"An extraordinary treat, Bittersweet Journey is a beautifully poetic first fiction. Futterman combines the story of
Charlotte's attempt to find true love, with a collection of eccentric and artful photographs of chocolate. From the
first page, we know we are in for an unforgettable experience. Though it looks like an elegant gift book, its
presentation disguises a haunting novella. With humor, compassion and bravery, Futterman reveals much about
love, yearning and all kinds of human hunger. Every woman--and every man who truly cares about women--should
read this book."
"With the compression of poetry and the candor of memoir, Futterman pens a modern fable in Bittersweet Journey,
infusing her archetypal hungry woman with yearnings at once specific and resonant, uncloseting the secret of eating
that is every girl-child's inner wagging finger. The passion is chocolate because it's dark, narcotizing, melting, and
sticky."
"This is erotica for the sensuous woman and the chocoholic. In a wonderfully
weird, uninhibited stream of whimsy, memory and hunger, seemingly insatiable
Charlotte roams the world in search of love and chocolate, her twin
obsessions, ultimately tangling in the bedclothes."
"The gold endpapers notwithstanding, Bittersweet Journey is for reading, a gift-book ode to chocolate that journeys
into one woman's darkest desires."
"Enid Futterman's fiction is a bonbon--a knowing exploration of the way her character Charlotte's longing for lust
and for chocolate intermingle. Elliptical as poetry, Joseph Campbell would recognize in Charlotte's story the quest
of the mythic hero, a journey that begins underground and concludes in the light of heightened understanding.
Futterman has her underpinning in place, but not visible. And the very medium of Charlotte's search is so sticky and
opaque that one is left with more of a sense of memory than a sense of having read an initiation story with
psychological overtones."
"The subtitle of this charming book says it all. It is the story of a woman's search for the perfect truffle, and the
perfect man, a dual quest that is not a trifle. Charlotte begins with candy kisses in the Brooklyn of her childhood and
proceeds through her teens and young adulthood seeking the most incredible chocolate in London, Paris, and
Brussels, while simultaneously finding new ways to both break and mend her heart. A delightful journey."
"Bittersweet Journey is a slender, beautiful novel that also includes the author's glowing photos."
Bittersweet Journey is a lavishly illustrated (with gorgeous color photographs) paean to two of life's greatest
pleasures. If you're a chocoholic, you won't want to miss this exploration of the dark and erotic underside of
women's seemingly universal, mysterious passion for chocolate."
"Filled with great photographs of chocolate in various states, Bittersweet Journey is truly dark chocolate. As
Charlotte takes the Grand Chocolate Tour of Europe, she learns a bittersweet truth of love lost, but along the way
she teaches us about chocolate--facts, history, recipes, and where to find the best."
"With its gluttonous packaging, sensuous photography, and luscious prose, this novella, the first for librettist and
photographer Enid Futterman, is as indulgent as a pint of Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie."
"This enchanting story is accompanied by beautiful and seductive photographs of chocolate."
"A beautiful book: tender, passionate, thoroughly wonderful. Buy it, rent it, steal it, or devour it cover to cover
standing in the bookstore, but read it."
"From its gold endpapers to its lush photography to its sensuous story of a woman seeking love and chocolate,
Bittersweet Journey explores the inextricable link between women's longing for men and the deep need for cacao. A
novel for the senses and the imagination."
"Chocolate Book of the Month: Lush and sensual. Gorgeous photography."
"These first-time-at-bat published authors have hit home runs with their new novels. Bittersweet Journey is an original, delicious journey of self-discovery for Charlotte, who leaves her husband in search of more love and chocolate. Filled with sensuous photographs and tantalizing recipes, this book is a delight for all the senses."
"This is so intensely a woman's odyssey that I have been almost shy in giving it to male friends, as though I am
somehow telling secrets. It is an exquisite book to handle, like a wrapped box of chocolates. The photographs are
evocative, lush and draw you in not just to her journey, but into her psyche. While she drifts hopefully through
Europe, she explores all the levels of human longing, until the longing becomes an end in itself. This book does
have a few recipes, all of which I have used and all of which are staggeringly rich and good. But it is most of all a
book to be read and savoured and returned to like a fairy tale."
"A woman leaves her husband to immerse herself in the world of chocolate. Makes sense to us."
"Charming."
"In Bittersweet Journey, Enid Futterman confirms in touching prose that chocolate is the food of love."
"Bittersweet Journey is destined to be the chocolate lover's sweetest dream."
"Bittersweet Journey is like a chocolate truffle. You can't stop reading it."
--Henry Jaglom, San Francisco Chronicle
--Laurie Stone, Village Voice
--Gael Greene, New York Magazine
"Enid Futterman is not the first to write about chocolate and sexual desire with such sensuality, but she may be the
most intense. Her sentences at their best recall Marguerite Duras."
--David Finkle, Trenton Times
--Publishers Weekly
--Betsy Willeford, Newark Star-Ledger
--Maureen M. Carmen, Philadelphia Inquirer
--David Bloom, Los Angeles Daily News
--Ann LaFarge, Taconic Newspapers
--Marilee Reyes, Pasadena Star-News
--Rutgers Magazine
--Carole Bloom, All About Chocolate
www.hhhh.org/cloister/chocolate/books
--Mauny Kaseberg, www.maunyskitchen.com
--Stephanie Zonis, www.foodwine.com (I Love Chocolate) & www.starchefs.com (For Chocolate Lovers Only)
--Donna Zmrazek, www.rrpl.org (Rocky River Public Library/Between the Covers/July-August 1998)
--Elaine DiRico, www.powerotic.com (Clean Sheets)
www.3swoon.com (The Swoon Bookstore:Hot Fiction)
--Barbara Walters, The View, ABC-TV
--Christopher Idone, Cookbook Author & Food Consultant
--Marcel Desaulniers, Author, Death by Chocolate
--Sean Driscoll, owner, Glorious Food
| The Journey in Brief |