I think Lopez needs to stick to writing screenplays. Her writing was disjointed and it drove me crazy how she kept changing tenses. I appreciate that Canela was probably a little manic depressive but it was just annoying. Lopez herself said in her forward that her editor or friend shaped the book into something of a book. That should have told her something. I just couldn't identify with Canela or maybe her character was just very one dimensional. A sex crazed one dimensional idiot. I think the only part I enjoyed were the food descriptions.

From the author of Real Women Have Curves. Easy reading about the nature of sensuality, with an incomplete effort to connect sensuality to spirituality. She seemed to be trying to address too many topics. You never got a heartfelt sense of what was really driving/troubling the main character - perhaps pretentiousness.

Canela is unhappy. She and her fiancee have just broken off their engagement because they couldn’t agree on the menu for their reception and her favorite cousin has just committed suicide. Canela remembers that she has the tickets for her honeymoon in Paris and decides to go there on her own. After her time in the Honeymoon Suite runs out, she stays with a friend. Her friend explains to her that she can only stay in France for 3 months without a carte de sejour. Canela decides to enroll in culinary school since they’ll help her get her carte de sejour. Canela’s friend returns to the U. S. when her mother becomes ill, so Canela finds herself alone in a foreign city. While she doesn’t flourish at cooking school she manages to graduate and learns a lot about herself and life along the way.

A Hungry Woman in Paris by Josefina López is the story of Canela’s struggle to find her place in the world. She has to decide if she will succumb to the role that is expected of her or choose to be true to herself and her passions. Since Josefina has been an immigrant in two different societies (the U. S. and France) she does a fantastic job of describing what it’s like when you don’t feel like you fit in. Since we lived in France for two years, I really enjoyed the descriptions of Paris and the carte de sejour stories. I think the ending of the book sums it up very well:

"Everything is about food and hunger, whether it is hunger for the body or hunger for the soul. As long as I am alive I will always be hungry for revolution, for justice and truth, but I am no longer hungry for my soul the way I used to be. I have plenty of beautiful memories and life-inspiring moments to nourish my soul for many lifetimes. . . I hope this was delicious."

There are some graphic sexual scenes in this book that some readers may find offensive.

Josefina López is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and poet. She is the co-author of the movie Real Women Have Curves. This is her first novel, and she has another one in the works.

I loved "Real Women Have Curves" so I was excited to find a novel from the same writer. I'm also a sucker for books that even mention cooking! What a let-down! This book was poorly written (tenses anyone?) and uncomfortable to read. The premise reads like every chick-lit book right now - unhappy girl, strained relationship with her family, broken engagement, leaves on a journey, blah blah blah. The characters are flat and cliche - two friends from cooking school are named Basil and Sage, the American jerk of the class is named Dick. I wasn't ready for the numerous and explicit sex scenes. I don't mind a little sex in a book, but I really don't need to hear about it. Not only that, but the situations that brought about the sex scenes were kind of against what I would call moral. (Call me a prude, but a foursome on the dance floor of a swingers club is *not* something I want to read or hear about, thank you.)

I'll give the author credit for some of Canela's (also a food name, ugh) thoughts about coming into her own and not doing the things that her family has outlined for her. That's the thing I loved about her movie and the thing that I most enjoyed about this book. Canela certainly forged her own path and, for that, Lopez should be praised. Unfortunately, you have to find your way through a lot of weeds to get there.