I feel like I need to state that first and foremost this is a good book, a great book even but this book is not for me. Walton has wonderful control of language, creating beautiful prose and a magical atmosphere. Her world is rich with color, food, scents and perfect scenery. It's stunning and for that I enjoyed it. Loved every bit of the descriptions especially the bakery, just filled me with joy. 
 My inherent problem with this book was the unlikable female characters. This is a generational story so our narrator, Ava, tells us the tale of her family starting with her grandmother, Emilianne whose family immigrates from France to New York. The Roux family is a peculiar one and in magical realism style they all have ridiculous deaths right out of a Tim Burton movie. Emilianne decides early on her life that she will be unhappy because so much has happened and her heart was broken by a silly man so henceforth Emilianne succeeds in being as unhappy as she can be which of course made me want to shake her. She eventually moves with her husband, that she doesn't love, to Seattle where the rest of our story takes place. Viviane is born and her father dies when she's in infant leaving Emilianne to tend the bakery he had and raise baby Viviane. 
 Viviane became to me one of the most annoying characters. She falls in love with a boy, becomes a teen mom and he leaves her and from that point on Viviane is as determined to be as unhappy as her mother was. I think my inherent problem with these characters was the portrayal of women and how women, once scorned by a man or left, became emotionally comatose to the point of being unable to find happiness in themselves. That was my irk. It wasn't the storytelling, it was nicely paced, the language like I said was painted beautifully but these women were so frustrating to me. They reached Bella-level of uselessness at the disappearance of their lover and this took my enjoyment out of the book. 
 Ava's story was far better but it's minuscule in comparison to Viviane's much lengthier one. I dare say the male characters were more fleshed out and complex than the women. Nathaniel was horrific in his obsession, Gabe was wonderful he truly kept me going through some of the worse Viviane moments and even Jack's father was a surprising twist despite still being despicable. I know and I fully understand that many people will love this and I can understand why, the prose is stunning. I think you should give it a try, form your own opinion and perhaps you might enjoy it more than I did.