I’m a huge Sophie Kinsella fan. I get lost in her topsy-turvy British world and love every delicious minute. One of her biggest talents is creating likeable, charming yet flawed characters. This book strays from her usual formula a wee bit—it’s a ghost story. Lara Lington is forced to attend the funeral of her great-aunt Sadie (a woman she doesn’t even know) when Sadie’s ghost appears to her and demands she find her necklace. Before you know it, Lara is sucked into the mystery of where Sadie’s necklace disappeared to and why. Of course, nothing is simple and Lara starts to uncover an entire plethora of mysteries as well as Sadie’s legacy.
There is a love story but this time it’s not the main focus of the plot. Instead we focus more on the relationship between Sadie and Lara, two completely different women who have something to teach each other. It’s a fun read with a very interesting twist at the end. I felt really happy when this book ended and can always count on Kinsella to put a smile on my face. That said, it’s not my favourite of her books as I’m not usually a fan of stories of the paranormal. Still I can easily recommend this as a summer read.

At the end of the novel, author Lucinda Rosenfeld writes , “One of my main goals in writing I’m So Happy For You was to make both characters simultaneously problematic and sympathetic. If you come away loathing one or both of them, I haven’t done my job.” Well Rosenfeld, you haven’t done your job. I hated both of the main characters. One is an insecure, gossiping and grievous twit, while the other is a melodramatic, superficial and annoying imbecile.
This supposed “Novel About Best Friends” is no such thing. I agree, female friendships can be problematic, but these two don’t realize they don’t have a friendship at all. It’s not a positive relationship, it has no trust or camaraderie or honesty. I think she means for this book to be a black comedy but it’s not funny or sharp. Don’t bother with this one.

Gigi Levangie Grazer knows expensive divorces. The author is divorced from movie producer Brian Grazer in a multi-million settlement. So I suppose it’s fitting her next novel is about a high-power couple and their Divorce Games. Jackson Power owns a Manhattan real estate empire and is married to former prima ballerina Cynthia, the epitome of elegance. But Jacks has fallen hard for Lara Sizemore, a wild and voluptuous morning television star and wants out of their marriage.
So here is where it gets fun. Jacks and Cynthia both want to win in this divorce and they start the manipulating to get there. I don’t want to give it all away and it’s all a little complicated but there is a lot of attempted sabotage. Some of it funny, some of it lame. Of course there is a happy ending (there always is). I disliked Jacks immensely but I also disliked Lara so they were great for each other in my eyes. I really liked Cynthia and her daughter but I felt the lesbian storyline was just thrown in for shock value or something. It didn’t pan out and seemed forced in. A good summer read overall—especially those who have gone through a divorce. Get some ideas!

I’m usually a big fan of Jennifer Weiner but her newest, Best Friends Forever, left me a little disappointed. It’s the story of Addie Downs, a former chunky girl who lives in her small town, in her parents old house and works out of her home. She occasionally goes on an internet date but otherwise has no life. One day her old best friend, Valerie Adler shows up at her door asking for help. It’s supposed to be an adventure and a lesson about friendship.
To be honest, I found the whole thing a little pedestrian. I never got into the mystery of Val and Addie and why they stopped being friends in high school. Once I found out what it was, it didn’t seem realistic to me (the way it was dealt with, not the situation itself). I really liked Addie as a character but felt she was too needy and caved in to Val’s whims much much too easily (there is a bank robbery scene where she withdraws $10,000 to keep Val from getting in trouble.) These two are no Thelma and Louise.
The ending feels like it was just thrown together. Totally unsatisfying. I think if you’re looking for a better book pick up any other Weiner book. This one fell flat for me.

I wasn’t expecting much from A Vintage Affair except a chick-lit tale. The cover, the back synopsis—it makes you think it’ll be a nice easy story. Fortunately, this book turned out to be more. It’s a page-turner galore, with a few mysteries and some very touching moments—but not is a sappy way cuz we all know I hate the sap (Nicholas Sparks, that means you).
Phoebe always dreamt of opening her own vintage dress shop and she finally opens Village Vintage. But she has a sad secret that casts a shadow over her excitement (can’t tell you what). She recently split from her ridiculously handsome and successful fiancé (can’t tell you why) and is rather anti-dating. One day she meets Therese, an elderly woman who is selling her collection of clothing except from a little blue coat. She tells Phoebe the story and P. connects to it with her own demons. It’s all soooo mysterious but in a good way and I could not put the frigging book down to figure them all out. Thankfully, the baby had a two and a half hour nap one day so I was able to get halfway through (it’s an easy read.)
At times the character of Phoebe infuriated me but I think that’s the idea. I’m having a hard time reviewing this without giving it all away but I’ll just mention that the descriptions of vintage fashion had me salivating and wanting to check out vintage in the future. I highly recommend this novel.

I have to preface this by saying that I’m not a huge fan of mysteries. That maybe why halfway through Sweetness I was pretty much done. I loved the main character, Flavia de Luce, an eleven-year-old aspiring chemist with a preference for poison. She finds herself caught up in a murder mystery when she finds a man lying in her garden and is witness to his dying breath. This of course is terribly interesting to her and when the police arrest her father she sets out to find out who the real murderer is.
The writing of this novel is excellent and I found it engaging and funny from the very beginning. The problem for me was the plot. I got bored. It seemed this mystery could have been solved in half the time and a lot of the plot points were extremely drawn out. I also found the conclusion sorta bland but I won’t ruing that for you. The best thing about this book was Flavia and her commentary on life. She constantly tortures her sisters (although they obviously return the favour as in the opening of the book she is tied up and locked in a closet by these lovely girls), and has a unique and funny take on things. She’s ridiculously intelligent for an eleven-year-old which makes her likeable but a touch annoying. This book is apparently the first in a series and Flavia will have more adventures in the future. Based on her character alone, I would definitely try the next book in the series but I’m hoping it will be a little more exciting. I think those who do enjoy the genre of mystery though will have found one of their new faves with this series.

What female hasn’t read a Judy Blume book? I’m sure they’re out there but in my circle, Blume was adored. I read every one of her books I could get my hands on. Surprisingly, this wasn’t all of them as my access was limited to garage sales. I worshipped those books and had sort of forgotten about them until this little bundle of essays fell into my hands. Reading these women writers reminisce about their love of Blume’s books and how they affected their lives sent me on my own trip down memory lane.
That’s not to say that all of these essays in this book are great. There are some that read as a memoir with some Blume quotes sprinkled in for a connection. Ugh. If you don’t have a good Blume tie-in don’t bother writing for a collection about her books. The best of the essays actually involve the books themselves like the first one, “Then. Now. Forever…” by Megan McCafferty, that recalls the taboo that was the novel Forever… and what she and her friends learned from it.
If you were a fan of Judy Blume, you will mostly enjoy this collection and it will probably make you want to dig out those old books and reread them to see if they still have that magic. Me, I know I’ll be passing mine on to my daughter when she’s old enough and hope she gets the same connection to them as I did.

Sigh…they’ll let anyone write a book nowadays. The subtitle of this memoir is quite deceiving. The tales aren’t really saucy. They’re about sauce, sure. But saucy? Nope. One picks up the book thinking they’ll get some sort of back-stabbing, romance-fueled, crazy drunken version of The Food Network. Instead, you end up with a bland version of Top Chef, minus the hottie Padma.
Katherine Darling goes to chef school and doesn’t get a chef job after. She ends up writing for magazines and so decides to pen this memoir. The problem is that it’s kind of boring. And the writing sucks. It’s incredibly choppy and disjointed. The little chapters are supposed to be individual stories but some of them are so inconsequential you finish the chapter and wonder what the point was. There are recipes included after several of the chapters and I’ll admit I haven’t tried any of them but they also seemed like they didn’t really belong. She’d do a whole chapter on cooking lobster and follow with a recipe for Oyster Stew. Hmmm…
It was an easy read and I flew through it but I found myself not too interested in how it all ends. It’s annoying that the crappiest chefs all pass the school and that Darling who finishes number one in her class doesn’t get a job in a kitchen. Unless you’re huge into culinary arts, and are planning to go to school and want a heads up on how classes work, skip this one.

This comedic novel has just been made into a movie starring Hayden Panettiere. As you read it, it is absolutely a book made to be a movie. A teen movie at that. The whole story starts with Denis Cooverman saying his valedictorian speech at graduation. In front of his 512 classmates he announces: “I love you Beth Cooper.” The problem is that Beth is the head cheerleader and barely knows who Denis is. What follows is a grad night only found in teen movies, full of sex, violence and the whole nerds finally experiencing high school deal.
The book isn’t written for teens—it’s an adult novel. But the whole thing pretty much reads like a script. I found it really hard to get through without constantly picturing Pannetiere in the lead which gets really annoying. The book has some laughs and I’m sure teens will love the movies version. I don’t personally think it’s a classic by any means and wasn’t really sucked in by the whole thing. I’m a dork who always has to read the book before seeing the movie. I suggest just waiting for the movie with this one. It’s not bad but it’s not really worth the time.

I’m obviously a little underwhelmed with my books this week. What can I say? I’m getting picky. I love chick lit on a normal day. I’m a sap and enjoy reading completely unrealistic depictions of life and love. But it has to have a spark, something unique, to keep me hooked. Mating Rituals totally dropped me. It’s so been done before. You have Peggy, who’s been dating Brock who won’t propose. She goes to Vegas for a bachelorette and ends up married to some handsome stranger in a fit of black-out drunkenness.
She goes to get the marriage annulled and ends up living with him in order to get an inheritance, bla blab. Of course they’re different. And they don’t like each other. And then what do you think happens. I know most chick lit is predictable but this was too much. The best thing about it was the character of Aunt Abigail, a feisty old lady with the best lines. Boo. Stay away from this one. It’s as exciting as a W.A.S.P. Hah.