Sweet Like Life

by Stacey Clark

SWEET LIKE LIFE, A Jewish Girl's Journey to the African Tea Set, is the unlikely story of a Jewish girl from the wealthy suburbs of New York who has spent a lifetime paralyzed by the materialistic values of her childhood: having to look a certain way, pursue a certain career, and of course find a nice Jewish husband who will provide for her financially and make her Jewish babies. This Jewish girl takes a different path, travelling the world over a period of 12 years and slowly changing her beliefs by meeting people in West Africa, Central America, India, Israel, and Morocco -- people who defy every value she thought she needed to strive for, but who nevertheless seem genuinely happy. They have found what she was always searching for: the "sweetness of life."SWEET LIKE LIFE takes the reader around the world -- and back to New York, where she finds herself returning to her old ways time and again, trying to do it all, be it all, working too many hours and becoming a slave to dating sites. But after sleeping hand-in-hand with a woman in a Brazilian favela, laughing as rain fell on their heads; pooping in shovel-dug holes in the West African desert; and scrubbing banana leaves with a used toothbrush to make tamales in Central America, followed by cigars and swigs of rum, she was no longer that girl inside and never could be.SWEET LIKE LIFE is about letting go and accepting life, oneself, and the beauty that unfolds when that happens -- the sweetness of it all.