And all of this is intercepted with recipes, for everything from cheesecake to vinaigrette. It jumps around the story’s timeline and moves away from the central incident (Rachel’s husband’s affair) to explore their earlier relationship and Rachel’s relationships with others, including her parents, her friends, her therapy group and her first husband. The plot of the book isn’t especially focused, and honestly, that is what I enjoyed about it most. While the novel handles some rather heavy and difficult subjects, such as infidelity and divorce, Ephron deals with the character’s heartbreak with a bittersweet sense of humour, much like in her films. Meanwhile, she is seven months pregnant with their second child. It is about a cookery writer, named Rachel Samstat, who discovers that her husband is having an affair. Heartburn is Ephron’s semi-autobiographical (and only) novel, which draws from her marriage to and divorce from her second husband, Carl Bernstein. I was intrigued to read a work of prose by her, and that is exactly why I decided to buy Heartburn. Like most, I know her only for her work as a screenwriter and director, for works such as When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle. Now, I must admit, I was quite surprised to see Nora Ephron’s name on the cover of a novel. So, I was naturally drawn to this collection of books written by women-only. And don’t get me started on how women are represented by these ‘canonical’ authors. I have read far too many works by men throughout my time at university, because, unfortunately, majority of the ‘literary canon’ is by male authors. So I went to Waterstones and allowed myself free-reign to pick up anything at all.Īfter a while, I came across a table of books entitled something along the lines of ‘female voices’. Anyway, I didn’t want to read anything on my shelf, nor did I want to purchase anything on my to read list. I add loads of movies and tv shows to my watch list, but when it comes to actually choosing something to watch, I never choose anything from my list, and instead spend what feels like an eternity scrolling through every other category). I always have a list I want to read in the notes app of my phone of books (which, to be honest, is a great way of making certain that I’ll never read them – I do the same with Netflix. While I have a good many books on my shelves that I have so far neglected to read, I couldn’t fight the urge to go to a book shop and pick up a couple of new additions. After finishing A Thousand Splendid Suns last week I felt that I needed a slightly more light-hearted read.

Heartburn novel