A review by jennastopreading
The Sweet Taste of Muscadines by Pamela Terry

emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Thank you to the publisher for my copy! All thoughts are my own. 
 
I cannot believe I’ve had this book sitting unread on my shelf for nearly 3 years - truly such a shame on me. What a beautiful story this was! It was also the perfect length to me (284 pages or 8 hours via audio), just enough time to put a lot of heart into the story, but not so long that the book felt redundant or boring. 
 
The first thing that drew me in was the atmospheric writing as Pamela Terry described both the South and the North - the places where our main character, Lila, has lived. The Southern town of Wesleyan, while fictional, felt like a character in itself, with descriptions that made you feel like you knew what the town felt, smelled, looked, and sounded like. This was so beautiful to read as a girl who grew up in the South. “It’s a land where heart-stopping beauty and heartrending ugliness flourish in tandem, a land of kindness and hate of ignorance and wit, of integrity blindness, and pride…but the South is as tenacious as ming in a garden.” (Page 15) 
 
This book also portrayed in a very raw way the reality of what it’s like to lose a parent. My heart splintered as I read the following passage; “Families change when a parent dies, and not always how you’d expect. Sometimes they turn brittle, splintering off into dark places, like a pencil stuck too far in a sharpener. Sometimes they just get quiet. Their conversations float on the surface, never venturing into the deeper waters to reach the fears and gray questions that keep each one of them awake in the dead of night, eyes wide open in the darkness of their separate rooms lines up along the same hallway.” (Page 42) 
 
While the writing transporting me to summer in the South was what drew me in, the storyline itself proved captivating and unique. With as many layers as an onion, nearly every chapter revealed something new and exciting. The chapters were the perfect length too, with just enough “meat” to them that they all felt important. 
 
Overall, a very solid debut, and I look forward to reading more from this author! 
 
The first thing that drew me in was the atmospheric writing as Pamela Terry described both the South and the North - the places where our main character, Lila, has lived. The Southern town of Wesleyan, while fictional, felt like a character in itself, with descriptions that made you feel like you knew what the town felt, smelled, looked, and sounded like. This was so beautiful to read as a girl who grew up in the South. “It’s a land where heart-stopping beauty and heartrending ugliness flourish in tandem, a land of kindness and hate of ignorance and wit, of integrity blindness, and pride…but the South is as tenacious as ming in a garden.” (Page 15) 
 
This book also portrayed in a very raw way the reality of what it’s like to lose a parent. My heart splintered as I read the following passage; “Families change when a parent dies, and not always how you’d expect. Sometimes they turn brittle, splintering off into dark places, like a pencil stuck too far in a sharpener. Sometimes they just get quiet. Their conversations float on the surface, never venturing into the deeper waters to reach the fears and gray questions that keep each one of them awake in the dead of night, eyes wide open in the darkness of their separate rooms lines up along the same hallway.” (Page 42) 
 
While the writing transporting me to summer in the South was what drew me in, the storyline itself proved captivating and unique. With as many layers as an onion, nearly every chapter revealed something new and exciting. The chapters were the perfect length too, with just enough “meat” to them that they all felt important. 
 
Overall, a very solid debut, and I look forward to reading more from this author! 
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