Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I will admit that I had high hopes for this book. I have followed Ms. Calederone for years and pre-ordered her first (truly wonderful – I hope there is soon another) cookbook. I admire everything she has been able to build and have long admired her interiors. I fully expected to love this book. However .. I do not. Ms. Caledrone recently started a podcast called “More Than One Thing” and I feel like that phrase could be tweaked here to describe this book … “Not Quite Anything.” What is Live Beautiful? I didn’t expect any kind of “how-to” book, and it's certainly not that. Nor is it an introduction to her design work. Yes, her own two homes are in it, but, at least for fans, this book does not provide any additional pictures of rooms we haven’t already seen. She is a cookbook author, and there isn’t even one full picture of her kitchen in her Hamptons home. Nor are there any other projects from her portfolio – I was frankly expecting at least one or two additional ones, especially as she has recently been describing herself first and foremost as an interior designer. Instead, it’s a compilation of other people’s homes. However, as some of the other reviewers have commented, many of these properties have been extensively published elsewhere. They are all lovely, albeit mostly of a certain, very well-done style. Think Parisian/Euro apartments with herringbone floors and marble fireplaces which have been redone to include a lot of Serge Mouille lights and modern art, slab marble kitchen backsplashes, and simple platform beds dressed in unadorned linens. I think there is a very good chance that every one of these homes contains a bottle of Aesop hand soap. They are lovely, but rather monotonous, and even after repeated viewings I would be hard pressed to pick a page and be able to describe which property it belongs to – except for one property in the Hamptons that begins to come a little close to something featured on Hoarders. And then, finally, there is her editorial voice. I’ve noticed this a bit in her cookbook and some of her Instagram posts. It can be a bit breathy and effusive, with a very slight tendency to wander into self-aggrandizement. Yet she still comes off as lovely and helpful (and I’m also aware here of how critical I am being … I shudder to think how someone listening to me speak might try to summarize my voice!) But here, the voice is just a bit too … much. It’s overdone and unnecessary. Ironically, because I think Ms. Calderone is a very talented designer, with a true ability to create simple, striking spaces, she cannot seem to convey ideas in simple or striking prose. A sample “Something about Copenhagen lights an incandescent fuse in me; the intersectionality of food, design, and lifestyle profoundly resonates, and I suppose it’s not surprising that several of my dearest friends hail from this sophisticated Nordic city.” Whew. All of this to introduce the home of a well-known Danish interior designer whom Ms. Calderone has not met, but rest assured “I have been in Signe’s orbit for years.” Ok then. So what is this book? I think if you love this particular style, and you would like a coffee table book of homes in this style to flip through – this is your book. It’s very well done and wonderful to look at. But beyond that, I’m not too sure who exactly this book is for. Unfortunately, it’s not for me, but I hope that soon I am able to read another one of her cookbooks, or perhaps see some new projects that she has done.