Rating: 
Summary: AAARGH!!
Review: La Cucina was filled with such detailed descriptions of wonderous Italian food that you could almost smell it, taste it. That part Lily Prior did very well. I was really enjoying it until Rosa went away and became... a librarian. I must agree with Bonnie Smothers of Booklist here. It was very tiresome to read about Rosa the librarian. At least there was no tightly bound hair with pencils sticking out of it. If the author was going to rely so much on stereotype, why didn't she just put Rosa in a bakery? Everyone knows that fat people eat all the time, what better place for a fat person than in a place where she could stuff herself all day. Okay, I'm being sarcastic now, sorry. And the ending. The ending! No, I'm not going to reveal the ending. But boy what a disappointment. I got the impression that the author lost complete interest herself at this point and just ended the thing. So, if you still really want to read this, go get it at the library. That way you won't waste any money.
Rating: 
Summary: Odd but Good!
Review: Not a book for everyone, but a small gem of a book that does indeed capture the Sicilian ethos. Prior's prose is poetic, and her images lasting. In addition, she has an excellent knowledge of Sicilian cooking (it's different from Italian in many ways)and her food descriptions will make readers who love good food salivate. The story, narrated by Rosa, is more of a fairy tale than realistic fiction. The Siamese twin brothers, Guerra and Pace (War and Peace), the father and lover who disappear, the highly dramatic family vengeance scenarios...all these are acceptable because, in Sicily, this sort of stuff is the stuff of everyday life, but it's not to be taken literally. It is, however, wonderfully written, with a great deal of lyricism and panache, and anyone who loves the English language and mythical storytelling will get a lot out of it. Prior is quite good, really excellent. I await her next book with great enthusiasm.
Rating: 
Summary: JUICY!!
Review: Okay, I loved this novel! Woohoo! If you liked "Like Water for Chocolate," you'll love this one too. Same idea: Sex and food...but set in Italy. Well the differences are more than that but it's the same theme. This is a wonderful story of love, self-discovery, familial ties, secrets and passion for cooking and the "affairs of the heart." The love scenes are truly sexy...they totally light the fire within the reader...seriously! Also, I loved the fact that the height of Rosa's sexual exploration was when she was overweight and middle-aged. Such a refreshing look at a relationship where it's obvious that looks were not as important as the passion and chemistry that ignites between two people. There were a few flaws that force me to give this novel 4 stars instead of 5. In an attempt to prevent spoiling the ending, what happened with L'Inglese after he disappeared? What was his occupation? What happened to him all that time? What was that [issue] that Luigi said about having him 'taken out?' None of these issues were ever resolved, yet they were seemed important as they surfaced time and time again throughout the novel. Also, I think the ending was somewhat abrupt. Yes I suppose it was predictable as well, but I loved it anyway and it made me cry. So I still highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Don't bother
Review: Picking this book up and reading the reviews on the back, I was expecting to be swept up in a tale of food and passion set in ravishing Italian landcsapes. Instead I ended up turning page after irritating page forcing myself to read it to the end, which was a struggle, because it is so appalingly written. Rosa, the principal character, is an amalgam of almost every Italian Mama cliche taken to extremes and throwing in the frustrated spinster angle for good measure. The rest of the characters are barely believable, the situations and the plot trite and hackneyed, and the dialogue worthy of Barbara Cartland. We are supposed to believe that a visiting English chef awakes in this woman a ferocious sensuality, an unfathomed well of womanly longing, and yet she refers to her lovers organ as a 'willy'. Willy??? Are we talking about adults here? I haven't heard that word used for a penis since I was ten, for God's sake!! The scene where the author tries to combine food and sex between the characters is as laughably grotesque as it is yawningly unerotic. Can you imagine making love to someone with their head in a pasta bowl and tomato sauce all over their hair? Ridiculous. Some of the recipes are good though, but this is not enough to save a book which comes across as a bored housewifes attempt at a crass love story with every Italian stereotype you can think of. Beware the name of Lily Prior, for if this book is praised as a first effort, God help us if there's another one in the pipeline.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: Prior describes the art of Sicilian cooking with such detail that aromas and tastes seem to leap off the page. Beyond that, however, I found the plot disappointing. Some events in the story line seem contrived, others seems to be included only to add a surprising twist, with no relevance to the story. Most of the characters are one-dimensional, with the exception of Rosa. Many of the characters are not fully developed. I found this to be a mediocre read.
Rating:
Summary: Brava!!
Review: The author is an Englishwoman?! She captured the Sicilian spirit. The book is bawdy and farcical, yet touching. Fun and uplifting to read! I am looking forward to more books from Lily Prior.
Rating:
Summary: An assured first novel, beautifully crafted
Review: The descriptions of the food and its preparation are so very good, and there is the most hilariously funny sex scene I've read for many a year. Read and enjoy, but dont go shopping for groceries immediately after!
Rating:
Summary: Very delicious & lovely book
Review: This book is an amazing intermix of Italian cooking secrets, home-style recipes, and a woman's search for her understanding and place in the world and in love. La Cucina means kitchen in Italian and this book equates the unique concept of the erotic enticing, patience-centered, and complex components of cooking in the kitchen with the complicated, time and ego consuming, erotic and illusive search and maintenance of familial and partner love in life. Highly detailed imagery drips of mouthwatering inspirations in a female centered mix of how love and life can be considered with the common actions within the hearth and heart of the home. Life is what you make of it; different choices create different outcomes just as different spices and preparations affect food and recipe taste. The book explores one average woman's attempt at spreading her wings and exploring life and love from family and men in a small Italian village to life in the big city. The time-spanning story a mix of love, imagery, and relationships with healthy doses of imagination and fantasy in both the kitchen, bedroom, and playing field of life. The end result is a striking story that keeps you turning pages while it conjures up beautiful and sense inspiring images in the readers mind of Italian country side painstakingly prepared with love meals, erotic and fulfilling physical and emotional sex, and the ongoing struggles of family and partner relationships and sex. The analogy of cooking to life is not unique, but the preparation and presentation of this story is uniquely emotionally and physically appetite inspiring. It's worth a weekend read at the beach or on a rainy day for sure! Without a doubt, if your life, sex, and love fantasies don't become inspired, you're cooking skills will!
Rating: 
Summary: A couple of hours to read, and much less to forget
Review: This book is an ok-book in that it is well built and probably appealing in that it is so exotic. However, its language is unoriginal (images such as "a shower of shooting stars" to describe orgasm are plentiful), and the Italian is so flawed that it is disrepectful to the readers (fresci for freschi, Nationale for Nazionale, c'e for e, mama for mamma, signor for signore and much much more); it wouldn't have been much trouble to have the Italian sentences proofread by a native speaker of Italian. The characters, apart for the narrator Rosa, are very little explored which is the main feature of many weak novels that thrive only on cheap exoticism and a decent plot.
The book can be read in less than an afternoon, which I did, and will be promptly forgotten. However it's a fine week end read for a summer in the city.
Rating:
Summary: Bon Appetit!
Review: This book is so refreshing! It's a very engaging, believable story of love in Sicily in the early part of the last century... I have sometimes wondered what it would be like for an author to take on writing a realistic love story about a middle aged, overweight "matron" and Lily Prior has done a fabulous job of writing a heroine that just leaps out of the pages... And if you love food and love sex! Well, it's delicious and steamy and highly erotic to hear all the descriptions of the creations our heroine prepares... So enjoy! (I think I put on weight just reading about the food!)
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