I like my reading to match my cooking, that is, it should be seasonally appropriate. Sure, you can splurge and buy a $6 pint of strawberries mid-winter but you'll eat a grainy and tasteless strawberry shortcake. And somehow an oven roasted acorn squash tastes completely out of place mid-July. Likewise, why would you read Dr. Zhivago in the summer? It's cold weather reading! You have to be under a blanket with a cup of hot tea.
Hot House Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire by Margot Berwin was just in season for this summer. It was cool and rainy early summer, just like the New York March weather when Lila Nova buys her first tropical flower from David Exley at the Union Square Green Market. She soon notices a mystical laundromat owned by Armand, who is also a collector of tropical flowers. Entering the laundromat is like entering a tropical paradise, and soon Lila is intoxicated by rare plants and sexy vendors.
Just as the Boston heat and humidity set in, Lila headed off with a one way ticket to the Yucatan jungle to find the mythical nine plants of desire and, yes, herself (this is summer reading, after all!).
This book was smart and contemporary and offered just enough escapism to (nearly) make me forget that it was 63 F and drizzly. 5/5 netflix stars.
Recommended eating: tropical fruit salad, even if the fruit's not grown locally.
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