Joy For Beginners

April 18, 2011
In Bauermeister's sensual second novel, a party for a woman who has beaten breast cancer results in six friends reconnecting, not just to each other but also to parts of themselves they had long neglected. Admittedly an "incongruous group," with each woman at a different point in her life, Kate's friends agree that each "will do one thing in the next year that is scary or difficult." Kate selects tasks for each of her friends; undertaking the tasks will bring heartbreak, joy, and adventure to everyone. Bauermeister's (The School of Essential Ingredients) evocative prose creates a magical world where gray goo becomes "forgiving dough" in an oven and a woman protects herself from loneliness by hiding in an unruly garden. Kate's well-meaning tasks, be they as grand as a trip to Venice or as banal as baking bread, push the friends toward much-needed awakenings. A book designed to both fill you up and make you hungry for life.

May 15, 2011

A soft-centered celebration of female friendship and endurance follows a group of women facing challenges set by a cancer-survivor.

It's the back stories to the six caring women who supported breast-cancer sufferer Kate through her illness and treatment which form the core of Bauermeister's novel (The School of Essential Ingredients, 2009). After Kate accepts her daughter's challenge to go rafting down the Grand Canyon to celebrate being alive, each of the six agrees to do something scary or difficult, with Kate setting the tasks. Divorced bookstore worker Caroline must finally throw out her ex-husband's books, thereby reclaiming her life as well as her shelf space. Potter Daria must bake a loaf of bread, thereby embarking on a love affair. Sara, who has never spent a night apart from her children, must travel, while young widow Hadley, who has retreated to a tiny new home hidden in a green jungle, is tasked with taking care of her garden. Bauermeister's sensuous writing lends her slender, rather sugary (even when sad) material a graceful charm, but the material is never substantial enough, with the character vignettes too short and the liberating outcomes too heartwarmingly predictable.

Toothless. A neatly crafted reworking of a cozy, sentimental formula.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

January 1, 2011

Kate has every reason to be joyous: she's just licked cancer. Celebrating with her six best friends, she declares that she's gotten up her nerve to go whitewater rafting and wants each of them to take a chance on something they've never dared to do. Only she's going to pick their adventure (really?). Bauermeister's debut, The School of Essential Ingredients, was a national best seller, and this sounds as if it would have great appeal for the same set of readers.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2011
When Kate receives a clean bill of health after a double mastectomy, she invites the women in her life to a victory dinner. Motivated by her recent decision to join her college-age daughter on a whitewater rafting trip through the Grand Canyon, Kate takes the opportunity to assign each woman at the table her own challenge for the next year. Though some challenges seem deceptively simple on the surface (learn to bake bread, get a tattoo, tend your garden), Kate seems to know exactly how each task will force each woman to confront some of her deepest fears. Using individualized chapters to detail how each woman approaches her assigned challenge, Bauermeister displays an admirably adaptable and lyrical narrative voice. The chapters are short, yet Bauermeister paints remarkably detailed portraits of each and every woman. Examining those not afflicted with Kates condition but undeniably affected by it, Joy for Beginners is an inspiring, tender, resonating, and rejuvenating read.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

Starred review from June 1, 2011

Following an 18-month cancer battle, Kate just wants to get back to normal. Still, her six friends decide to throw her a victory party. Kate mentions that her daughter has signed up the two of them for a Grand Canyon raft trip next summer. She is terrified at the prospect, but the others think it's a great challenge for her. Oh, really? Kate responds with a challenge for each of them. And so we begin. In seven chapters, we get to know this mostly Seattle-based cohort: who they are, how they met, and why their perfectly synced tasks--from baking bread to taking a trip to getting a tattoo--tap into their vulnerabilities and strengths and make them women we would all want to know if not actually want to be. It's not just another novel about cancer. VERDICT Bauermeister (The School of Essential Ingredients) has created a cast of textured and nuanced characters who individually and as a group speak to what makes women interesting and enigmatic. Her prose is velvety smooth, revealing life at once mournful and auspicious. Joyful, indeed. Highly recommended for those fascinated by fresh fiction. [National tour; online reading group guide; see Prepub Alert, 11/29/10. For another novel exploring similar themes, see also Sarah Strohmeyer's Kindred Spirits, reviewed on p. 94.--Ed.]--Bette-Lee Fox, Library Journal

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.