CORKED: REVIEW and GIVEAWAY

GIVEAWAY ENDED
CORKED
BY KATHERYN BOREL

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Meet Kathryn Borel, bon vivant and undutiful daughter. Now meet her father, Philippe, former chef, eccentric genius, and wine aficionado extraordinaire. Kathryn is like her father in every way but one: she's totally ignorant when it comes to wine. And although Philippe has devoted untold parenting hours to delivering impassioned oenological orations, she has managed to remain unenlightened. But after an accident and a death, Kathryn realizes that by shutting herself off to her father's greatest passion, she will never really know him.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Kathryn Borel was born in 1979 in Toronto, the daughter of a hotelier.

After several years, she became the older sister to Nico, who was named after the family cat. She spent her early years living in hotels in Paris, Bermuda, Dallas, and New Jersey, finally settling in Quebec City.

In 2002 she moved to Toronto to follow a man. The relationship ended.

She continues to live in Toronto where she works at the Canadian Broadcasting Company. She has written food and wine reviews for radio and print. Her journalism includes a column which ran in the National Post under the title "Indignities." Corked is her first book.

MY REVIEW:

CORKED: A MEMOIR by Katheryn Borel is a love-it or hate-it book in my opinion. The book itself takes you on an emotional journey in which you are mostly siding with the daughter and hating the father, but that is how Borel wrote the book. She wrote it with honesty and deep commitment. I think it is a painfully candid story of Katheryn’s relationship with her father. Behind the often times harsh reality of the life Katheryn had being the daughter of a hotelier whose passion lies in wine, not in his daughter, is also an entertaining, often humorous tale. I laughed out loud at parts and cringed at others. Both characters had such contrasting personalities, that even if Katheryn did love wine and know it like her father, I still think their lives would be the same. Katheryn takes on the task of getting to know her father better come hell or high water and for that she is to be congratulated! He is cranky and rude and runs hot and cold in his emotions. But Katheryn squares her shoulders and sets out to take him on a road trip through France where he can be with his precious wine and perhaps they can bond in some new way.

Take heart in that the travelogue part of the story is delightful and you will come away knowing more about wine which is a bonus. One must remember that Katheryn is also somewhat of an odd self-described duck as she is depressed as the story begins. She had accidentally hit and killed a man and has never been able to deal with this properly and so is insecure about just about everything and especially death. That is one of the reasons she initiates this road trip with her father as she fears he will die and she will never have been able to form any kind of meaningful relationship with him. Borel writes the story as bravely as one can that is depressed and this neurotic. As much as the father was rude and I wanted to strangle him at times, there were times that Katheryn made me think of fingernails against a chalk board especially when she decides to fess up that she has been faking liking and knowing about wine. I wanted to scream at her to just keep her mouth shut and leave well enough alone! Curiously however, during the trip, Katheryn begins to understand the grapes and enjoy the wines much more. She relaxes somewhat and gives the reader hope that she may come out of this depression at some point even be close to normal.

As the story ends and we look for Katheryn to know all about and adore wine, well, not to spoil it but let’s just say she is getting there. As for her relationship with her father, I think you know the answer but read the book to see how that works out. I will say it was quite interesting to compare the two to the way wine is made. With the grapes in a small, tight space, they must break down, interact with each other and after they ferment, something new and beautiful arrives. Katheryn knows better than to write about this comparison at length but it did give me something to think about and make me look at the story as one with far more depth than I first gave it credit for.

GIVEAWAY

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