Book Review: Tout Sweet

Today’s book review is a fabulous memoir that rang more than a little true for me personally. The book, Tout Sweet, was provided courtesy of LuxuryReading.com, which also hosted the original (shorter) post of this book review, which is available here.

Tout Sweet (subtitled: “Hanging Up My High Heels for a New Life in France”) is the story of Karen Wheeler, a rather high-end fashion journalist in London, who decides to pack her entire life up and leave the city to move to a rural village in France and renovate an old farmhouse. The decision is sparked by two things – the devastating end of her latest relationship and an increasing sense of ennui and disillusionment with her fashion-girl life and its obsessive focus on accumulating things. As you would expect, the story runs the emotional gamut – it alternates between hysterical ex-patriot escapades and old house/contractor challenges, heartbreaking moments of loneliness, uplifting tidbits of self-realization and demonstrations of inner strength. It is, in short, a story of everyday life.

As Karen travels down her new, decidedly more casual and less Prada-full path, she comes to realize that wherever in the world you may go, you are still you there – which means you can’t run from your problems, dissatisfactions, or emotions, because they have a nasty tendency to follow you. She comes to terms with this and does turn her life around by the end (of course she does – a book called “Tout Sweet” would hardly end up horrifically, now would it?! Teehee), and the story of her path from Point A to Point B is an engaging, entertaining, and downright fun read.

As someone who has also walked away from city life and a fairly high-powered career and materialistic lifestyle, I cannot tell you how many times I found myself smiling or laughing as I realized how absolutely positively spot-on Wheeler’s words felt. Memoir writing seems to me to be a tricksy* sort of business. There is a vast risk of being overly self-indulgent or coming across as a person in possession of a rather bloated sense of one’s own self-importance. I mean, you are writing about you – and to you, you are fascinating and every little thing that happens is huge. Unfortunately (or fortunately, teehee), the rest of the world is unlikely to agree. Wheeler manages to dance the line between self-aware and self-indulgent beautifully. She balances personal drama and emotion with description, fact, and setting in a way that leaves you utterly involved in her life and yet still able to imagine your own self in her (oh-so-fabulous) shoes. And she does so in a way that keeps you as a reader engaged from start to finish.

I have debated about writing my own story into a memoir. Memoirists reserve the right to change names and some details in the interest of libel- and hurt-feelings-avoidance, and to take certain liberties with the wording of conversations. I can do that. (teehee) I certainly have enough amusing and ridiculous business and industry anecdotes and sad-but-truisms to fill a book. But I’m not sure I’m as good at balancing as someone like Wheeler though, and am a tish nervous that I would devolve into either self-pity or over-the-top hysterics. And while those things might make for a funny three-minute story to tell at a cocktail or dinner party, I’m not sure they would make for a funny three hundred page story in book form!

It is easy to see how Wheeler achieved success in London and managed to maintain her career after her decision to walk away from the urban fashionista world and into the life of a country girl. Her writing is clear, concise yet descriptive, and crisp. The pacing is excellent – the story blends seamlessly from emotional highs to emotional lows (rather the way real life tends to) and Wheeler knows exactly when the reader needs a light-hearted moment or silly anecdote to keep the story from falling into self-pitying territory. It is a pain au chocolat of a story – well crafted, sweet without being cloying, and highly addictive.

Whether you have done what Wheeler (and a few of the rest of us) have and pulled a one-eighty mid-stream in your own life or contemplated it but never been able to pull the trigger (because let’s face it, a most people are not able to walk away entirely because of the combo of familial/interpersonal and financial obligations) – or even if you are one of the lucky few who has never wanted/needed to walk away or engage in a significant course-correction, Wheeler’s story has something for you. Even if it’s only the descriptions of the French food, wine, and countryside. 😉

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* Yes, tricks-y – that wasn’t a typo – it is a Jillism, meaning more or less what “tricky” does but with that extra little bit of sassiness and pizzazz that the addition of the “s” implies. If you don’t believe me, that an “s” can add all that, just try saying the two words. Once you have, I dare you to admit that you can’t feel the difference in meaning, just based on how the words feel to say. Go on, seriously, I dare you… 😉