Hope Was Here by Joan Bauer

A truly amazing novel. I saw this one at Powerbooks but ignored it. Afterwards, I read in a blog somewhere how great this book is. I returned for it but the employees couldn't find it. Alas! We were ready to give up and leave. Then miraculously, they've found it! One of the employees even joked, "Hope was really here!"

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Hope Yancey, whose mom is elsewhere the majority of her life, has hit another dead end. She and her lifelong partner Aunt Addie are forced to move from Brooklyn, New York to Mulhoney, Wisconsin.

Now the waitress/chef duo, challenging as it may seem to be, is ready to face the next chapter of their lives!

They are set to work at "Welcome Stairways", a diner owned by mayoral candidate/cancer stricken G.T. Stoop.

Meanwhile, Hope's (whose name used to be Tulip) relationship with the good-looking cook Braverman is escalating.

Will G.T. Stoop win the elections? Will Hope find her real father? Will Hope & Braverman take it to the next level? What about Aunt Addie? Doesn't she deserve a love life too?

Don't lose hope, find it all out in Hope Was Here!

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One of my favorite lines in the book:
Addie never promised that life would be easy, but she did promise that if I hung around with her the food would be good.

I've read so many blogs who praised Joan Bauer so much for her writing. Now I join the cult! This book is so refreshingly witty and humorous without trying too hard. It is sincere to its genre. Joan knows how to use her characters so well, the dialogues bounces off the page. This one's a contemporary classic. Hope Was Here is just something that won't go old with the readers. No wonder after ten years, they took pride in re-releasing the book with this artsy diner-themed cover.

There's a reason why I came back for this book. Whatever it might be, I am convinced that it has somehow to do with 'hope' and holding on. I'm glad I held on. This is one of the best I've read this year.


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