Eight Hundred Grapes by Laura Dave

Eight Hundred Grapes by Laura Dave

Read by Joy Osmanski

8 hours 6 minutes

Published June 205 by Simon and Schuster

Publisher's Summary: 

What if your beloved fiancé, he of the crinkly smile and the irresistible British accent, had kept a life-changing secret from you? And what if, just a week before your dream wedding, you discovered it?

When these questions become realities for bride-to-be Georgia Ford, she does the only thing that seems to make sense. She runs. She hops in her car and drives through the night, from Los Angeles to Sonoma, to her safe haven, to her messy and loving family and their acclaimed family winery. Georgia craves the company of those who know her best and whom she truly knows. And on the eve of the harvest, Georgia knows she'll find solace - and distraction - in familiar rituals. But when Georgia arrives home, nothing is at all familiar. Her parents, her brothers, the family business are all unrecognizable. It seems her fiancé isn't the only one who's been keeping secrets. And, much to Georgia's dismay, it seems likely that this harvest may be the family's last.

My Thoughts:

Up front let me say that I picked this book to listen to at this time precisely because I expected it to be exactly what it is. Which makes picking it apart for being exactly what it was is seem a little mean. Yet that's exactly what I'm going to do. But first a warning - I don't know how to tell you why this book didn't work for me without giving away some things.

Have you stopped reading if you don't want to read spoilers? 

First up - every single member of Georgia's family is having their own drama. One brother and the other brother's wife are pining for each other. That first brother can't hold down a real job and drinks too much. The second brother takes his wife for granted and has a bit of a stick up his rear. Georgia's father has health issues and is selling the vineyard. Her mother is in a relationship with another man who also happens to be impotent (keeps them from doing the dirty so that getting back together with her husband later is a little easier). Can't just one person in the family have their stuff together??

Then there's Ben, Georgia's fiance. When a ex-girlfriend shows up with a daughter he never knew about, he keeps it from Georgia, not just to protect her but also to see if maybe he and the exe can't work things out to become a family. And this is the guy who was perfect right up until that moment. And the exe just happens to be an internationally famous movie star who has her sights set on getting Ben back and makes no bones about it. 

Also, there's Jacob, the man who is buying the vineyard and also happens to be part of a family whose method of making and selling wine is deplorable to the Fords. He is intermittently incredibly tuned into what Georgia needs but even more often a bit of an ass. And you know from the minute he comes into the picture that he's the guy that Georgia will end up with. 

Finally, we have Georgia, a woman who works very successfully as a lawyer in Los Angeles, who has spent her life trying to help everyone solve their problems. Then when life gets tough, she completely falls apart because, you know, that's how strong women handle things. She refuses to talk about the situation with anyone, including Ben. Then she falls for the guy who she hated, in no small part because he was a jerk, but gives up on the guy who she had deeply loved only weeks ago.  

So here's the problem - if you never care about any of the characters in a book, then you don't really care what happens to them in the end. It doesn't matter that everyone ends up right where you expect them to end up which should, if done right, make you happy because that's what you wanted in the book. I really enjoyed the parts of the book that takes about wine and the process of making wine (even though they probably took up too much of the book) and I appreciated the correlation between the time and patience it takes to grown wine and the time and the time and patience it takes to make a relationship work. 

It could have worked for me but it didn't, which was disappointing when I thought I was getting exactly what I wanted.