Review
Once in a while a book comes along that I simply love. I sink into the story and am carried away for hours into another world and another life. I reach the end feeling that I have been on vacation.
Rat did that for me. Here at BookBrowse, we recommend books that entertain and inform. I did learn some things: the various winds of the Pyrenees Orientales region stand out in my mind. But most of all I was entertained by this modern day fairy tale. Let me tell you some of the ways I loved
Rat.
I loved the main character. Celia (nicknamed Rat by her loving but flakey mom) is fierce and feral, changes like the wind and has a brave heart. She is the quintessential child who goes in search of the missing parent.
I loved the setting. The south of France, the Mediterranean with the Pyrenees mountains as a backdrop. The funky apartment...
Beyond the Book
"The Pyrenees-Orientales is the Command Center of winds. Here they all congregate, quarrel, barter and rule. There are said to be 119 different winds in the Pyrenees-Orientales. (If you could sell wind we'd be rich, people used to say in the days before the foothills got sown with rows of gigantic new turbines, without bringing a marked improvement to anybody's fortunes."
p.27 of Rat.
Here are five of those winds:
The Tramontane: Dry, cold and often violent, carrying air from polar regions.
In summer it brings clear blue skies and relief from the...
