Customer Reviews

World of Pies: A Novel

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For a refreshing and sweet trip down memory lane, World of Pies is the perfect novel. Beginning with a 12-year-old girl named Roxanne and her obsession with baseball and daily Doreen's Drugstore visits, readers are transported back in time when they were young and carefree, when all that mattered in the world was perfecting your pitch, licking melting vanilla icecream as it runs down your arm, and barbeques on the Fourth of July.

Each chapter is based on a different stage in Roxanne's life. We get to know life as it is in sleepy Annette, Texas, where the world seems to come to a standstill, where everyone knows everybody, a place Roxanne couldn't wait to leave, but also the place where she couldn't wait to return. Roxanne grows up within these few pages, and readers will delight in every word.

World of Pies is a beautiful, homespun, feel-good novel. Each story can bring about nostalgic recollection, change laughter into tears, and tickle tastebuds with delicious recipies. Karen Stolz has written the perfect book for dreamers and thinkers, a home away from home, a story to pass on to friends. A nice change of pace after a heavy-duty novel and perfect for a quick weekend read.

Travel along with author Karen Stolz as her book, World of Pies, takes you back to a place sadly gone.

The year is 1961 and 12 year old Roxanne, resident of a small town in Texas, and her mother are baking pies for the first ever Annette, Texas pie fair. Roxanne, though, would be happier if she was playing baseball. And as you read this lovely book, watch as Roxanne deals with first dates, first kisses, girlfriends and boyfriends. For within the pages of World of Pies is a wonderful coming of age story in the tradition of To Kill A Mockingbird. And watch as the story goes full circle as we see Roxanne at the end of the book teaching her daughter Sophie about the world of pies.

I found this book to be both charming and humorous. And an added bonus to this read is that the book is filled with recipes for mouth watering pies.

The book is also filled with wonderful and strong characters, a dash of poignancy, and a sprinkling of wit. All the necessary ingredients one needs to make a good pie and a wonderful read.

Pack this book for vacation time. You won't be sorry. It will be just right for the beach or a day spent reading under a tree.

I was a bit confused when I began this book; I thought it was only about the character Roxanne as a 12 year old. It is actually the story of a small town girl, Roxanne, as she grows up in the wonderful small town of Annette, Texas. Each chapter deals with a fragment of her growing up moving from baseball, to best friends to nail polish and love. Intertwined in all that is the lives of her parents and other family and the loved ones who come and go. It feels very true to the time and place, beginning in Annette in 1962 and moving where time takes her. The characters are interesting and true to life and very likable. The recopies throughout are actually pretty good, the fudge sauce divine. It is a slice of life in the 60's and 70's and anyone who ventures to Annette, Texas is in for a treat.

If you're looking for a light read, this book is it! I picked it up from the library and finished it in one day ~~ now, all I have to do is try the recipes that Karen Stolz so generously put into the book!

This book is about Roxanne, who is 12-years-old in the beginning of the book and it details her growing up years ~~ from a tomboy transformed into a graceful woman. Growing up in a small town, Roxanne learns that life isn't always fair or always nice.

Between the whimiscal lifestyle of a small town, a mother who gets pregnant during Roxanne's teenage years, friends, boyfriends, crushes, first love, death, marriage ~~ it brings back memories of your growing up years. It is a wonderful journey through memory lane ~~ especially during the 60s in Texas. Roxanne is everyone's next-door neighbor ~~ the one you watch growing up.

If you're looking for a book that doesn't bog you down with gloom and despair, then I recommend this one. You won't be bogged down ~~ not with this book! There is no place like home and as Roxanne discovers, you can go home again.

I loved World of Pies. I would savor the descriptions of the "shivery and crunchy" frozen salad and Roxanne necking in the back of Doreen's Drugstore. Having grown up in the same period, it was refreshing to reminisce about setting your hair on juice cans, using Dippity Doo, and picking out the right clothes for your college wardrobe. We all have met people like Aunt Ruthie and Roxanne's parents. And we have experienced similar life events to what Roxanne saw. The difference is the way Karen Stolz writes about them. In this refreshing and too short story about a young girl's passage to womanhood and motherhood, we are all right there in Annette, Texas with her. I only hope that the author writes more. This one is a keeper.

Roxanne Milner lives in Annette, Texas, where her father owns the lingerie store, and her mother attends to the details of daily life. Always curious, always nudged by a fascination for the unusual, Roxanne comes of age in a time when a small town no longer insulates one from the larger issues: racial tension, the war in Vietnam, strangers from a parent's past. Baseball and baking contests, extended family including her beloved cousin Tommy and fabulous Aunt Ruthie, crushes and full-fledged love affairs see Roxanne through summers in Annette. Those things and delicious, comforting food from her mother's kitchen. (Recipies included!)

Ms. Stolz takes us into the Milner home and into Roxanne's heart with the tiniest details of a young woman's life. We can almost taste the density of homemade tomato soup, share the scent of a rainy night, feel loss and hope. These experiences are always tied to Roxanne's evolving place in her family. House geckos, house hunting, threadbare bathrobes--everyday objects and activities become images of passion in Roxanne's life.

With an authentic sense of Texas, Ms. Stolz writes with clarity and intimacy, never straying from the story that unfolds for Roxanne, never leaving us confused. But, yes, Ms. Stolz always makes us want more.

This was a book I loved reading.

Karen Stolz has written a charming little book of life in Annette, Texas in the '60s and '70s. The story begins in 1962 and twelve year old Roxanne Milner is more crazy about baseball than boys. This was the year of the Pie Fair, an event that changed Annette, Texas in a small way and started Roxie on her journey to adulthood. World of Pies is a smart, witty and often poignant look at a young girl growing up, told with such insight and humor, that it will vividly take many back to that time in their own lives. Ms Stolz's characters come alive on the page and are memorable with strong voices. Her scenes are true to life, as Roxanne moves through each rite of passage towards adulthood. World of Pies is a very human story and a wonderful snapshot of small town life.

Karen Stolz's series of Texas family vignettes, starring Roxanne Milner is strewn with recipes for delicious, mouth-watering pies. It is a gentle and light look at small town life in rural America.

World of Pies opens in the summer of 1962, when Roxanne is a gangly, awkward twelve year old who is interested in baseball and the outdoors. Her family, however, seems to be enjoying an obsession with pies. Dad is head of the Chamber of Commerce pie fair and Mom is serving on the contest rules committee. Conflict erupts over whether or not one of the local pillars of society will be allowed to enter as her own, a pie that was, in reality, baked by her extremely talented black housekeeper. This vignette, the first one, is wittily constructed so that our heroine, Roxanne, learns both the art of making a flaky piecrust and the consequences of taking, and maintaining, a stand.

The book goes on to chronicle many stages in the indomitable Roxanne's life; we see her grow from a tomboy into a teenager obsessed with dating to a wife and mother. The stories Stolz creates to illuminate the life of her character are finely-rendered and understated and she tosses in a pie recipe every now and then just to sweeten things up a bit.

These vignettes are gentle and heart-warming and a little reminiscent of Fannie Flagg. One of the most tender of all the vignettes showcases Roxanne's father as he sneaks off to WMCA swimming classes with the little ones so he can learn to swim in time to surprise Roxanne's mother on an upcoming vacation. We experience Mr. Milner as a man who loves his family and a man, who, even after many years of marriage, is still in love with his wife.

Other vignettes are more bittersweet. These are the ones that, in the hands of a lesser author, could so easily degenerate into soap-opera type cliché. Stolz, however, renders them perfectly, and what we see is a loving portrait of a "real" family, one that makes us laugh and one that makes us cry.

This is a lovely little book and one that is fun to read. Although charming, it will leave you wanting to know more about the Milner's, so quintessential small town Americana, and the loving fabric that makes up their lives.

Such a heartwarming book. It starts off at the age when Roxanne is twelve. She's into baseball and not-so-into pies. She bakes a pie for the pie contest because her parents pursuade her to. The book continues on with Roxanne growing each chapter. Soon, she's found a boyfriend a year younger than her who she celebrates many "firsts" with. Her mother and father have a new baby which leaves Roxanne in surprise.

Roxanne continues to grow older, goes to college, comes back to visit her cousin who has lost his arm in the war. She has a strong bond with her cousin; lets just leave it clean and at that.

Roxanne gets married, has a lovely wedding in her small hometown. She gets homesick of being in the populated busy state, and yearns to live in the cracker country of home. Places such as Carl's Corsets (her father's lingerie store) and the Cafe just wouldn't be the same.

I really enjoyed this book; it gave me happy little feelings inside. I reccomend this quick read to anyone of any age. It will make you smile, remember on the good innocent years, and laugh.

This is a wonderful book for the summer. It's full of humor, and fun. "World of Pies" is a coming of age tale about the world of a young girl. From her as a young girl and into adulthood you take this very charming ride with her. The supporting cast adds a tremendous amount of pleasure and substance. I really loved this book and found myself laughing outloud on a number of occasions. A wonderful summer read and certainly one to pack on a get-away.