Reviews

Chocolat is the story of Vianne Rocher, a young woman who moves into a small village between Toulouse and Bordeaux with her daughter and starts an artisan chocolate store. She brings light and forgotten pleasures to the local people, though some are wary of her, particularly the priest, who eventually grows obsessed with her and the chocolate store, who likens her newness, her strangeness, to a threat; her dark eyes and flared skirt and nimble speech. For it is also about prejudice: against the Roma people; against strangeness and difference, and how fear for these elements can carry into violence, and how village gossip can expand into attempts of exiling the subject. It is about being haunted by the past. Vianne's mother returns to her in dreams and thoughts; her childhood where she was endlessly twirling between towns, countries, bird-like, with her vivacious, restless, colorful, and at last dying mother.

I enjoyed how descriptive this book was. The art of making chocolate; transforming bricks of couverture chocolate into something more delicate and artful, a kind of magic, alchemy. There is magic in the book, literal and metaphorical. It is a warmly colored, poetic, sensual book. One can almost smell the spices.

3.5/5

mjminkowich's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

pye's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

What a wonderful book!

This was my first Joanne Harris book and I immediately fell in love with her writing style. I'm a sucker for writing that appeals to all the senses, and this novel does just that throughout. I felt thoroughly immersed in the local life of Lansequenet, and luxuriated in all the many passages describing food. This whole book felt like a sensory treat!

I love all the different characters of the townsfolk, especially Guillaume and Armande, for whose storylines I cried on several occasions. Guillaume's shedding of his guilt-ridden, sorrowful shell really touched me, and I love that he found such a beautiful friendship with Armande in her final days. Armande's last hurrah was such a beautiful sequence; it really did feel like a joyous celebration, a victory even. This book has me thinking things like "I'm glad to have known her", which tells you everything you need to know about how much the author gets you to connect with her characters.

Reynaud's bitter, obsessive antipathy towards Vianne was really absorbing. This was especially bec use I recently read the Winternight trilogy by Katherine Arden, in which the gender-defying female protagonist, who upholds pagan traditions, is persecuted by another sinister priest, who desires and despises her in equal parts. I thought the parallels between these two dynamics were really striking!

I love that, unlike the film, there really isn't a big deal made out of Roux being the love interest - because in fact, in the book, he can barely be described as such. He and Vianne don't end up together, and this is no sad ending, and what we get instead is to witness the beautiful friendship that they build over the course of the book, and look with excitement to the future arrival of Vianne's second child.

I think a line that I'll be mulling over for a long time to come is, "if that stubbornness of hers could be turned out instead of in, what could she not achieve?"

thekalmisto's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

mximlay's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark funny fast-paced

5.0

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