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Eight Hundred Grapes by Laura Dave

Contemporary fiction

Eight Hundred Grapes

by Laura Dave

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Quick take

The effortlessly charming, feel-good novel I hoped it would be.

Why I love it

Eight Hundred Grapes was the effortlessly charming, feel-good novel I hoped it would be when I picked it up. I was really in the mood for something lighter and fun, like Maggie Shipstead's Seating Arrangements or J. Courtney Sullivan's Maine, and Eight Hundred Grapes did not disappoint. This is a perfect summer novel, an absolute delight, set amid California's gorgeous wine country.

A week before her wedding to the seemingly-perfect Ben, Georgia, a thirty-year-old Los Angeles attorney, learns a shocking secret about her fiancé that sends her running home to her family's Sonoma vineyard. (She arrives in her wedding dress, immediately cementing her image in my mind as that of Julia Roberts.) Georgia expects returning to the idyllic scene of her childhood to be just the comfort she needs to get her through her tough time. But what she finds is a family falling apart, and the family's vineyard sold to the hated competition.

Georgia goes into crisis mode, attempting to fix everyone else's problems, while trying unsuccessfully to ignore her own. As she runs around trying to put out fires, she realizes she's falling back in love with her family's home, and the beautiful land around her. I don't know much about wine, but the vivid descriptions of lush fields of grapes and the delicious aromas of wine had me wanting to book a trip to wine country! Plus, the details about the winemaking process are really interesting as well.

While the growing of grapes and the making of wine is such an obvious analogy of life — "The best things are worth waiting for!," "If you don’t nurture something, it will die on the vine!" — Laura Dave's storytelling is so bright and breezy it never feels like she's beating you over the head with it. The life lessons are hidden behind wry dialog and absurd situations, not to mention mouthwatering descriptions of wine and vineyards. In the end, Dave reminds us that sometimes people, like wine, need a little space to breathe.

Member ratings (306)

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Contemporary fiction
View all
The Last Love Note
What Does It Feel Like?
Anita de Monte Laughs Last
The Wedding People
Honey
The Leftover Woman
The Same Bright Stars
Bye, Baby
Definitely Better Now
Swan Song
The Days I Loved You Most
The Connellys of County Down
Joe Nuthin’s Guide to Life
Jackpot Summer
Adelaide
I Might Be in Trouble
The Collected Regrets of Clover
Again and Again
Evil Eye
Black Cake
Maame
Romantic Comedy
Someone Else’s Shoes
Once There Were Wolves
We Are the Brennans
The Bad Muslim Discount
What Comes After
Olga Dies Dreaming
Last Summer at the Golden Hotel
Monster in the Middle
Nine Perfect Strangers
The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany
The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes
Honey Girl
In Every Mirror She's Black
Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?
Sankofa
The Unsinkable Greta James
The Love of My Life
The Five-Star Weekend
A Home for the Holidays
The Wishing Game
Behold the Dreamers
The Mothers
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
Little Fires Everywhere
The Music Shop
Where’d You Go, Bernadette
The Reckless Oath We Made
When We Were Vikings
The Girl with the Louding Voice
A Good Neighborhood
Big Summer
All Adults Here
Happy & You Know It
Friends and Strangers
The Comeback
True Story
The Last Story of Mina Lee
Troubles in Paradise
White Ivy
This Close to Okay
The Chicken Sisters
The Prophets
In a Book Club Far Away
The Other Black Girl
Apples Never Fall
A Quiet Life
We Are the Light
The Most Likely Club
The Fortunes of Jaded Women
When We Were Bright and Beautiful
The Hotel Nantucket