Cranberry Queen by Kathleen DeMarco

This book is SO funny! And so full of great quotes! Remember that I tried to read DeMarco’s 2nd novel a few weeks ago, but couldn’t stomach it? This one, however, was a great read.

The main character, Dianne, is 33 year old single young woman living a successful life in New York. She works for a successful Internet company and she thinks her biggest life’s crisis is the fact that some guy dumped her.

All that changes in an instant when she finds herself facing a monumental tragedy that pulls the rug out from under her feet, sending her flying off the side of a mountain and landing face down in the dirt … but, to her dismay, still alive. Depression kicks in and Dianne must find a way to pull through and move forward with her life when the reality of that is so overwhelming to her that she can barely breath. Literally.

She ends up, after a long series of events and a staged intervention by her friends and family, stranded in a remote town in New Jersey and she is forced to spend about 2 days living with a complete strangers while she waits for her car to be repaired. It is here that she seems to come to terms with her life – once she is out of the city and standing amongst … cranberry bogs!

I loved this book. It was surprisingly not depressing. In fact it’s funny, witty, sarcastic, comical, yet sad, painful and heart-wrenching all at the same time. I think it’s because I could identify with the character on some level and internalize what she experienced throughout the book. Well, not so much the cheery ending where everything seemingly comes together like a feel good movie. But it ends up being a feel good book.

I think I liked the self-deprecating parts the most – when Diana would make sarcastic comments about herself – to herself – and they were blunt and true and the reader knew it and she knew it and it was just nice to know that other people were self-reflective in this manner!

And – on a side note – you sure learn a lot about cranberries in this book. How they are harvested, what a bog is and where they are and why they are important…what they look like. The visual artistry in the novel is very well written. I even wanted to do a little more research to find out what everything looked like that Ms. DeMarco was referencing in her book so a quick google search resulted in hundreds of photos of cranberry bogs. You should check it out!

This book obviously gets a “GO!” from me! I wouldn’t mind owning a copy of this book one day. I’d like to read it again. There are so many funny lines. I’m sure it’ll be made into a movie sometime, if it hasn’t already…