silverneurotic

From Goodreads: 

1977 is a glorious time to live in the beautiful wine country of Napa Sonoma and Cathy has everything she thought she wanted - from a thriving health food café to loyal friends. 

Since the devastating failure of her short-lived marriage, Cathy has buried herself in her work and kept men at an arm’s length. But after Pam and Jamie arrive at Cathy’s door for a short stay, Cathy’s stone walls begin to crumble when she meets Jamie. Jamie, whose compassion and warmth slowly break down her defenses. Jamie, whose devotion to his four-year-old daughter melts Cathy's heart and makes her desperate for a family of her own. Jamie… who is married to Cathy's high school friend.

A profound love that transcends time and place is impossible to resist. But is love more important than friendship? Are loyalty and fidelity the foundation or the anchor? In the end, it’s all about choices – tough ones that can break hearts. And now Cathy must make the most difficult choice of her life.

Always With You bored me. I have spend a long time sitting here, trying to figure out a way to state that fact in a more...diplomatic way. But there is no other way to state it. This book was boring. It dragged on, for far too many pages (seriously, this SHOULD have been 150 pages top...instead of over 300). The characters were flat and unlikable. Oh sure, they were dressed up quite prettily...but absolutely no personality. No characterization. Flat. I got the vague sense that I was suppose to actual care about Cathy and the choices she was faced with...but how could I care? How could I care whether she stayed loyal to a friend who basically was a straight up bitch? How could I care if she should follow her heart and go to Jamie in what would probably be a passionless affair? Either way, I did not care. Once I read the final sentence any choice Cathy made would cease to make any difference in my life. I could only hope that I would get to the end of the book (something I feared would never happen)...and could move on to another story, a story that I hoped would contain some substance and contain characters and choices that I wanted to care about.

If I was forced to come up with something good about this book...I would have to say that the food intrigued me. At least initially. I do like my food, especially in literature, but even that became repetitive. Over and over the author mentioned the same dishes to the point that I kind of wanted to barf.