Candy and Me (A Love Story) [Hardcover]

Hilary Liftin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 3, 2003

As a seven-year-old child, Hilary Liftin poured herself a glass (or two) of powdered sugar. Those forbidden cups soon escalated to pound bags of candy corn and multiple packets of dry cocoa mix, launching the epic love affair between Hilary and all things sweet. In Candy and Me: A Love Story, Liftin chronicles her life through candy memories and milestones. As a high school student, Hilary used candy to get through track meets, bad hair days, after-school jobs, and her first not-so-great love. Her sweet tooth followed her to college, where she tried to suppress the crackle of Smarties wrappers in morning classes. Through life's highs and lows, her devotion has never crashed -- candy has been a constant companion and a refuge that sustained her.

As Liftin recounts her record-setting candy consumption, loves and friendships unfold in a funny and heartbreaking series of bittersweet revelations and restorative meditations. Hilary survives a profound obsession with jelly beans and a camp counselor, a forgettable fling with Skittles at a dot-com, and a messy breakup healed by a friendship forged over Circus Peanuts. Through thick and thin, sweet and sour, Hilary confronts the challenges of conversation hearts and the vagaries of boyfriends, searching for that perfect balance of love and sugar.

Written with a fresh dry humor that will immediately absorb you into Liftin's sweet obsessions and remind you of your own, Candy and Me unwraps the meaning found in the universal desire for connection and confection. Treat yourself to Candy and Me -- being bad never read so good.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Hilary Liftin's Candy and Me (A Love Story) is not only a love story, but also the story of an otherwise normal, slender, strong-toothed woman's lifetime obsession with candy and all things sweet. With brutal honesty, Liftin exposes herself as insatiable. As a child she indulged in cups full of powdered sugar mixed with just enough water to make a paste which she ate in front of the TV, and multiple packs of hot chocolate mix, licked from her finger on her way home from school. She is a connoisseur of every candy you've ever tasted or even heard of, and of many candies you've never (and might never) come across. The friendships, love stories, and heartbreaks that make up her life story evolve through tales of candy consumption. Her memories of all major and minor life events are tightly woven with Necco Wafers, Snickers, Bottle Caps, Conversation Hearts, Circus Peanuts, Twizzler, Tootsie Rolls, Fireballs, Nonpareils, and countless others. Either you'll relate a little, or you'll relate a lot. You might be shocked by the volume of sugar she's ingested, but her story is familiar. She's made friends and lost them, she's fallen in love and had her heart broken. And then she's fallen in love again. Liftin's story is as sweet as her candy cache. --Leora Y. Bloom

From Publishers Weekly

In this charming book, Liftin, who co-authored the epistolary memoir Dear Exile, uses the intriguing conceit of telling her life story through candy. She begins with her childhood indulgence-Dixie cups of confectioner's sugar-and continues through serious connoisseurship of Smarties, Lemonheads, Fireballs, Marshmallow Eggs and dozens of other candies. Liftin is a cheerful addict, and like most addicts, she is very specific in her tastes. She loves chalky, cheap, artificially flavored dime store candies. Dark chocolate is too sophisticated for her: "If I were a dark chocolate eater, my whole life and personality would be different. I would know how to dress `office casual.' I would be better at wearing hats." Liftin describes her beloved treats so sumptuously that even those who don't relish Conversation Hearts or Candy Corn will grasp their appeal. In the chapter "I Know What You're Thinking," she blithely dismisses questions of tooth decay, diabetes and weight gain with, "I don't want to talk about any of those things." Under chapters named for candies, she details the joys of each particular sweet and what it represents about a specific time in her life. Lovers and friendships come and go, but candy never fails her. Indeed, when she meets the love of her life, the bag of hard-to-find Bottle Caps he presents her with is almost as pleasing as the engagement ring he's hidden in it. But candy finally takes its proper place-45 pounds of it, decorating tables for the couple's wedding. Liftin's writing is fluid and engaging, inviting consumption at one sitting-and, for some, instigating a mad rush to the closest candy counter.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (June 3, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743245733
• ISBN-13: 978-0743245739
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #566,315 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delectable, August 15, 2003

By 

Serena - See all my reviews

This review is from: Candy and Me (A Love Story) (Hardcover)

A sparkling sugary gem of a book. Although her taste in desserts is questionable (if I had written this book, it would have been all about dark chocolate), Liftin's endearing personality is evident on every page. I borrowed this one from the local library, and was reluctant to return it.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Charmingly Sweet, June 2, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Candy and Me (A Love Story) (Hardcover)

I am completely crazy about this book and wild about Hilary. She has the most delicious way of turning a phrase and somehow managed to capture exactly what it was like to grow up feeling out of step and a little awkward and always hoping that someone would recognize how fabulous you really were. Her evolution into a flawed, yet balanced and wise and -finally - happy woman made me grin with recognition and wish that she and I were pals.

An insatiable love of candy (and ice cream and maybe a little frosting straight out of the tub) is not at all needed to love this book. It is funny and smart and rings true page after page. Without question it is a recommended read.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yummy!, July 23, 2003

By 

Theresa Mcdonald "Terri McDonald" (new orleans) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Candy and Me (A Love Story) (Hardcover)

I love this book. I'm a little miffed I didn't think to write it first, but other than that I just love it. Its good to see that people other than my best friend and I have a hardcore sugar addiction. This book starts with the author's childhood sneaky treat of confectioners sugar mixed with milk or water (been there) to stealing her brother's Halloween candy (done that) to the international treats found in other countries (have you have tasted the perfection that is an Australian Caramello Koala?) I'd say she and I were separated at birth. What I particularly like is that this book is 90% about pure sugar candy - smarties, candy corn (one of the great loves of my life), bottle caps, canned frosting etc. and only 10% about chocolates. In this world there are the sugar candy people and there are the chocoholics, the author and I are sugar candy people. There are very brief histories of some of the candies mentioned, which could have been expanded on but overall this is just a great read for a sugar junkie. The very best part is the resources section in the back of the book which lists several websites to order your favorite candies in BULK. Heaven!