Book Review: The Awakening of Miss Prim

Summary: In this #1 international bestseller, a young woman leaves everything behind to work as a librarian in a remote French village, where she finds her outlook on life and love challenged in every way.
Prudencia Prim is a young woman of intelligence and achievement, with a deep knowledge of literature and several letters after her name. But when she accepts the post of private librarian in the village of San Ireneo de Arnois, she is unprepared for what she encounters there. Her employer, a book-loving intellectual, is dashing yet contrarian, always ready with a critique of her cherished Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott. The neighbors, too, are capable of charm and eccentricity in equal measure, determined as they are to preserve their singular little community from the modern world outside.
Prudencia hoped for friendship in San Ireneo but she didn't suspect that she might find love—nor that the course of her new life would run quite so rocky or would offer challenge and heartache as well as joy, discovery, and fireside debate. Set against a backdrop of steaming cups of tea, freshly baked cakes, and lovely company, The Awakening of Miss Prim is a distinctive and delightfully entertaining tale of literature, philosophy, and the search for happiness.

Thoughts: This is a rare one-of-a-kind type book. Full of elegance, literature, theology, life, and tea. It can take you back while drawing you forward. The small village is populated with a wonderful cast of simple folk with sharp minds and caring natures and the community that Modern Miss Prudencia Prim finds herself living in is far from what she finds familiar or comfortable. I loved this book! It was the classic capturing of a lost time found in To Kill a Mockingbird meeting at the corner with the dashing elegance of Pride and Prejudice. Best read with a cup of tea, a slice of cake and summer window nearby, or even a warm fire!

Content: It's been a little while between reading and reviewing but I don't remember there being anything offensive in language. Really the only thing anyone might have a problem with was the constantly clashing theologies and ideas on life...and pretty much every subject categorized under that! But reading with an open and thoughtful mind is the best way to get through this book. That aside, clean for all ages though style, wording, and plot make it a bit of a mature read.