For readers who enjoy travel writing, culinary explorations, and relocation tales, "On Rue Tatin" will be diverting and pleasant.The book relates Loomis' beginning flirtation with French lifestyles as a student of cooking and continues through her permanent move to the country. She describes her initial connections and friendships, the events surrounding homemaking efforts, her pursuit of cookery ideas, and the neighbors amongst whom she becomes ensconced. Her efforts to create a rewarding life are appealing. The most glaring flaws of the book are related to inadequate (unpresent?) editing. Syntax and continuity problems abound. For me, one of the most jarring difficulties was the author's unexplained shift from vegetarian to hearty carnivore. Nevertheless, many of recipes she presents are wonderful, particularly the Stuffed Tomatoes and the Yogurt Cake. For a foodie and domestic architecture junkie like me, the book was great fun.
Rating:
Summary: Food & Literature
Review: The book is an entertaining, quick read, but the real gem in its pages is the recipies. Braised chicken in mustard and white wine sauce, apples stuffed with goat cheese, pear and honey clafoutis...I've made these dishes again and again for family and company, always to rave reviews. Buy the book for the story but keep it for the recipies.
Rating:
Summary: Envy and Enchantment
Review: There are many---perhaps too many---first-person narratives about adventurous Americans falling in love with Provence, with Tuscany, with Portugal, and deciding willy-nilly to move there, to buy and renovate a house. Invariable we laugh and sigh and commiserate with their struggles with the language, the culture, the habits of the natives, the rules and regulations of the government. But many of these, to my mind, fall far short of the ideal---which should be to create a feeling of both envy and enchantment. Ms. Loomis, with On Rue Tatin, does both. This book not only tells a wonderful story but tells it wonderfully. The sights, the sounds, the scents, the tastes, of building a new life in an old, old house in a small French town---a wonderfully-humorous and never-too-self-congratulatory voyage into the fulfillment of one person's life-dream: to live, work, and write in France. If you've ever used one of Ms. Loomis' excellent cookbooks in your kitchen, you'll know how thorough, precise, and user-friendly her writing is---I've never had to struggle with one of her recipes, no matter how obscure and unfamiliar the ingredients---and this memoir (which, joyfully, also includes recipes! Try the mussels in apple cider vinegar) gives further proof to the strength of her writing talents. A really lovely little book, sure to set the romantics among us daydreaming....
Rating:
Summary: More cute than sophisticated
Review: This book is a quick, pleasant read, a series of vignettes appropriate for a vacation or a plane trip. Foodies will like it, though it will disappoint those looking for the arch, self-deprecating, tell-it-like-it-is insouciance of Peter Mayle.
Susan Loomis is apparently a nice person, an avid cook, and absolutely *loves* everything and everybody she comes in contact with. But sometimes she seems a little too pollyannaish, so even (or perhaps especially) when she writes of dealing with difficult people, her musings and descriptions come across as the slightly naive observations of someone viewing the world through rose-colored glasses.
Now and then I wondered while reading this book, why would someone with a small family and (as we are told over and over again) hardly any money, buy, renovate, and plan to live in a massive, rotting old former convent? Although it's not revealed in the book, the answer (through a visit to Loomis' web site) seems to be: so she can run a cooking school.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining & Engaging!
Review: Unlike some that have reviewed this book, all I can say is that it is a wonderful read, very interesting, engaging and well written. Like Peter Mayle, the author has found a warm and wonderful place in France and relates in detail her pleasant experinences, as well as a great deal of preferred recipes that she has found great success with in both her personal and professional cullinary life. There is nothing disappointing about this book. After just the first chapter, I was hooked and enchanted and ready to read more by Susan Loomis. A great read, a wonderful and vicarious adventure for any true Francophile or other armchair reader. Full of fun, great recipes and dozens of reasons to smile, this book is worth every penny and then some. Kudos to the author!
Rating:
Summary: A Pleasure - Despite Some Reviews Here (Ignore Them)
Review: Why do we read this type of text except for a vicarious thrill and the gleaning of little details of French life? I can't understand the sometimes negative reviews here. This isn't a work of fiction and these people seem to be reading it in the wrong spirit if they expect it to be. For what it is, a chronicle of one woman/family's life in France, I found it enjoyable and would recommend it. If a few readers are by now jaded thinking it yet ANOTHER Peter Mayle, Ann Barry, et al. tale, well then they need to move on and read something else instead of expecting to find magic over and over in sameness. Enjoyable. And it has some recipes. Buy it.
Rating:
Summary: A Pleasure - Despite Some Reviews Here (Ignore Them)
Review: Why do we read this type of text except for a vicarious thrill and the gleaning of little details of French life? I can't understand the sometimes negative reviews here. This isn't a work of fiction and these people seem to be reading it in the wrong spirit if they expect it to be. For what it is, a chronicle of one woman/family's life in France, I found it enjoyable and would recommend it. If a few readers are by now jaded thinking it yet ANOTHER Peter Mayle, Ann Barry, et al. tale, well then they need to move on and read something else instead of expecting to find magic over and over in sameness. Enjoyable. And it has some recipes. Buy it.
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