Eight Hundred Grapes - Laura Dave

"You have to grow eight hundred grapes to make one bottle of wine... If that isn't argument enough to finish the bottle, I don't know what is.

I FINALLY finished my latest read… When did making time for ourselves become so hard?

 I mean it has nothing to do with how badly I want to read a book or not, or how great I think the book is. I can not sit still long enough to feel relaxed enough to read.

Which is wigging me out because I absolutely love it more than anything.

Okay, maybe not more than this guy..

That face.

But really though, I am such a book-worm-novel-lover. I can’t believe how hard it has been for me to make the time to sit down and read. Not even just literal time.. but, brain time.

You feel me?

Anyway, it’s something I am seriously working on! More me time… noted.

Side Note: One of my close friends read this book with me. We rolled out of bed Saturday morning and met for coffee bright and early, and talked about this book for three. hours.

Okay okay we didn’t only talk about the book.. there was a lot of life talk too. But, I am telling you, what serious food for the soul that is. Just to talk, with an old friend, and sip  my favorite coffee. So good for the heart. And reading the same book together is so fun. Old ladies, the stuff we do for fun these days.

Best part? It forces you to finish your book by a certain date, so your friend can hold you accountable.

I need that J 

Also, thank goodness for great girlfriends, right? What would we do without them?

Anyway.. Back to this book.

My friend Emily and I kept texting each other about what we thought at random times during the night or during our lunch breaks. I love a book that you can relate to on such a level, it makes you think about your own life.

The protagonist is a 20-something girl named Georgia Ford. She is an attorney, and her parents own a killer winery outside of San Francisco, which she has sort of left behind for the hustle and bustle life of LA. She met the love of her life and is engaged to be married. But three weeks before the wedding, she is at her final dress fitting and looks up and out the window.. to find her fiancé, Ben, standing with a popular actress, and a little girl. Georgia runs out, still in her dress, to ask Ben what he is doing, and hears the little girl call him Dad.

Georgia storms out of her fitting and drives straight home to the winery, desperate for her family, nestled in the wine country of Sonoma. But she is shocked by the state her family is in when she gets there. Her two brothers are at odds due to an affair involving one of their wife’s, and her parent’s marriage is in trouble. Worst of all, her dad is selling the beloved family winery.

All of a sudden Georgia opens her eyes, and the life as she knew it is crumbling. Everything she has known to be true is being ripped out from under her. Does she stay with Ben, and forgive this monumental secret he has kept from her, and move forward with their upcoming wedding?

She has to wrestle with her parents who are the most in-love couple she knows, divorcing and moving onto their own lives. But most importantly, the winery. The only home she has ever known, being sold to corporate windery owners that are against everything the Ford family believes in.

Georgia is a strong-willed girl who knows what she wants. She knows deep down that Ben has wronged her.. he lied, and she isn’t sure how to forgive him. It isn’t just the lie though, it’s the gorgeous, perfect, intimidating woman who she will now have to share her fiancé with for (a minimum of) 18 years. How can she try to measure up to that every day? The mother of his child?

Eight Hundred Grapes pushes you to think about your limits. What are your boundaries? What are your deal breakers? Hard no’s, red lines, we all have them. We may not understand them until we are forced to.

Georgia is forced to face hers head on.

This novel taught me about the importance of integrity, what commitment really means, and what it takes in life to truly jeopardize that. Laura Dave brings to light the tangled web of reality that comes with family, and what you do to stick together in the face of adversity. Eight Hundred Grapes evokes the power, the questions, the heartbreak, and the struggles that can come with love, and that even when you think you have it all figured out; life can turn you upside down, and you will end up right where you should be. And right where you land, where you end up, is always where you least expect to be.

Pick up this book for your next summer read, you will not regret it!

What am I onto next? Emily Giffin's newest First Comes Love which is released TODAY! I have been waiting for this for months, more on this soon.....

XO