Customer Reviews

Candy and Me (A Love Story)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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.

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!

This is an entirely unique and very funny book that gives a deep and honest look into a fascinating woman. Even if my own candy addiction isn't as developed as Hilary's, I couldn't help but identify with many of her candy memories. And while Hilary's obsession with sweets remains constant, it was interesting to watch her relationships with men develop and stabilize into her now seemingly perfect marriage. This a quick, engaging book that everyone will enjoy.

Hilary Liftin's Candy and Me : A Love Story was such a refreshing read! I read this book fairly quickly and I found her stories relating to candy to be very entertaining. In life we often have things such as songs, smells, and places to which we relate certain memories. I'm very glad to have had the opportunity to read the memories Ms. Liftin relates to her love of candy. Bonus: For something fun and different, you can go to www.hilaryliftin.com to share your own sweet memories!

If you are a candy-lover you will enjoy this book. It brought back so many memories. I have enjoyed all the candies she mentions and more and loved the nostalgia of reading about treats I have not tasted in years. I especially liked the author giving her friend a shoebox full of candy as a gift. She describes pouring in a large bag of M&Ms "as a base" then burying cellophane wrapped caramels and other treasures. I like the candy holidays of Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's Day, Easter and Mother's Day. In the off months I can just read this book again with plenty of Junior Mints, Smartees, and Bit O' Honey at my side. A sweet book with a taste treat or a memory of one on each page.

...and how very unique! Liftin has a candy addiction. It began in her childhood and persists to the present. To structure a memoir around such an embarrassing and lightweight confection of triviality would seem as silly and insubstantial as a cherry lollipop. But somehow she pulls it off, and her readers don't find their teeth aching with an overdose of sugar. With the memoir progressing through consecutive chapters titled after treats that were specifically important or significant to her during that particular era, Liftin leads us down the twinkling-frosting path of her life.
Not great literature. Not sure it'll stand the test of time. But it's a fun and engaging read, for sure.

I am a HUGE fan of Hilary's previous book, "Dear Exile" (which she co-wrote with her friend Kate Montgomery) and waited impatiently for her to finally write a novel of her own. I was pleasantly surprised to see she wrote a memoir (she seems like a fascinating person) and I was was even more ecstatic that her story was told through her life-long candy obsession. Like Hilary, I can eat sweets till I feel sick then eat some more, so I felt an instant kinship with the author. This book is charming, funny and completly entertaining. But, even more than that, it's a book that acknowledges and affirms our great (yet, underappreciated) love affair with all things candy!

A humorous yet at times poignant account of one woman's life, loves, and confectionary favorites, from her childhood addiction to a homemade sugar paste, to junior mints, to Petite Fruits, Jelly Fruit Wedges, and frosting eaten straight from the can (I thought I was the only one who did that!) A factual account that is as entertaining as any fiction story i have come across. I recommend it highly. A real sweetie of a book!

It has easily been fifteen years (when I worked at Morrow's Nut House in Cape May, NJ for the summer) since I have had the candy known as fruit slices. Today I had a quarter pound (and they were delish!). Hilary - I can only blame you.

This fabulously fun book combines sweet with bittersweet in an all out original twist on the memoir. Composed of 57 anecdotes, some only a half of a page in length, this quick read details a life lived through candy consumption, but this is not another blow by blow memoir. While the reader certainly gets a general overview of the author's life there is not a sense that you have lived with Liftin - you do not endure her every waking moment, every high and low, just the important points (i.e.: the candy...). And while you know you like her, and easily identify with her childhood follies and romantic foibles, you realize the author is just a normal gal, like your best friend from high school. Of course the memoir is profoundly marked by the enjoyment of pound after pound of nostalgic confections and Liftin's descriptive abilities and word-play make your mouth water.

But Liftin does not glamorize her "addiction", or leave us with a book of fluff. She struggles with her ability to identify, but inability to define, her addiction to candy. The worry that it is biological and inescapable vs. the worry that it is psychological and just an easy way to make her feel good about herself (or is it a sly combination of the two?) is no doubt the same worry we have all struggled with regardless of what our own addiction is.

Patrick Barth's chapter heading illustrations and illustrated "Candy Timeline" and "Candy Math" charts must not be overlooked. They completely set the tone of the book and are just great at rounding out an already fun, not-to-be-missed book.