Best Reads of 2006

Of the books I've read this year, and yes, there were many, here are the best - the ones I definitely recommend to others - and a few that I would say you can definitely skip when you are looking for something to read.

Best Chicklit
1. Anybody Out There? (#23)
2. London is the Best City in America (#40)
3. Any Place I'd Hang My Hat (#34)
4. Everyone Worth Knowing (#20)

Non Chicklit Fiction
1. Gods in Alabama (#44)
2. Picture Perfect (#31)
3. Keeping Faith (#28)
4. Breaking Her Fall (#68)
5. The Dive from Clausen's Pier (#5)
6. Love Walked In (#71)
7. The Covenant (#43)
8. Family Baggage (#35)

Best Nonfiction
1. Why I Wore Lipstick to my Mastectomy (#62)
2. Marley & Me (#7)
3. The Overachievers (#54)

Books to skip....
Pug Hill, Kissing in Manhattan, Out of this World, Chloe Does Yale, Been There Done That, French Kiss, Beautiful Bodies,

75. Going Home

Going Home is book 75 for the year. It's a pretty good chick lit read. It doesn't just deal with the main characters work/man drama, but also has a really good storyline about her family, and has a twist near the end that it took me quite a while to figure out. I recommend this one to chick lit fans.

Here's a review from B&N -

When London becomes to overbearing or her troubles overwhelming, sensitive Lizzy Walters enjoys the respite of her rustic home Keeper House where her family has always been welcoming. Lizzy needs the warmth and hugs of her kin after she has lost her “big love” so she plans to go back as soon as she can escape from the hustle and bustle of London.--------------- However, this time Keeper House seems more foreboding than hospitable as family secrets begin to surface that shake Lizzy. Even more shocking and making Lizzy feel dizzy, he who abandoned her has arrived at her haven. She is not sure she wants to deal with him as his arrival and her family’s behavior since her return make GOING HOME seem a mistake.------------------ This is an interesting English character study starring a fascinating female who decides a bit of family love is just the cure for her broken heart, but instead receives a horde of woes tossed like grenades from those she expected comfort from. The absorbing story line is somewhat amusing as the Walters seem harmlessly eccentric, but throughout readers will wonder why there is the lack of communication from anyone with Lizzy neither her family members nor her “big love” who dumped her appear able to simply talk to Lizzy though this reviewer is not sure why. Still she is an intriguing protagonist struggling with the down side of love.

74. What Matters Most

I'm too tired to write much of my thoughts on this one, but I did enjoy it, I do own it and I'd be happy to lend it.

Here's a review from B&N -

Feeling as if she must have been adopted as everyone else in her family is doctors, Georgia Merkin dreams of becoming an author. Her laid-back attitude and her chosen vocation as a wannabe author upsets her mother who believes women should pursue real professional careers like physicians.------------------------- However, Georgia suffers two blows to her mental stability. First her beloved dad Adam, who always encouraged her to be what she wanted to be, dies, and her ex-husband’s latest girlfriend is moving in with him. Though she does not want anything permanent with her former spouse, she did enjoy occasionally getting together with him. Despondent, she and her mother talk as Estelle grieves too. As they finally find common ground, Estelle reveals secrets to her offspring that could end their relationship just as it seems to finally gel.--------------------- This is an interesting relationship drama in which the death of the one person who kept the family together leaves the two grieving survivors to choose between finding solace with one another or widen their rift. All three Merkin family members seem genuine though Adam is, through flashbacks, perceived mostly by Georgia. Readers who enjoy an interesting mother and daughter tale will want to learn how Nicole Bokat answers WHAT MATTERS MOST

73. The Ghost at the Table

First, a review from B&N.com rather then a traditional description:

Rivaling sisters search for family truths over a Thanksgiving holiday. Frances Fiske longs for harmony and decides to host a blowout dinner to reunite her estranged family. In her quest for unity, Frances packs the house with high-wattage conflict. When three generations of the Fiske family gather, tempers flair and skeletons begin tumbling out of closets. Out of pity and a sense of obligation, Cynthia Fiske flies east from her sequestered life as a writer to join in her sister's feast. Coming home stirs up bitter memories of a lonely childhood for Cynthia. She narrates the story and at first seems to be a reliable source for learning about the Fiskes' dirty little secrets. Cynthia talks of Frances's rocky marriage, Frances's reckless teenage daughters, Frances's Martha Stewart-like obsession with interior-design perfection. Cynthia relays tales of their mother's mysterious death and their father's romantic indiscretions. A maelstrom develops in the days leading up to the big meal. All the combustible energy makes for a great read as Cynthia and Frances battle it out to preserve a particular view of their childhood. Berne (A Crime in the Neighborhood, 1997, etc.) challenges the reader to pick a side. Cynthia's paranoia creeps through her storytelling and Frances's imperious nature furthers the chaos and miscommunications, making it tough to know whom to trust. Sampling from a few genres-mystery, historical fiction, chick lit and psychological thriller-Berne cooks up a literary feast. Her tactile descriptions and enigmatic characters saturate the story and provide a filling repast. The plot can be frustrating at times-it's a struggle to discern past from present and truth from fiction. But this is intentional. Berne prefers questions to answers. This substantial tale of a dysfunctional family reunion promises a holiday, and a read, to remember.

I completely agree with the review - this book was well written and told a good story, but it definitely left the reader, in this case me, with questions and uncertainty as to whose version of the truth was really the truth. And for once I don't really mind the lack of closure on this one...

72. The Virgin Blue

This one is historical fiction which isn't usually my thing, but I liked it. It alternated between a story set in the modern day and a story set in the 16th Century. There was a hint of mystery to the story, which I also enjoyed.


Here's the description: Meet Ella Turner and Isabelle du Moulin -- two women born centuries apart, yet tied together by a haunting family legacy. When Ella and her husband move to a small town in France, Ella hopes to brush up on her French, qualify to practice as a midwife, and start working on a family of her own. Village life turns out to be less idyllic than she expected, however, and a strange series of events propels her on a quest to uncover her family's French ancestry. As the novel unfolds -- alternating between Ella's story and that of Isabelle du Moulin four hundred years earlier -- a common thread emerges that pulls the lives of the two women together in a most mysterious way. Part detective story, part historical fiction, The Virgin Blue is a novel of passion and intrigue that compels readers to the very last page.

71. Love Walked In

This was a B&N read and I really liked it. It's not chick lit, just a novel that happens to be mainly about a 30something woman. I definitely recommend this one!

Here's the description:

Bogart and Bacall, Hepburn and Tracy. Their romances and their films have stirred the hearts and minds of movie buffs for decades and have set the bar high. But movies aren't like life…or are they? Marisa de los Santos' debut novel is a delicious modern-day fairy tale come true that's not only a captivating love story but a heartfelt homage to some of our favorite films, too. Cornelia Brown is a 30-ish café manager: underemployed, alone, and hardly expecting to star in her own version of The Philadelphia Story. Yet that, remarkably, is just what happens when Martin Grace walks through the door. For a woman who measures life in terms of her favorite movie moments, this has Hollywood written all over it. Meanwhile, across town, young Clare Hobbes is living a nightmare. Forced to fend for herself when her unstable mother suffers a breakdown, and unable to convince her estranged father to respond to her pleas for help, she is alone and terrified. Oh, the drama! So put your feet up, shoo the dog off the couch, and prepare for an extraordinary ride to a world where Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and Jimmy Stewart set the standard; where an appealing, big-hearted heroine finally learns all about love; and happily-ever-after, though perhaps with some surprises, is finally given its due.

70. Chloe does Yale

This one was so so. I went to B&N tonight with the goal of readinga really good book and this wasn't it. It wasn't bad, just not what I was hoping for. I did just find out that it is somewhat autobiographical, and that does make me like it a little bit more. Anyway, here's the description:

A sparkling first novel by Natalie Krinsky, the witty, provocative sex columnist for the Yale Daily News.

Chloe Carrington is a typical Yale student, except that along with toiling through the usual grind of coursework, she pens a notorious and much-dished-over sex column for the campus newspaper. This touch of fame has wrought havoc on her social and love life, turning it literally into an open book. Chloe doesn't help matters much; she likes to share and can't resist divulging the gory details of her most recent date (or lack thereof) in her column, baring her soul for all to see.

Like her friends, she dreams of hooking up with Mr. Right, at least for a little while — but that proves even more arduous than participating in Yale's notorious "shopping" session (a two-week period in which students are encouraged to take as many classes as possible, in order to decide what courses to enroll in for that semester). As Chloe probes the campus hot spots, we get a peek at just what goes on behind the Ivy League's dormitory doors — from drinking at Toad's to "Exotic Erotic" (Yale's answer to a Hugh Hefner–style Playboy party, complete with coeds in skimpy bikinis).

Teeming with exuberance and late-night shenanigans, Natalie Krinsky's novel is filled with humor and candor about typical college situations both inside and outside the dorm room.

Natalie Krinsky grew up in New York City and is a 21-year-old senior at Yale University. Author of a biweekly Yale Daily News column, "Sex and the Elm City," Krinsky has the campus — and country — buzzing. The New York Times says "her humor is distinctive" and hundreds of thousands log on to the yaledailynews.com website (350,000 hits per week) to read her hilarious columns.

69. It's About Your Husband

This one was chicklit, yes, we all know I don't really stray too far from that genre... anyway, it was pretty cute and a good read with a bit of a surprising twist near the end, and then, just as I like it - a happily ever after ending.

Here's the description from B&N: San Fernando Valley native Iris Hedge left her husband and traded coasts for

the job of a lifetime-only to lose it in a New York minute. Now unattached, unemployed, and broke, she dreads her loneliness and imminent credit card bills - until she's offered an exciting, new gig: spying on a possibly cheating, uptown husband named Steve.
Soon Iris is trading her business wardrobe for the stalker chic of sweatpants and dark eyewear, and navigating the hazards of urban surveillance-Central Park's fascist dog-walking rules, rejection from exclusive boutiques, and a series of unnatural hair colors. But as she steps into uncharted territory, she wonders if her life will ever go back to normal-and whether normal is anything she'll ever be happy with again.

68. Breaking Her Fall

This was definitely the best of the three I read this weekend. I don't normally like books written in the first person, but this was a very well written story. It's heavy subject matter, and not easy to read quickly, but it's definitely worth reading.

From B&N: Just before eleven on an ordinary summer night in Washington, D.C., Tucker Jones picks up the phone, expecting to hear that his teenage daughter, Kat, is back from the movies. But the caller is another parent, a man who tells Tucker that Kat was actually at a party-and makes a shocking allegation about what happened to her there. In a blind rage, Tucker races to the party to find Kat already departed, but his full-boil interrogation of the boys still present spills over into a confrontation-and ends with one of the boys crashing into a glass tabletop. In a second, his rage turns to remorse, and he soon finds himself under arrest. Tucker could easily lose his home and his business, but he is most concerned about losing his daughter. Stephen Goodwin writes with insight and rare power about the way that passion rearranges lives.As Tucker and Kat and everyone around them seek to repair the damages of that night, Breaking Her Fall charts their uncommonly difficult passage from despair to reconciliation and hope with extraordinary grace.

67. This Side of Married

This one was a good read as well.

Here's the B&N description: To see her three daughters happily married: Is that too much for a mother to ask? Evidently, it just might be, as Pastan's smart, moving, and original story of contemporary families illustrates.

The mother in question is Dr. Evelyn Rubin, wife of the esteemed Judge Rubin. Married 40 years earlier in a traditional Jewish ceremony, the domineering Dr. Rubin can't understand why her daughters have yet to follow her lead by marrying, carrying on productive careers, and raising budding families. Her oldest is 38 and an intellectual commitment-phobe; her middle daughter is married but both infertile and unemployed; and her youngest is a self-absorbed singleton. Hosting regular (and compulsory) family brunches, the long-suffering Dr. Rubin can't stop trying to shape her daughters' lives, but even her best efforts are incapable of creating the storybook family she craves.

As matches form and threaten to fall apart, Dr. Rubin and her daughters look back at the past in an effort to understand the present, and the girls recall how deeply influenced they were by their babysitter, who offered them a different love than that which they received from their mother. Written in an assured style reminiscent of Jane Austen's classic fiction, This Side of Married offers a dissection of modern-day family life in an enjoyable and insightful package. And for many readers, it will certainly hit home.

66. The Great Indoors

The Great Indoors was a good read... not the best, not the worst. It did just end, with no closure at all, which annoys me greatly, but really overall I liked it.

Here's a review from B&N:

What constitutes a finished life? Durrant, a British journalist who captured the disappointments of domesticity in 2002's Having It & Eating It, returns to the central question of the chick-lit genre in this endearing portrait of a woman who is more comfortable with the objects that fill her quaint suburban London antique shop than she is with commitment, much less children. At 38, Martha Bone is content to think of herself as single and self-sufficient, having left the Perfect Boyfriend two years ago for reasons she no longer remembers. Then along comes Fred, aka "Mr. Magic," a sweet, solemn magician for kid's parties whose wife has left him and their two mismatched children to "find herself." Drawn to his quirky "broken-down" family, Martha treats them like the antique chest of drawers she is paint-stripping in the basement: as a potentially valuable object in need of mending. The death of Martha's stepfather, his funeral and the subsequent family dinner-a marvelously rendered depiction of dysfunctional family dynamics at their snarkiest-brings back the Perfect Boyfriend, a metrosexual snob named David, who tempts Martha to re-enter his posh life. Does she choose the order he promises over the chaos that's erupted around her? In this novel, as in many relationships, a thin line separates love from contempt. Thanks to Durrant's rounded characters and acute observations on married life, readers won't cross it.

65. Girls With Glasses: My Optic History

This was a cute, quick read. :) I especially liked the way she catagorized her life based on the glasses she had at the time and how much she remembered about shopping for each pair. Despite my good memory my perscription changed way too frequently for me to remember that much about my glasses shopping experience. Although I have to say, her experience with her first pair is incredibly similar to my first pair experience! Anyway... here's the B&N description:

Marissa Walsh reflects on her past through the varied lens of her eyewear: the plastic children's frames; the gawky junior high I-have-braces-too; the not-quite-stylish high school contact lenses; the spare not-to-be-worn-in-public pair; the all-nighter bloodshot college eyes that made contacts impossible; and so forth. In this eyeglass-framed memoir, the coauthor of Tipsy in Madras takes us on a lively jaunt through her visually challenged road to adulthood. A proud shout-out for girls with glasses.

64. Public Personnel Management - Contexts & Strategies

Again, my exciting public administration book doesn't have a photo to share with you. So sad.

Anyway, the book was boring the class itself not too bad. I know no one else will want to read this one (by choice) but I read it cover to cover so it definitely counts on my total for the year!

63. Miss Understanding

This one was so-so... by the time I was half way through it I decided I didn't really like it and wasn't going to finish it, but then today I went back to it because I was half way through it and felt like I had already invested time into it so I should finish it. By the end it did get better. My recommendation - if someone hands it to you to read, and there isn't anything better around read it, but don't seek it out

The description: Zoe Rose never quite fit in.

As the only kid in kindergarten with an enormous red afro, Zoe was taunted by the other little girls for refusing to share her "Annie" wig, even when she swore it was her own hair (it was).
In second grade, after seeing her best friend ridiculed for wearing a dirty, pink, polka-dot party dress to school every day, she became obsessed with understanding what makes normal girls tick and why they're so cruel to the girls who never seem to "get it."

And so Zoe begins a lifelong study of girl behavior, and by thirty, finds herself editor of Issues magazine. Determined to raid the locker room of the female psyche and rip open the frilly façade of femininity once and for all, she sets out to reform an entire nation of women, beginning with the readers of the most notorious magazine on Madison Avenue. It's the feminist vs. the fashionistas.

Can Zoe stop girls from behaving badly toward other girls, and turn them into a strong, united force that can succeed in our male-dominated world? Or will her spectacularly warped sense of humor, pathetic wardrobe, and plethora of psychosomatic illnesses get her eaten alive?
Zoe's willing to risk losing it all, including her mind, but she'll walk away with something she never dreamed she wanted: the little girl hiding inside of her.

62. Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy

This was a B&N read and a really good book. Scarry because the author was diagnosed with breast cancer at 27 but uplifting because she caught it early and is now in her late 30s and cancer free.

Here's the description: A soulful, surprising coming of age journey by a dynamo who used her own adversity as a platform for examining issues all young women face. Having finished journalism school and landed her dream job at age 27, the last thing Geralyn Lucas expects to hear is a breast cancer diagnosis. She decides to go public with her disease despite fears about the backlash at work, and her bold choices in treatment are irreverent and uplifting. When her breast is under construction and her hair is falling out, her skirts get shorter. She goes to work every day and gets promoted. She has sex with her bandages on. She reinvents her beauty and in a bold move of conscious objection, forgoes the final phase of her breast reconstruction: the nipple. She is reborn in a tattoo parlor when she gets a heart tattoo where her nipple once was. Geralyn recovers from her mastectomy and chemo and has a baby in the same hospital where she was treated for cancer. What could have been a huge negative for this young cancer survivor became the impetus to examine her own sexuality and burgeoning womanhood. Virtually nothing has been written for women of a young age who have been diagnosed with breast cancer. This book also deals with the broader issue of self-acceptance that anyone grappling with questions of illness, self-image and sexuality can identify with.

61. Ask Me Anything

This was a fairly good chick lit read. It was one of five hardbacks I bought at the discount bookstore ($27 for all five!) and it was a good, quick beach read, which is good, cause I was reading it quickly and at the beach. :)

Here's the B&N description: Twenty-six-year-old Rosalie Preston works by day as an advice columnist for the romantically perplexed readership of Girl Talk magazine. But her true passion is for the stage and for her fledgling theater troupe, the First Borns, a tight pack of friends and lovers who live (mostly) in the East Village. When Rosalie comes to the notice of suave Berglan Starker, a theater underwriter—and also the father of her best friend—she finds herself caught up in a very different affair from those she so jauntily untangles in her column for teens. Struggling to be savvy but sage, she is swept along by curiosity, a taste for adventure, and a penchant for those alluring complimentary toiletries in New York's ritziest hotels.

Fame versus art, sex versus love, ambition versus friendship, room service versus restaurants: these are the choppy waters the First Borners must navigate—together and, perhaps ultimately, apart—in this delicious novel.

60. Love and a Bad Hair Day

This was a quick, cute read. I got it on sale at a book store for $3.98 and it was worth every penny. :)

Here's the B&N description:

Jolene Hadley Corbett believes in the power of a good hair day, but on a bad hair day terrible things happen -- men run off, cars break down, and the skies open up all over your new favorite outfit. So when Ry O'Malley comes riding back into the town of Verbena, North Carolina, Jolene immediately checks the mirror. Yep, just as she suspects -- bad hair!

The O'Malley heir apparent -- taller, handsomer and a lot sexier than anyone remembers -- is determined to knock the whole town on its ear by demolishing his inheritance: the South Winds Trav'O'Tel and All Day Breakfast Buffet. Okay, so it's not a luxury resort, but its destruction would wreck the local economy...not to mention that antacid sales at the drugstore would probably drop considerably.

Jolene's not about to let a man who once pulled off the top of her bathing suit (okay, even though she was fourteen and she was in the pool) get away with this. So she gears up for the final chapter of the long-running O'Malley-Hadley feud. But first, she's got to find that can of hairspray...

59. High School Confidential: Secrets of an Undercover Student

So I'm very into reading about Generation Y these days... I read the one about High students trying to get into college recently and even did a paper for my HR Management class on Generation Y in the workforce. Anyway... High School Confidentail was a pretty good read. I'm sure some of the behaviors in the book are shocking to many, but from what I've read and heard in recent years I wasn't that surprised by the student's behaviors. The teachers and administrators on the otherhand, I couldn't believe I the experiences the author had. Seriously... I really hope his academic experience is not typical of most public high schools, otherwise we're really in trouble.

Here's the description from B&N:

This outrageously entertaining exposé chronicles the true adventures of Jeremy Iversen, a 24-year-old investment banker who passed himself off as a second-semester senior transfer student at Mirador High in southern California. Inspired by every John Hughes movie he had ever seen, Iversen set out in search of the suburban school experience his privileged Exeter education had denied him. But what he found at Mirador was less Pretty in Pink than Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Immersed in a confusing culture of sexual permissiveness, religious fundamentalism, rampant recreational drug use, and academic apathy, the author bluffed his way from cliques and classes to parties and pep rallies all the way to graduation -- his real identity known only to school administrators. We give High School Confidential a resounding A+ for its irresistible smarty-pants tone and its surprising revelations about students and teachers alike.

58. Out of This World

This was pretty decent chick lit, with a twinge of mystery but it lost me when it turned sci-fi...

Here's a description from Amazon:

When Rachel Wood, Los Angeles mural artist and self-proclaimed queen of impulsive actions, discovers a distant and extremely eccentric relative has bequeathed her a bed-and-breakfast in the wilds of Alaska, she immediately heads north to check it out, commandeering her best friend's geeky brother, Kel, for support. The B and B is deserted and unwelcoming, and weirdness appears to be the order of the day. The tour guide can't find his way, the cook produces inedible messes, and voices and thuds are heard in the supposedly empty inn. When Rachel is struck by lightning and discovers she can see through anything, and Kel acquires supernatural strength, they begin to consider more sinister explanations. The sudden, overwhelming mutual attraction that flares uncontrollably between them and has them engaging in love play at every possible opportunity (and sometimes at the worst possible moment) is just one more puzzling phenomenon for them to explore. Shalvis breaks new ground with this sexy paranormal romance with chick-lit undertones told from both his and her perspectives.

57. Walking in Circles Before Lying Down

This one was pretty cute. I liked the interactions with the dogs better than those with the people, but... maybe that's because I'm a fan of dogs. :)

Here's a review from B&N instead of just a typical description...

Markoe (It's My F-ing Birthday) delivers a light-on-its-paws account of dog-lover Dawn Tarnauer's canine-led quest for love. Twice-divorced Dawn is the product of a fantastically dysfunctional family (Dawn's sister, Halley, is an overly enthusiastic life coach, her mother is a struggling entrepreneur and her former smalltime rockabilly musician father invests "a lot of time into perfecting... authentic fifties outfits"); her dog, Chuck, begins talking to her after dud radio-DJ boyfriend Paxton dumps her. Though other dogs can also suddenly communicate with Dawn (including Johnny Depp, a friend's dog), Chuck remains the leading pooch as he plies his master with sage advice and astute observations-"He seemed humpy," Chuck opines about one suitor; "Who doesn't like puppies? That's psychotic," he muses about Paxton-as she negotiates the standard fare of chick lit (losing her job, getting mixed up with wacky beaus, aiding her friends through their respective crises, finding a place to live). Until, that is, Chuck runs away, forcing Dawn to realize her true love may not be a biped. Off-beat enough to stand out of the pack.

56. The Man of My Dreams

Well, with a little under 3 months to go on the year I've reached my goal. Number 56 is The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld.

Here's the Library Journal review from B&N:

Following up on her successful debut novel, Prep, Sittenfeld once again addresses themes of adolescence and identity. With a sure voice, she details the experiences of Hannah Gavener, from age 14 in 1991 to age 28 in 2005. Hannah begins her tale while in temporary exile in Philadelphia with her aunt Elizabeth after her father has broken up his marriage and family. She can handle her father's having thrown everyone out of the house in the middle of the night, but she is thrown into confusion over her browbeaten mother's decision to end years of emotional abuse. With her emotional moorings undercut and replaced with a pervading sense of uncertainty, Hannah begins her college years as a hermit but soon enters the world of hook-ups and crushes after she is befriended by Jenny and challenged by free-spirit cousin Fig. Eventually, she gathers enough courage to cut her ties with her father, but gaining enough experience to let go of the bitterness requires encounters with Ted, Elliott, Mike, Henry, and Oliver. Hannah's wry wit and unsentimental self-understanding make her story compelling. Sittenfeld gives her a voice that is serious without being mordant, hopeful without being flighty.

It took me awhile to get into this one, but once I did I really enjoyed it. Hannah was really easy to understand and relate to. I've read Sittenfeld's other book Prep, and I'm sure I'll read whatever she rights next.

55. Roommates

This one is chicklit, but I liked it a lot, it didn't even get annoying (except when things wrapped up a bit too neatly at the very end). Overall, a pretty good read.

Here's the B&N description:

All Elise wants is a normal roommate. She thought starting her life over in San Diego would mean writing at the beach and rendezvousing with sun-kissed surfer gods. But once she arrives, her California dreaming' turns into a nightmare. Her apartment is miles from the ocean, her roommie Justine's boyfriend has moved in (and he isn't kicking in a penny-just smoking up a storm). And Elise is starting to get used to the helicopters that fly overhead, warning everyone to lock their doors. But she knows there must be better places to live, and better people to room with. Like Max. Actually, she'd like to share a whole lot more with him than a bathroom.

54. The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids

I've read and enjoyed Alexandra Robbins' other books - Pledged and Quarterlife Crisis, and this one was no different. The Overachievers makes me really glad my own highschool years are 10 years behind me.

Here's the description:

"You can't just be the smartest. You have to be the most athletic, you have to be able to have the most fun, you have to be the prettiest, the best dressed, the nicest, the most wanted. You have to constantly be out on the town partying, and then you have to get straight As. And most of all, you have to appear to be happy." CJ, age seventeen

High school isn't what it used to be. With record numbers of students competing fiercely to get into college, schools are no longer primarily places of learning. They're dog-eat-dog battlegrounds in which kids must set aside interests and passions in order to strategize over how to game the system. In this increasingly stressful environment, kids aren't defined by their character or hunger for knowledge, but by often arbitrary scores and statistics.

In The Overachievers, journalist Alexandra Robbins delivers a poignant, funny, riveting narrative that explores how our high-stakes educational culture has spiraled out of control. During the year of her ten-year reunion, Robbins returns to her high school, where she follows students including CJ and others:

· Julie, a track and academic star who is terrified she's making the wrong choices
· "AP" Frank, who grapples with horrifying parental pressure to succeed
· Taylor, a soccer and lacrosse captain whose ambition threatens her popular girl status
· Sam, who worries his years of overachieving will be wasted if he doesn't attend a name-brand college
· Audrey, who struggles with perfectionism, and
· The Stealth Overachiever, a mystery junior who flies under the radar.

Robbins tackles hard-hitting issues such as the student and teacher cheating epidemic, over-testing, sports rage, the black market for study drugs, and a college admissions process so cutthroat that some students are driven to depression and suicide because of a B. Even the earliest years of schooling have become insanely competitive, as Robbins learned when she gained unprecedented access into the inner workings of a prestigious Manhattan kindergarten admissions office.

A compelling mix of fast-paced storytelling and engrossing investigative journalism, The Overachievers aims both to calm the admissions frenzy and to expose its escalating dangers.

I really enjoyed this book, I think it's especially important for high school overachievers and thier parents to read, but really, a good read for just about anyone.

53. Been There Done That

OK, so here's the description from Amazon... (I think that's a first in the 53 books I've read with no description on B&N, but anyway...) :

A laugh-out-loud, warmhearted debut about a woman reliving her youth (and not just the good parts). Plenty of thirtysomething women would be thrilled to look like a teenager. But journalist Kathy Hopkins wishes she could be taken a little more seriously-or, at the very least, order a glass of wine without producing ID. Now her youthful appearance is forcing her into an undercover assignment she could do without: posing as a freshman at a small liberal arts college where, rumor has it, a secret prostitution ring is flourishing. It could mean a career-making exposé. But right now, pretending to be eighteen means dealing with a Clay Aiken--obsessed roommate, late-night parties that test her aging body--and most embarrassing of all, a massive crush on a guy who's just turned legal. Suddenly, Kathy's got the chance to do it all over again, hopefully better this time. Fortunately she's a quick learner.

This one is fairly typical chick lit, with some funny highlights. Not a must read, but not bad either.

52. French Kiss

This was a B&N read this afternoon, rather then the school work I intended to do when I got there. Oops... anyway, it was so-so chick lit. I liked the basic story line and the characters but didn't like the way within a single paragraph (and without much warning) the author switched back from his perspective to her perspective. Kinda confusing. And it had some pretty graphic and unexpected sex scenes... just a warning if you choose to read it.

The description: In Southern California successful wealthy record producer Johnny Patrick would do anything for his beloved nine years old daughter Jordi. Thus he hires architect Nicole Lesdaux to design a tree house for his adored child. Nicole finds herself attracted to her client and his preconscious offspring.--------------------- However, when Johnny’s former wife drug addict Lisa on a whim takes their daughter to Paris, he panics as he knows her friends at best are not good for his little darling and she is unstable. He enlists his sexy architect who speaks a few more words of French to accompany him across the Atlantic to retrieve Jordi. Shocking herself by breaking the golden rule of never mixing business with pleasure, Nicole agrees to go to France with Johnny. In Europe the architect and the music mogul begin to fall in love, but first must rescue a preadolescent child whose mother has placed her in danger from her so-called predatory friends.------------------ Though some will wonder why Nicole as he could have easily hired an interpreter who spoke fluent French, this is a fine heated erotic romantic suspense with the emphasis on the erotica. Profanity is overused and feels more like shock therapy. However, the lead couple is a solid pair and Jordi is a precocious youngster in trouble because of her mother’s terrible judgment especially in her choice of friends. Susan Johnson keeps the heat beyond boiling as Johnny and Nicole share much more than just a FRENCH KISS.--------------------

51. Happiness Sold Separately

Happiness Sold Separately was good, but depressing. I liked the characters, and the story was definitely well written, but it's definitely not for someone like me who enjoys happily ever after, or better yet, closer. Unless I missed something, the end just leaves everything up in the air. And I don't like that!

Here's the B&N description:

Corporate lawyer Elinor Mackey, now 40, wonders why she didn't try to have kids earlier. She and podiatrist husband Ted have only been married three years, but children, despite repeated IVF treatments, seem to be elusive. She funnels her sadness and fears into doing laundry. He responds to her withdrawal with frustration and by going to the gym, where he meets and eventually beds fitness instructor Gina. Elinor discovers the affair early on in this sophomore effort from Winston (Good Grief). It's where the couple go from there that captivates and engages the reader. The Mackeys even try to recover, but Gina's belligerent ten-year-old son, Toby, meets Ted and wants him for his math tutor. Ted loves his wife, but he can't stop thinking about having sex with Gina. Where does this leave Elinor? Finding solace under the diseased oak on her front lawn. "Ted's dating a ten-year-old," she says to neighbor Kat. "Fine. I'm dating a tree." Elinor, Ted, and Gina are well-drawn characters whose responses are intensely felt and perversely funny in Winston's bittersweet evocation of life's possibilities and disappointments and the slippery slope of being in love.

50. The Fortune Family

This was a good read, I recommend it. :) (Can you tell I'm getting tired of writing about what I've read... I guess that's what happens when you read 8 books on a week long vacation.)

Here's the description:

Jane Austen in Boston: a modern retelling of Persuasion in which the sensible daughter of a flighty Brahmin family finds love against all odds.

Jane Fortune has a problem. Thanks to the profligate habits of her father and older sister, the family's money has evaporated and Jane has to move out of the only home she's ever known: a stately brick town house on Boston's prestigious Beacon Hill. Perhaps what's worse is that Jane, at thirty-eight, has never had the gumption to leave in the first place. She is terminally single and fears that she has been left on the shelf to curdle like cream.

Unlike her father and sister, Jane doesn't spend her days in the pursuit of idle pleasures -- the best wines, cosmetics, plastic surgeries, spas, haircuts. For fifteen years Jane has been running the Fortune Family Foundation through which she started a literary fellowship and, almost to her own surprise, a journal of great renown. Though too modest to acknowledge it, she's also helped spark the careers of many a budding writer. That includes Max Wellman, the first winner of the fellowship and also Jane's first -- and only -- love.

The loss of the family home launches Jane into a peripatetic lifestyle that begins with a visit to her spoiled younger sister, Winnie, in the suburbs. It is then that Max Wellman comes back into Jane's circle. Both Max and Jane have changed in the intervening years. While Max has become a bestselling novelist, known as the literary lothario due to the number of conquests reported by the tabloids, it could be said that Jane had misplaced her luster.

But change is afoot. Along the way to bailing out her family and reigniting the flame of true love, Jane discovers enough about herself to shed her spinster persona and become the woman she was always meant to be.

What makes this a bit different from typical chick lit is that the characters are a lot older - late 30's as opposed to mid-20's. The age, and experiences it brings, makes them more thoughtful and easier to like then most typical chick lit books. I look forward to the author's next book...

49. The History of Love

The History of Love is a complicated book. First, the description:

"Once upon a time a man who had become invisible arrived in America." An unlikely and unforgettable hero, Leo Gursky is a survivor -- of war, of love, and of loneliness. A retired locksmith, Leo does his best to get by. He measures the passage of days by the nightly arrival of the delivery boy from the Chinese restaurant and has arranged a code with his upstairs neighbor: Three taps on the radiator means, "ARE YOU ALIVE?, two means YES, one NO." But it wasn't always so. Sixty years earlier, before he fled Poland for New York, Leo met a girl named Alma and fell in love. He wrote a book and named the character in it after his beloved. Years passed, lives changed, and unbeknownst to Leo, the book survived. And it provides Leo -- in the eighth decade of his life -- with a link to the son he's never known. How this long-lost book makes an extraordinary reappearance and connects the lives of disparate characters is only one of the small miracles The History of Love offers its readers. Rich, inventive, and continually surprising, this is a novel about lost love, found love, and rediscovered love; it is about where we find love when it seems all too elusive and what happens when we do. In short, it is a triumph.

The first half is a bit confusing, but then once things start to clear up as to who is who and what's going on, then it's a pretty good book.

48. Baby Proof

This one was not quite what I expected and I liked that. A good, quick read.

From B&N.com: The bestselling author of Something Borrowed and Something Blue now tells the story of what happens after the "I do"s. As a successful editor at a Manhattan publishing house, Claudia Parr counts herself fortunate to meet and marry Ben, a man who claims to be a nonbreeding career-firster like she is. The couple's early married years go smoothly, but then Ben's biological clock starts to tick. A baby's a deal breaker for Claudia, so she moves out and bunks with her college roommate Jess (a 35-year-old blonde goddess stuck in a series of dead-end relationships) while the wheels of divorce crank into action. Even after the divorce is finalized and Claudia embarks on a steamy love affair with her colleague Richard, she begins to doubt her decision when she suspects Ben has found a smart, young and beautiful woman willing to bear his children. Standard fare as far as chick lit goes, but there are strong subplots involving Claudia's sisters (one is coping with infertility, the other with a cheating spouse) and the childless-by-choice plot line produces above-average tension.

47. Why Mom's Are Weird

After all these heavy books it was about time for some good old chick lit, silly family drama and that's exactly what Why Mom's Are Weird was. Not quite as good as Ribbon's debut - Why Girls Are Weird, which is on my top 10 favorites list - but still a good read nonetheless.

Here's the description:

From the acclaimed author of Why Girls are Weird comes a second hilarious and surprising novel about love and family and the weirdo inside us all.

Belinda "Benny" Bernstein doesn't brag about her life in Los Angeles, but she is proud of her independence. She's got a job and a place to live, and she even goes out on dates now and again. But when Benny's mother and sister get into a car accident, she drops everything to fly across the country and help her injured, unemployed mom. The only problem? She wasn't exactly invited -- and back in Virginia she finds herself confronting every issue her family has avoided for years, including her mom's thriving sex life and her sister's wild nightlife.

Benny sets about fixing everything she thinks is broken at home, including mounds of clutter and the personal lives of the women she loves. But she soon stumbles upon a stack of letters that may reveal her mother's darkest secret. Benny only begins to understand her mom when she finds herself in a similar dilemma -- torn between someone she can't have and someone she thinks she shouldn't have. If Benny doesn't sort things out before she's sucked into the family vortex of dysfunction, there's no telling when she'll be able to go home again . . . unless this is home, after all.

Her relationship drama is my favorite part, it reminds me of Why Girls are Weird, which I actually have a sudden desire to re-read...

46. Kissing in Manhattan

Ok, I'll start with the description:

David Shickler's much anticipated work of fiction, Kissing in Manhattan, casts a knowing eye on a handful of lonely, love-starved New Yorkers, many of whom are inhabitants of the Preemption, a legendary Gothic apartment building on Manhattan's Upper West Side. When the Discover reading group first dipped into this novel, we expected to find an interesting collection of stories, peopled with the typically fascinating and quirky urban characters one finds only in the Big Apple. But Schickler goes one step further and details, à la Six Degrees of Separation, the surprising ways that the lives of these apartment dwellers intersect, building to an emotional climax in the final piece. In "Jacob's Bath," an older couple's intimate marital ritual is betrayed by the press. An enigmatic young man binds up his dates in the title piece; and a man mysteriously comes into the possession of a pair of opal earrings in "The Opals." In "The Smoker," a story will be familiar to readers of The New Yorker, a private-school teacher is lured to the home of one of his prize pupils for an evening he won't soon forget. David Schickler's Manhattan is dark and decadent, a place where love and pathos mingle. His stories and characters are always humorous, sexy, and a bit off-center, but often heartbreaking, too. This forceful debut is clearly the mark of a bold new talent in fiction.

OK, so maybe I just don't get it. Maybe too much chick lit has turned my brain to mush and I can't recognize "bold new talent in fiction," but my thoughts on this book was it weird. Very very weird.

45. Beautiful Bodies

Beautiful Bodies was the next book on my marathon of reading during my vacation. Here's the B&N description:

Manhattan, the coldest night of the year -- six best friends rush to attend a celebration. Blown by wind and snow, the women arrive flushed, each caught in midadventure....

Tonight's the night of nights -- to rejoice in a new lover, leave an unfaithful husband, or decide to have a baby on one's own. These "six in the city" profes-sional women fight for their female choices. Sparks and zingers fly across the table....Love lives, secrets, and friendships go up in candle flame.

Who will win -- the romantics or the realists? How can working women triumph in such trying times? While the cell phones chime and the biological clocks rewind, the friends enact a timeless ceremony. Here is our urban "friends-as-family" generation.

The second half of the book, the part where the characters actually interact was good, but the first half was not. It intoduced each character in lengthy chapters, giving detailed accounts of their lives and by the time they actually interacted I wasn't sure who was who and what their deal was, and I pretty much read the book in a day, so I can't imagine how confused I would have been if it had been over a week or more. I wouldn't say this one is bad, but if you read it just know what you are getting yourself in to.

44. Gods in Alabama

I listened to this one as an audiobook, but, I'm counting in on the books read list because, A) It was 8 hours of listening which was far longer then it would have taken me to read it and B) It was a really good story and while I didn't read it, I got the story by listening, so it counts.

Anyway, Gods in Alabama is by Joshilyn Jackson and was a great mix of funny and serious with a lot of family drama and a bit of a love story thrown in. Here's the description from B&N:

Forget steel magnolias-meet titanium blossoms in Jackson's debut novel, a potent mix of humor, murder, and a dysfunctional Southern family. After high school, Arlene Fleet left tiny Possett, AL, for Chicago, vowing never to return. Despite pleas over the decade to come home, Arlene reconsiders only after a sudden visit from a former classmate. In chapters alternating between 1997 and 1985, the story of what prompted the murder of a football hero in Arlene's hometown unfolds tantalizingly. Arlene's not a saint (even if she has made three vows to God), but is she a murderer? Arlene's boyfriend, Burr, is a saint-he's a black man willing to tolerate her bigoted relatives while also honoring her unusual pact with God (which doesn't, by the way, exclude swearing). While written for adults, this novel reminds us again that the teenage subculture is complex and powerful and that unholy acts may be committed in the name of love.

43. The Covenant

The Covenant by Naomi Ragen was a really timely read, considering all that has been going on in the middle east lately. Unfortunately, with the tension and turmoil there this is probably would have been a timely read anytime in the past decade or more.

Here's the description from B&N.com:

Ragen, an American writer who's lived in Israel for more than 30 years, blends tragedies of the past with headline news of today in her gripping, emotionally charged sixth novel. It's 2002, and the Margulies family-oncologist Jonathan; his pregnant, American-born wife, Elise; and their daughter, Ilana-are contentedly living in a Jerusalem settlement, until one day, on their way home, Jonathan and Ilana are kidnapped by Hamas. Elise's frantic call to her Bubbee Leah in Brooklyn reunites four women-now grandmas and great-grandmas-who, as girls, made the titular covenant: if they survived Auschwitz, they would become "one person, risking everything, giving everything, to help each other live in happiness all the days of our lives." Leah gathers up fellow New Yorker Esther, now a cosmetics millionaire; Paris nightclub owner Ariana; and Polish political activist Maria to help find the kidnap victims. It's a race against time, as the women wield their considerable influence and the Israeli army desperately tries to intercede with the kidnappers before the captives are killed. Ragen weaves in deeper, more serious undertones than the thriller plot suggests, touching on the stubborn pride and the serious purpose that keeps Israelis fighting (or, in some cases, not fighting) for their fragile country, "the land that God promised to the Jewish people in his Covenant to Abraham."

What I liked most about this book was the author's ability to tell the story from both the perspective of the Jews and the Arabs and how the fighting and struggles really impact everyone living in that region as well as their family and those who care about them in other parts of the world.

This is a must read if you have any interest in Arab/Israeli conflicts and really, is a must read even if you don't.

42. 24 Karat Kids

Again, chick lit, but fairly decent chick lit... here's the B&N description:

Meet Dr. Shelley Green - newly minted pediatrician. After graduating medical school at the top of her class, Shelley is hired by Madison Pediatrics, the Upper East Side's most exclusive practice. Suddenly this self-described 'schlumpy girl from Jackson Heights' is thrown into the world of the rich, famous, and very neurotic. Her life is about to change in a big way.
Hyper-parenting has reached epidemic proportions -- and Madison Pediatrics is its over-privileged epicenter. Shelley, a superb doctor with a kid-friendly touch and a genius for diagnosis, quickly becomes the Upper East Side's latest must-have accessory, the darling of the fabulously-wealthy-with-kids crowd. Now she's slimming down, dressing up in Fendi and Prada, and weekending in the Hamptons. No wonder Arthur - her adorable schoolteacher fiancé - is baffled.

Enter Josh Potter - blueblood hunk who never seems to have his checkbook around. What he does have is charm, connections, and enough sex appeal to set Shelley's head spinning. Before long, Shelley's plate is way too full: men and medicine, elite nursery schools and rooftop swimming pools. Can she handle it all without losing her soul? Find out in this delicious dose of fiction that brims with acerbic wit, dead-on satire, and finally, poignancy and heart.

Not the best I've ever read, but the main character is pretty likeable, despite some not so good decisions on her part and the stories about the uber rich patients she works with are pretty funny. A good beach read...

41. Too Good to Be True

Book 41 is Too Good To Be True. Chick lit yes, but good chick lit. Here's a description from B&N:

Air Traffic Controller Carey Browne flies from Dublin to New York on her vacation. On the flight she meets Ben Russell, co-owner with his sister Freya, of a successful chain of health-food stores. Still smarting from a relationship with a married man that went sour, Carey wants nothing to do with men, but Ben is persistent. They enjoy their first night in Manhattan together.--- Perhaps it was the alcohol, but the two Irish tourists fly to Vegas and get married. They return to their hometown of Dublin where his sister hosts a party in which family and friends honor the newlyweds. However, Freya invites Ben’s former girlfriend Leah Ryder who thinks he is a form of excrement and a few drinks later wrecks the gala and more. Meanwhile Freya has her own concerns as she suffers with the early arrival of menopause.--- This is an intriguing chick lit tale that spends much of the book looking deep into the impulsive act of marrying without any solid basis. However the story line takes a perpendicular spin by abruptly refocusing from the shaky relationship between Carey and Ben to the physical troubles suffered by Freya. Either subplot would have made a strong lead, but neither takes charge for the preponderance of the novel as if there were two novellas. Still the cast is solid, the location terrific and the two competing subplots interesting albeit shortchanged.

40. London is the Best City in America

London is the Best City in America was a good Sunday afternoon read. It's more family drama then chick lit, even though the main character is a 20something in the midst of relationship drama.

Here's the description: After making the difficult decision to call off her engagement, Emmy Everett left her life in New York City behind, and moved to a tiny fishing village in Rhode Island. She's been working on a documentary film, and generally avoiding the fact that she doesn't know what she wants to do with her life. But July 4th weekend has rolled around again, and Emmy is forced out of her self-imposed isolation – she has to return to her hometown (which is also the site of her failed romance with her ex-fiancé) for her brother Josh's wedding. Upon arrival, Emmy finds that Josh has a terrible case of cold feet. With less than twenty-four hours to go before the wedding, she takes him on an unforgettable road trip to help him figure out what he wants from life, and with whom he wants to spend it. Along the way Emmy learns some of her own lessons, and begins to realize that love, moving on, and happy endings that she thought were only found in movies, aren't a fantasy after all.

I really enjoyed this one and definitely recommend it.

(Side note - I was thinking about how this would make a good movie and just saw something online that said it is going to be made into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon.)

39. Secret Society Girl: An Ivy League Novel

Number 39 is Secret Society Girl by Diana Peterfreund. Chick lit but with a story.... if that makes sense. Here's what B&N has to say:

In a fabulous blend of the bestselling traditions of Prep and The Devil Wears Prada, Secret Society Girl takes us into the heart of the Ivy League's ultraexclusive secret societies when a young woman is invited to join as one of their first female members. Elite Eli University junior Amy Haskel never expected to be tapped into Rose & Grave, the country's most powerful-and notorious-secret society. She isn't rich, politically connected, or...well, male. So when Amy receives the distinctive black-lined invitation with the Rose & Grave seal, she's blown away. Could they really mean her? Whisked off into an initiation rite that's a blend of Harry Potter and Alfred Hitchcock, Amy awakens the next day to a new reality and a whole new set of "friends"-from the gorgeous son of a conservative governor to an Afrocentric lesbian activist whose society name is Thorndike. And that's when Amy starts to discover the truth about getting what you wish for. Because Rose & Grave is quickly taking her away from her familiar world of classes and keggers, fueling a feud, and undermining a very promising friendship with benefits. And that's before Amy finds out that her first duty as a member of Rose & Grave is to take on a conspiracy of money and power that could, quite possibly, ruin her whole life.A smart, sexy introduction to the life and times of a young woman in way over her head, Secret Society Girl is a charming and witty debut from a writer who knows her turf-and isn't afraid to tell all....

Basically, if I hadn't have picked it up from the front of the store I would have thought it was a teen novel. Not that it was a bad read, but not one to rush right out for. Having said that, will I read the sequel that comes out next summer, um, yup, I'm sure I will.

38. Sex as a Second Language

Not a must read, but not bad either, Sex as a Second Lanauge is pretty standard chick-lit. The description:

From Alisa Kwitney, the acclaimed author of On the Couch and The Dominant Blonde, comes a wickedly funny new novel about adult education. A teacher of English as a second language, Katherine Miner is an expert in idiomatic phrases, subtle verbal cues, and unwritten cultural rules, but when it comes to the opposite sex, she's baffled.

Her girlfriends and her mother keep telling her that a woman who is about to turn forty needs to approach dating as a job, but Kat's decided to opt for early retirement. It's not that she hates men; she just doesn't trust them. After all, her soon-to-be ex-husband, Logan, has dropped all contact with their son, just as her own father did to her thirty years before.

While Kat prepares her students for the messy business of getting personal, she has no intention of getting herself tangled up in bedsheets and emotions. But Magnus Grimmson, the tall, good-looking, tongue-tied Icelander in the front row, doesn't appear to pose any threat. In fact, the man seems to need more help deciphering women than Kat does decoding men.

Then Kat receives a letter from her father that turns her life upside down. A former spy, Kat's father writes that he wants to get to know her. But her father's reappearance causes unexpected complications, and suddenly Kat finds herself questioning whom she can trust and discovering that she still has a lot to learn about men, friendship, and the kind of nonverbal communication they don't teach in school.

Darkly humorous, emotionally honest, and unabashedly sexy, Alisa Kwitney's novel affirms thatforty isn't the end of the road — sometimes, it's a new beginning.

37. The Memory Keeper's Daughter

The Memory Keeper's Daughter was a quick, but compelling read. The description:

"Photography is all about secrets," says David Henry. "The secrets we all have and will never tell." The price we pay for such secrets is what drives the action Edwards's wholly absorbing novel. It opens during a snowstorm in 1962, when David's young wife, Norah, goes into labor prematurely. When the storm prevents her obstetrician from attending the birth, David and his nurse, Caroline, must handle it themselves. Caroline puts Norah to sleep -- a standard practice then -- and David delivers an unanticipated set of twins. The baby boy is healthy; the second child, a baby girl, has Down syndrome.Haunted by the memory of growing up with a chronically ill sister, David makes a split-second decision. He asks Caroline to take his infant daughter to an institution, and when Norah wakes, he tells her that the second child was stillborn. The right decision? Clearly not, yet David fervently believes he's chosen the best course of action. But his decision has a ripple effect that will last throughout his life, touching the lives of others. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Edwards has written a novel both delightful and sad. Spanning 25 years, The Memory Keeper's Daughter carries the powerful message that regardless of what we do, our past never stops haunting our future.

This one is sad, but thought provoking and definitely a good read.

36. Flirting with Forty

This was another B&N read. It had it's highpoints, mostly talking about taking care of yourself and making yourself happy and not just taking care of others. Not the best book ever, but not all that bad either...

The description - In Porter's second dip into the chick lit pool (after The Frog Prince), Seattle single mom Jackie Laurens begins wondering how important happiness is: divorced with two kids and a thriving decorating business, she assumes she's happy, but can't help feeling like something's missing. When her married friend, Anne, arranges for the two of them to indulge in a Hawaiian getaway in honor of Jackie's 40th birthday, Jackie agrees. Anne backs out at the last second, but Jackie decides to suffer through the vacation solo. Hawaii is gorgeous, but the hotel pool deck groans under the weight of middle-aged men whose coarse chutzpah is only overshadowed by their flabby bellies. Just before she resigns herself to the depressing prospects, she meets Kai, a sexy, tan and much younger surfing instructor. Life doesn't get better, only more complicated as Jackie tries to balance the sultry, sweaty joys of Hawaii and Kai with the obligations of motherhood. Porter's romance roots show in the gratuitous sex scenes and in how easily tears flow from Jackie's eyes, but this book fits the bill as a calorie-free accompaniment for a poolside daiquiri.

35. Family Baggage

Number 35 is Family Baggage, by the same author as The Alphabet Sisters. I liked this one just as much as that one. Here's the description:

Turner Travel specializes in themed tours that take Merryn Bay, Australia, locals abroad. The natural deaths, two months apart, of patriarch and matriarch Neil and Penny Turner leave the family business in the hands of their three children, Harriet, James and Austin; foster daughter Lara; and a handful of family friends. The book opens as Harriet, still recovering from her mother's death, leads 12 tourists through the Cornwall countryside in the footsteps of British TV detective Willoughby, but flashes back to the family's past and various coping strategies: James hides behind his domineering wife, Melissa; Austin parties; Lara, taken in by the family under mysterious circumstances nearly 25 years earlier, is the model of efficiency. Meanwhile Lara, who was to aid Harriet on the Cornwall tour, has disappeared, and Patrick Shawcross, the actor who played Willoughby and who has been hired to accompany the tour has mistaken it for a where-are-they-now media opportunity. The mystery of Lara's family and Melissa's nefariousness come to light, and Harriet's love life heats up.

34. Any Place I Hang My Hat

This one was a B&N read, a little bit last weekend and finished up today, but I liked it so much I wish I hadn't started it there so I could own it. First, as usual, the B&N description:

No matter which side of the nature/nurture debate you're on, Amy Lincoln's prospects do not look good. Her mother abandoned her when she was ten months old (just a couple of months after Amy's father went off to serve his first prison term), leaving her in the care of Grandma Lil, who shoplifts dinner on the way home from her job as a leg waxer to the rich and refined.

When Amy is fourteen, she gets a scholarship to a New England boarding school -- her exposure to the moneyed class. After Harvard and the Columbia School of Journalism, Amy becomes a political reporter for the prestigious weekly In Depth. While covering a political fund-raiser, Amy meets a college student who claims to be the son of one of the presidential candidates. It's precisely the sort of story that In Depth wouldn't deign to cover, but the idea of tracking down a lost parent and demanding recognition intrigues Amy. As she begins a search of her own past as well as the candidate's, she discovers a new and unimpeachable grandmother and a mother who is much more than she bargained for. Most important, she finally comes to understand the stuff she's made of and finds the perfect place to hang her hat in the world.


Bold, insightful, witty, and exhilarating, Any Place I Hang My Hat is a novel about one extraordinary young woman looking for a place to belong -- by one of the most compelling and beloved voices in contemporary fiction.

This book was really well written and filled with lots of current references. I really like that in a book, reading it and feeling like the story could actually be taking place. I liked the main character a lot and the way she handled her life. No, she most certainly wasn't flawless, but she didn't let her problems stop her and I respect that a lot. I'd definitely recommend this one.

33. Mercy

Yes, another Jodi Picoult book... First, the description from B&N:


Police chief of a small Massachusetts town, Cameron McDonald makes the toughest arrest of his life when his own cousin Jamie comes to him and confesses outright that he has killed his terminally ill wife out of mercy.

Now, a heated murder trial plunges the town into upheaval, and drives a wedge into a contented marriage: Cameron, aiding the prosecution in their case against Jamie, is suddenly at odds with his devoted wife, Allie — seduced by the idea of a man so in love with his wife that he'd grant all her wishes, even her wish to end her life. And when an inexplicable attraction leads to a shocking betrayal, Allie faces the hardest questions of the heart: when does love cross the line of moral obligation? And what does it mean to truly love another?

Praised for her "personal, detail-rich style" (Glamour), Jodi Picoult infuses this page-turning novel with heart, warmth, and startling candor, taking readers on an unforgettable emotional journey.

This one as well as her others was really good. Not in my top favorites, but still a good read. It's really thought provoking as well, making you consider the questions that you think you know the answer to, but when love and life happen you really have to stop and wonder what you would do.

32. Salem Falls

Yes, it's another Jodi Picoult book and yes, another really good read and provocative topic. Here's the B&N Description -

When Jack St. Bride arrives by chance in the sleepy New England town of Salem Falls, he decides to reinvent himself. Tall, blond, and handsome, Jack was once a beloved teacher and soccer coach at a girls' prep school—until a student's crush sparked a powder keg of accusation and robbed him of his reputation. Now, working for minimum wage washing dishes for Addie Peabody at the Do-Or-Diner, Jack buries his past, content to become the mysterious stranger who has appeared out of the blue.

With ghosts of her own haunting her, Addie Peabody is as cautious around men ad Jack St. Bride is around women. But as this unassuming stranger steps smoothly into the diner's daily routine, she finds him fitting just as comfortably inside her heart—and slowly, a gentle, healing love takes hold between them.

Yet planting roots in Salem Falls may prove fateful for Jack. Amid the white-painted centuries-old churches, a quartet of bored, privileged teeage girls have formed a coven that is crossing the line between amusment and malicious intent. Quick to notice the attractive new employee at Addie's diner, the girls turn Jack's world upside down with a shattering allegation that causes history to repeat itself—and forces Jack to proclaim his innocence once again. Suddenly nothing in Salem Falls is as it seems: a safe haven turns dangerous, an innocent girl meets evil face-to-face, a dishwasher with a Ph.D. is revealed to be an ex-con. As Jack's hidden past catches up with him, the seams of this tiny town begin to tear, and the emerging truth becomes a slippery concept written in shades of gray. Now Addie, desperate for answers, must look into her heart—and into Jack's lies and shadowy secrets; for evidence that will condemn or redeem the man she has come to love.

I really liked this one as well, better than The Tenth Circle and The Pact, not quite as good as Picture Perfect. The story line again is a bit on the depressing side, but it's still compelling and very well written. And there's a bit of a twist at the end... If you are reading Picoult's books, add this one to the list.

31. Picture Perfect

Continuing on the Jodi Picoult kick.... book 31 was Picture Perfect. I really liked it. First, the B&N description - To the outside world, they seem to have it all. Cassie Barrett, a renowned anthropologist, and Alex Rivers, one of Hollywood's hottest actors, met on the set of a motion picture in Africa. They shared childhood tales, toasted the future, and declared their love in a fairy-tale wedding. But when they return to California, something alters the picture of their perfect marriage. A frightening pattern is taking shape-a cycle of hurt, denial, and promises, thinly veiled by glamour. Torn between fear and something that resembles love, Cassie wrestles with questions she never dreamed she would face: How can she leave? Then again, how can she stay?

The back cover doesn't tell much of what the story is about. The book really covers the stories of three people's lives - Cassie, her husband Alex and the Native American police office who finds her when she runs from her husband and ends up with amnesia. This book does a really good job of showing the emotional baggage and history that leads people to act the way they do. Despite the harsh and depressing subject matter I really liked this book and definitely recommend it.

30. The Tenth Circle

So Jodi Picoult has written 13 books and this was her latest and my 6th. The Tenth Circle another really powerful story. The B&N description is:

Jodi Picoult, the New York Times bestselling author of Vanishing Acts, offers her most powerful chronicle yet of an American family with a story that probes the unbreakable bond between parent and child — and the dangerous repercussions of trying to play the hero.
Trixie Stone is fourteen years old and in love for the first time. She's also the light of her father's life — a straight-A student; a freshman in high school who is pretty and popular; a girl who's always looked up to Daniel Stone as a hero. Until, that is, her world is turned upside down with a single act of violence. . . and suddenly everything Trixie has believed about her family — and herself — seems to be a lie.

For fifteen years, Daniel Stone has been an even-tempered, mild-mannered man: a stay-at-home dad to Trixie and a husband who has put his own career as a comic book artist behind that of his wife, Laura, who teaches Dante's Inferno at a local college. But years ago, he was completely different: growing up as the only white boy in an Eskimo village, he was teased mercilessly for the color of his skin. He learned to fight back: stealing, drinking, robbing, and cheating his way out of the Alaskan bush. To become part of a family, he reinvented himself, channeling his rage onto the page and burying his past completely. . . until now. Could the young boy who once made Trixie's face fill with light when he came to the door have been the one to end her childhood forever? She says that he is, and that is all it takes to make Daniel, a man with a history he has hidden even from his family, venture to helland back in order to protect his daughter.

The Tenth Circle looks at that delicate moment when a child learns that her parents don't know all of the answers and when being a good parent means letting go of your child. It asks whether you can reinvent yourself in the course of a lifetime or if your mistakes are carried forever — if life is, as in any good comic book, a struggle to control good and evil, or if good and evil control you.

I just finished listening to the audio version of My Sister's Keeper and maybe that's why this one just didn't thrill me as much as her others. A good story for sure, and a page turner - I read the whole thing in one sitting - but of the six Jodi Picoult books I've read I'd rank this one in the bottom three (with My Sister's Keeper, Keeping Faith and Plain Truth as my top three).

29. Hitched

Carol Higgins Clarks' Hitched is a good beach read. It's quick, with short chapters and a fast paced story. Her style is a lot like her mom's but with more comedic elements then creepy ones. Here's the B&N description:

Nervous brides may want to wait until after the wedding to read bestseller Clark's winning ninth mystery to feature PI Regan Reilly (after 2005's Burned). With her wedding to Jack "no relation" Reilly, head of the NYPD Major Case Squad, only a week away, Regan thinks she has everything under control. But when she arrives to pick up her wedding dress at Alfred and Charisse's Coutures in Little Italy, she finds the young husband-and-wife designers bound and gagged, a wedding dress shredded on the floor and four others missing, including her own. In spite of all she must do before the wedding, Regan agrees to investigate. Jack, hoping to solve a big bank robbery case before their nuptials, is more than supportive. To Regan's surprise, not all the brides-to-be who've lost their gowns are that distraught. Regan's and Jack's cases convincingly intertwine as the sleuthing trail leads them from the streets of New York to Las Vegas. With her usual cast of quirky characters, Clark's lighthearted romp will keep readers guessing who will and who won't make it to the altar.

28. Keeping Faith

Keeping Faith continues my Jodi Picoult trend... this one was good, really good. Here's the B&N description:

For the second time in her marriage, Mariah White catches her husband with another woman, and Faith, their seven-year-old daughter, witnesses every painful minute. In the aftermath of a sudden divorce, Mariah struggles with depression and Faith seeks solace in a new friend - a friend who may or may not be imaginary. Faith talks to her "Guard" constantly and begins to recite passages from the Bible - a book she's never read. Fearful for her daughter's sanity, Mariah sends her to several psychiatrists. Yet when Faith develops stigmata and begins to perform miraculous healings, Mariah wonders if her daughter - a girl with no religious background - might indeed be seeing God. As word spreads and controversy heightens, Mariah and Faith are besieged by believers and disbelievers alike; they are caught in a media circus that threatens what little stability they have left. What are you willing to believe? Is Faith a prophet or a troubled little girl? Is Mariah a good mother facing an impossible crisis ... or a charlatan using her daughter to reclaim the attention her unfaithful husband withheld? As the story builds to a climactic battle for custody, Mariah must discover that spirit is not necessarily something that comes from religion but from inside oneself.

I'd say this is a must read!

27. The Undomestic Goddess

Sophie Kinsella's The Undomestic Goddess is a good chick-lit book. All of the expected elements and really good for the genre that it is. Unfortunately, I'm quite over this genre so it was a bit of a struggle for me to get through this one. It was just too predictible, too much like her other books and much of what I've been reading for the past few years.

The B&N description: Samantha Sweeting, the 29-year-old heroine of Kinsella's latest confection (after Shopaholic Sister), is on the verge of partnership at the prestigious London law firm Carter Spink-the Holy Grail of her entire workaholic life. But when she finds she has made a terrible, costly mistake just before the partnership decision, she's terrified of being fired. In a fog, she stumbles out of the building and onto the nearest train, which drops her in the countryside, where she wanders to a stately home. The nouveau riche lady of the house mistakes her for the new housekeeper-and Samantha is too astonished to correct her. Numb and unable to face returning to London, Samantha tries to master the finer points of laundry, cooking and cleaning. She discovers that the slow life, her pompous but good-hearted employers and the attentions of the handsome gardener, Nathaniel, suit her just fine. But her past is hard to escape, and when she discovers a terrible secret about her firm-and when the media learns that the former legal star is scrubbing toilets for a living-her life becomes more complicated than ever. If readers can swallow the implausible scenario, then Kinsella's genuine charm and sweet wit may continue to win her fans.

So, if you're still into Chick-lit, I'd read it, but if you're feeling over it like me then I'd pass this one by....

26. Finishing Touches

Again, not the typical Chick lit. Finishing Touches had more substance and was a really good look at how we perceive ourselves, how others perceive us and how those two things impact our actions.

From B&N: Furniture store manager Jesse Holtz has two close friends, Cecile and Bryn who make her feel life is good. Jesse especially is happy for Cecile, who is getting married in a few days to Zach, her college boyfriend. However a tragic auto accident kills Cecile.-------------------- Bryn and Zach mourn their loss, but not as heavily as Jesse grieves. Zach offers comfort and Jesse accepts it. As they get closer to one another, Bryn feels left out with no one to help her through the loss. Almost one year later, Jesse realizes no one has really moved on something that Cecile would have expected of them. Perhaps the $50,000 that she inherited from her friend can be put to good use helping everyone fondly remember Cecile and also get on with their lives while she personally can celebrate her growing relationship with Zach resented by seemingly everyone else who insists he belongs to Cecile.-------------- FINISHING TOUCHES is an intriguing character study that follows several people going through the phases of grief after a loved one died suddenly in an accident. The key troupe members to include the late Cecile consist of full dimensional caring characters who struggle to come to grips with the tragedy, which leads to new issues between them. Though at times the ensemble support cast seems overwhelming and slows down the insightful story line, contemporary readers will appreciate this often sad, but also at time humorous well written relationship drama.

This one is definitely a good read!

25. The Year of Pleasures

The Year of Pleasures was a quick read. I don't know how many pages you need to classify something as a novella instead of a novel, but I'm guessing this one - around 150 pages - is kinda close to that limit. I liked that I could get through it pretty quickly, but I feel like the story wasn't as developed as it could have been. It was just long enough to introduce me to all of these really interesting characters and then there wasn't enough time to develop them and find out what happened in their lives.

The description - Berg's unique gift is for capturing emotions and joys in women's lives, this time with the story of a woman who refuses to let widowhood define her, and goes about recreating a happy and meaningful life. She moves to a new town after the death of her husband, where she rents a room in a house with two young men. She forms a mother/lover relationship with one of the young men, then meets a man with whom she also starts a relationship, with complicated results. At the same time, she reconnects with three college friends; they don't live in her new town but they begin to correspond and visit each other. Reinvention of a self and a life, through love and forming connections between one's past, present, and future is at the heart of this beautiful novel.

The description there is a bit sappier then I'd go with, and actually not accurrate unless I missed the "lover" part of the relationship with one of the young men. But anyway, it's a pretty good book. You'll probably like it.