Freebies!

Stephanie over at The Written Word is sponsoring a contest to win one of five canvas bags with the book cover of Comfort Food by Kate Jacobs and one lucky person will win an Advanced Reader's Copy of Kate Jacobs new book. Jacobs is the author of The Friday Night Knitting Club, which I really enjoyed. I'm looking forward to reading Comfort Food. And I think there are a few of you out there who might be interested as well. So many of my friends LOVE the Food Network. I can think of several people I should recommend this book to. Now, I am sooo NOT into cooking, but I think this might be interestign. Jacobs' latest effort is about two women who end up co-hosting a cooking show together under not so great circumstances. Since I'm writing on my blog about Stephanie's contest, I'll be entered twice! Whoo hoo!

The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett

I just finished reading this book yesterday. It tells the story of Rose, starting in 1968, who ends up at Saint Elizabeth's, a home for unwed mothers. She was married and found out she was pregnant. One day, she just decided to get in the car and drive across country and ended up at Saint Elizabeth's. In the end, she decides to keep her daughter and in fact, stays on at Saint Elizabeth's as the cook. The book is split into three sections: Rose's story, Son's story (Rose's second husband), and Cecilia's story (Rose's daughter). The title of the book is in reference to St. Elizabeth and the fact that all the pregnant girls that come there lie. They lie about who the father of their baby is, where he is, what they'll do when they go home, etc. Also, there are many lies of omission throughout the book, especially on Rose's part. But really none of the characters do much talking to each other. It's more of a dance around each other.

I picked this book up in the book store and read the prologue which describes a farmer who discovers a spring on his property. It turns out the spring has mystical healing powers and a grand hotel is built nearby to accommodate all the visitors to the spring. Eventually, the spring dries up and people stop visiting. The building becomes Saint Elizabeth's. I thought perhaps the spring would pop up again throughout the book or by the end. But it never reappeared.

Although the book took a slightly different course than I initially thought it would, I enjoyed it. It was a quick read. And I liked reading from the different character's point of view. Rose's character sort of annoyed me throughout the book because she was never happy and I'm not sure why she couldn't let herself be happy. But this puzzled the other characters as well. :-)

Since I haven't read her other books yet, I'm not sure how it measures up, but I liked her writing style and hope to read Bel Canto and Run in the near future.

Lady Julia Grey

Have you discovered her? She's a Victorian lady of the royal sort whose husband dies rather suddenly. A year later, she decides to hire an inquiry agent(detective) to determine if hubby died as a result of foul play. The inquiry agent is a very handsome, very mysterious man named Nicholas Brisbane.

Deanna Raybourn is the American author of this rather offbeat mystery series. She uses British spellings for words like colour which put me off at first. It was hard for me to deal w/a contemporary AMERICAN author writing in Victorian English. However, once I realized the language fit w/the life and times of her books' setting, the spelling and quaint words like draughty just add to the books' charm.

Raybourn's very first novel is SILENT IN THE GRAVE followed by SILENT IN THE SANCTUARY. Lady Julia is a member of the very large March family whose family crest includes a hare as in they're all crazy as a March hare! Each family member is eccentric and barely accepted in English society because of the family reputation for being wild and crazy. Lady Julia really tries to live a "conventional" life but as she turns 30 and decides to investigate her husband's death, she ventures where no proper British lady would dare to go. She surprises even herself when she dresses as a man and visits a gypsy camp as well as samples Brisbane's hookah. She just gets caught up in all sorts of improper adventures!

There's nothing ho hum about the plots in these books. They are page turners w/plenty of plot twists and always a surprise ending. Brisbane makes his appearance in each book in his role as the inquiry agent and Julia's potential lover. He always disappears before the books end and before their love affair gets very far along. The author is very good at leaving the reader wondering if the love affair will ever get beyond the kissing stage. After all, it is the Victorian age!

This series reminds me of Dorothy Sayers' very entertaining Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries written in the 1930's. Peter Wimsey is a very proper English lord who just happens to be very good at detecting in his spare time. He meets the Lady Jane, also a rather unconventional member of British society, and they end up detecting their way through many mysteries. Sayers also keeps you wondering if Jane and Peter's relationship will ever blossom beyond detection. Aside from the gripping drama, Sayers and Raybourn give you an entertaining picture of British society in a funny, literate and thoroughly satisfactory way.

One of these things is not like the other...

I picked up Don't Look Down by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer as a bargain book ($3.99--yay!). The reviews for this were really mixed, so I'd put off reading it. I do love Jennifer Crusie, whose Welcome to Temptation, Getting Rid of Bradley, Manhunting, and other laugh-out-loud contemporary romance-with-some-mystery novels have been very enjoyable, so I suppose I can blame Bob Mayer for this convoluted mess of a book. Mayer is apparently a military adventure-type novelist, and my guess is, not a very good one. I have no idea why Crusie, Mayer, and the publisher thought this was a winning combination. It's as if someone said, "People like peanut butter! People like pickles! Let's put 'em together!" Mayer appears to adore a certain word that begins with the letter 'F' and its variations (clusterf*** is a big favorite...I didn't count, but I believe he topped 20 incidences of this one alone). Now, I'm not offended by vulgar language, and I think in some settings, it's the way to go, but not in a contemporary romance novel. It just shows a lack of imagination on the part of the author--really? You couldn't come up with ANY other word to use? Besides, that annoyance, there are passages of military-speak that must be mind-numbing to most of Crusie's fans. Discussions of various weapons and military strategy just didn't go with the rest of the book. Speaking of which, the plot was confusing and convoluted, with an unnecessary and poorly explained plot by the bad guys and inexplicable responses by good guys. The best part of this book is a charming and adorable Wonder Woman Party for Lucy's niece, but even that is constantly interrupted by people knocking on the door in a tiresome fashion. I'm not even going to summarize the plot for you, just advise you to skip this one. They have a second collaboration called Agnes and the Hitman, that got much better reviews, and since I still love Crusie's humor, I may pick that one up at some point. But maybe at the library!

I've starting reading Joanne Fluke's Hannah Swenson mysteries from the beginning, and I'm having a great time with them. I think I may have read as many as the first 3 when they were first out, but I can't remember who the killers were, so it's like reading them for the first time. The first, Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder, has been re-released with a bonus 100+ page novella at the end that was pretty cute, and some additional recipes. I baked Peach Almond Muffins adapted from the Peach Bread recipe in Key Lime Pie Murder. Yum! Basically, I just dumped the batter into 18 muffin cups instead of 2 loaf pans and cut the baking time. Fantastic.

The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

The Wee Free Men is part of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. I've read good things about him as an author so I thought I would check this out. It's the story of nine year old Tiffany Aching. She lives in the hills on her family farm. Her Granny was a shepherd and a witch. Tiffany soon learns she also has the gift. Her younger brother gets kidnapped by the Queen of another world, and she begins her journey to get him back armed with a frying pan, talking toad, and an army of red-headed little men.

At first glance, this book seems like a fun young adult fantasy. I was about half way through it at the start of today and I tried to keep plugging through, but ended up skimming the last half. I stopped skimming and read the last several pages. I really wanted to love this book, or even like it. I think I only mildly enjoyed it. It was humorous. And I enjoyed the descriptions of the worlds and monsters. I also like the idea of Fairy tale monsters coming to life. My biggest problem with it is the language of the Nac Mac Feegles. It has a Scottish base and it got a bit tiring reading it as it was written. I think I would have enjoyed this much more if it were just stated that they spoke with a Scottish accent and then written with regular English. Instead it was written in the Scottish dialect and I found myself having to slow my reading down to catch what they were saying. This greatly annoyed me! Hmm....maybe I would really enjoy these books more as audiobooks! I'll have to think about that.

So now, I have A Hat Full of Sky sitting here from the library and I'm debating whether to read it now, or skip it all together and go right to Wintersmith.

Naptime is the New Happy Hour

This book by Stefanie Wilder-Taylor has a healthy dose of humor, sarcasm, and parenting advice. Her first book Sippy Cups are NOT for Chardonnay is an hysterical look at parenting in the first year. This sequel takes a look at toddlerhood and I suspect she will have a third book out in another year or two about raising twins. ;-)

Wilder-Taylor lives in Los Angeles and she captures the Mommy Culture there perfectly. Having lived there for almost 6 years, spending 3 of those in the Mommy World, I can honestly say her portrayal is right on! I found myself chuckling every few pages and nodding my head in agreement to her tips and anecdotes (yeah, LOVE the Target One Spot and kids really do think there is magic healing power in Disney Princess Band-aids!).

However, this book will translate across the board, whether you live in a big city, podunkville, stay at home or work. Read it! I think all moms go through those feelings of guilt about something or other, have no patience on some days, hate those seemingly "perfect" mommies because they make you feel inadequate. Wilder-Taylor says it all and tells you how to deal with those feelings....hence, the happy hour. :-) It's just nice to know that you're not alone. If you're looking for a fun, light-hearted look at parenting, pick this one up! And the first book too if you haven't read it already.

Oh, and for further reading, Wilder-Taylor has her own blog here.

Key Lime Pie Murder by Joanne Fluke

Okay, somebody else post something, quick, so I stop hogging the blog! I don't know what it is, but I've been reading a lot lately, at the expense of my knitting (I just started Matt's birthday socks, and his birthday was almost two months ago).

Anyway, I know Holly reads this series, and has probably already read this book. I thought it was an excellent entry in a cozy series. Besides the murder mystery, there were several fun subplots: What's behind Moishe's odd behavior? What is Hannah's mother's Secret Project? Will Hannah choose Norman or Mike or even Ross, who still sends her gifts? Will Hannah enter the 21st century world of cell phones and computers with internet access? Some amazon reviewers complain that Hannah's dithering over the men in her life is annoying, that it's unbelievable that she resists computers and cell phones, that the mystery doesn't happen until past 100 pages in. But to me, the fun of this series is small-town life in Lake Eden, Hannah's family, and Hannah's life, and those things don't bother me that much. This is a really fun cozy series. And oh yeah, there's a murder, and that part of the story was well-done, too. There are a few cookie recipes I think I'll be trying, though I'm not really a casserole (hot-dish) fan, so that's about it.

Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter by Blaize Clement

Holly sent me excerpts from the improbably named Blaize Clement's most recent (and third) Dixie Hemingway mystery, Even Catsitters Get the Blues. It seemed well-written, with an interesting sleuth, so I picked up the first in the series, Curiosity Killed the Catsitter. This was surprisingly dark and complex for a cozy mystery series. Dixie was a sheriff's deputy on Siesta Key (off the Sarasota coast) until the deaths of her husband and daughter sent her over the edge. She regrouped and started a pet-sitting business. When she finds a dead man in a client's home, she's sucked back into the world of investigation, both as a suspect and a person with some inside scoop. I thought Clement pulled off the edgier heroine in a cozy setting quite well. The lifestyle and characters are Siesta Key were an interesting setting, Dixie is sympathetic, and the mystery complex and satisfying. There was one Clue (that's a capital C, as in "Scooby Doo, you've found a Clue!"), let's call it a MacGuffin, that Dixie comes across without recognizing its significance. That's fine, but as it became increasingly clear that the MacGuffin was really important, it started driving me a little crazy that Dixie wasn't picking up on it. However, since she had quite a bit going on and I was paying more attention to details as a reader, I tried to let it go. At any rate, I thought this was a fun, really well-written mystery, and I'll be picking up #2 in the series! I'd recommend it to cozy mystery fans who are open to a little bit edgier book, and even to private detective-type novel fans who aren't usually into cozies.

Public Service Announcement

I forgot to mention that bn.com is having a buy 2, get 1 free sale on all bargain books. This means 3 hardbacks for around $10-12! I was excited about this and grabbed a couple i had been meaning to read but hadn't wanted to pay $25 for. Unfortunately, you only get one free, no matter how many you buy.

I'm currently reading Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter by the improbably named Blaize Clement. Fun!

And now for something completely different...

What Looks Like Crazy by Charlotte Hughes was a fun diversion, and a great break from the intensity of the Lippman novel. Hughes is co-author with Janet Evanovich on the Full House series, which I've enjoyed (though not as much as the Stephanie Plum books). When I see a no-name sharing author credit with a bestseller, my jaded opinion is usually that the no-name did all the work and the big name is there to sell books. It doesn't really matter, because I like Charlotte Hughes' writing, and if it hadn't been for Evanovich, this book likely wouldn't exist. Comparisons between this new series and Stephanie Plum are inevitable, but I didn't think this was a knockoff. Kate is a funny, smart, neurotic psychologist with relationship issues. In her job, she encounters plenty of "nutcases," as her wealthy receptionist Mona calls them, and they bring lots of fun to the mix. Kate's mother and aunt own a junk shop (from which Kate's condo is decorated) and they bring another element of fun. Kate's two exes bring in the obligatory romantic element. Hughes is a little drier in her wit, less laugh-out-loud and farcical, but it's a different kind of funny, not a lack of funny, if that makes sense. I think this is a good beach read, and I look forward to the next one.

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman

This was a gripping, well-paced mystery (I hesitate to call it a thriller since no one is really in danger) that begins when a woman is apprehended leaving a car accident. She alludes to the Bethany sisters (whose disappearance thirty years before was never solved) but clams up without sharing her identity. She eventually claims to be one of the sisters, and the book is extremely well-paced, using flashbacks to explore the parents and sisters at various points during the thirty year gap. The current characters, a social worker and two cops, one who retired after the Bethany case (and to a lesser extent, an attorney) are well-fleshed out and the impact of the disappearance on their lives is believable. It was hard to put this book down. I really wanted to know who this woman was and what happened to the girls. I recommend this to anyone who's a fan of suspense.

ToB 2008 Winner

These are the finalists in the 2008 Tournament of Books. And the winner: The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. I haven't really looked at either of these books. I'll have to check them out next time I'm at the bookstore. Please comment if anyone has read them!

Randomness

I went from not really being excited about any books I had in the house to having too many! I guess that's a good problem to have. A bunch of library requests came through at the same time so I have a few books from the library. I also received a free advance copy of a new book!

We'll start with that one: Off the Deep End by W. Hodding Carter. As a member of LibraryThing, you can choose to put your name in to receive advance copies of upcoming books, the only catch is that they ask you to review them. Well, to me, that's not much of a catch. I'd probably do that anyway. Usually there are 400-600 people for each book and maybe 15-50 copies of the book sent out. This was the first book I won. It's the story of Hodding, an over-40 man who used to be a competitive collegiate swimmer. He always dreamed of making it to the Olympics. He didn't have the chance when he was young and becomes obsessed with the idea as a middle-aged man. The book is his memoir of his journey.

It took me a while to get used to Carter's more conversational style of writing. It is very informal, and he tends to interject in the middle of his sentences. Anyone who was a competitive swimmer would probably really enjoy this book. I found it mildly interesting, but not incredibly fascinating. I had preconceived ideas that it might be more of an inspiring story, however, it is more about a man's mid-life crisis journey. Because its an advance copy, the end of the book is missing where you find out if he really did qualify for the Olympics this summer. Once it is published, I'll probably pick it up at the bookstore and just skim through the end.

In other book news, this week is Buy-a-Friend-a-Book Week. More info here. :-)

A while ago, I bought Terry Pratchett's Wintersmith as a bargain book. I've been reading very good things about Pratchett as a young adult author so I thought I would grab. I discovered this was part of a series of books in his Discworld. Discworld appears to be a large series with many tangents or several series within a larger umbrella series. Does that make any sense? At any rate, there were 2 books in this series before Wintersmith (The Wee Free Men and A Hat Full of Sky) so I picked up both of them from the library and plan on reading them before I get to Wintersmith. I'm sure I could have read Wintersmith out of order, but I'm kind of anal when it comes to that sort of thing and like to start with the first in a series.

I also have The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett sitting here. I went to the bookstore to look for Run. I just wanted to check it out. However, they were sold out. So I picked this one up instead and read the first few pages. I was really engaged so I requested it from the library. Of course, I received it at the same time as some other books. ;-)

And the last book I currently have sitting around here waiting to be read is Naptime is the New Happy Hour by Stefanie Wilder-Taylor. She also wrote Sippy Cups are NOT for Chardonnay, which was hysterical. I can't wait to read this this. Her first book was so funny and true about parenting. I can only imagine what she has to say about the toddler years. I have a feeling I can recommend this one to other mothers without even having read it yet!

Well, I think that's all for now. I've been sort of schizophrenic about deciding which one of these to delve into, they all seem good to me. I guess I'll just see what clicks with my mood today...

Run

Run by Ann Patchett is everything you would expect from the author of Bel Canto. Patchett's prose is lyrical. Her writing is so beautiful. The similes she concocts are amazing. Her prose just flows through this sweet story of a Boston politician's adopted children and his expectations for their lives. Each character is so finely wrought. You feel like you could meet any one of them on the corner of your street. Patchett gives you a slice of life and her characters make the most of it. Enjoy!

ToB Reviews

I don't have any new books to post, but thought I would let you know that Girl Detective has created a reading challenge for herself. She is trying to get through some of the ToB books. So far she has reviewed the following:

An Arsonist's Guide to Writer's Homes in New England
What the Dead Know
Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name
On Chesil Beach

Just thought some of you might be interested. :-)
Happy Reading!

Possible ToB Winner Review

So, I read Then We Came To The End by Joshua Ferris, which is headed to the semifinals in the Tournament of Books. It was fantastic. Seriously, one of the best books I've read in a long time. It's extremely funny, with a unique voice (the corporate "we") that manages to explore group dynamics without losing the individuality of the group members. Who doesn't love a book with the awesome first line, "We were fractious and overpaid."? Excellent stuff. There is a lot of funny here as Ferris explores the contradictions, excess, and search for meaning in an ad agency just as the dot-com bubble bursts. The group dynamics shift and change as layoffs loom over the entire office and the employees wonder whether or not their boss has cancer. This would have been a fantastic bit of office humor, but Ferris goes deeper than Office Space for insights into finding meaning in one's life, how to face death, and how we break when pushed too hard. Brilliant, amazing, fantastic first novel, and I can't recommend it highly enough.

Back To The Stack

You know, I waited so long to chat about some of my stack I can't even remember what I read. I've been a big fan of Nora Roberts for years. She does a variety of chick lit. There's always a romance somewhere in her books. Besides writing under her own name, she writes a romantic detective series set in New York City in 2058 under the pseudonym, J. D. Robb. Her latest on the best seller list is Strangers in Death. Her tough cookie, very smart female detective, Eve Dallas, solves murders while living life in the fast lane of future NYC. I love Robb's descriptions of the clothing, homes, electronics, cars, food, etc as she imagines them to be 50 years from now.In this book, Robb's murderer steals the plot from Hitchcock's movie, Strangers On A Train. Like the TV series, Law & Order, you know who the murderer is by mid book. The author leads you through the evidence bit by bit until she has her case built and her suspect firmly in her clutches. It's Eve's job to get her suspect to confess which of course, she does by book's end.

Deep Dish by Mary Kay Andrews is a book right out of the reality TV series TOP CHEF. I LOVE TOP CHEF where a bunch of up and coming chefs are challenged each week to create some appetizing dish and then judged on who did the best. Deep Dish pits two chefs, one a former beauty contest participant who cooks healthy and the other, a studly male whose motto is "kill it and grill it," against each other in a battle to become the next host of a network cooking show. They travel to a remote island off the Georgia coast to cook for a trio of stereotypical professional chef judges. Love blossoms in this light and tasty novel which includes recipes at the end!

Other books in my just finished stack include Killing Ground, the latest Jack Higgins Sean Dillon spy thriller, Heart Sick by Chelsea Cain, a serial killer suspense, and Damage Control by Robert Dugoni, another murder suspense novel. Loved them all for their solid intrigue and nice tidy endings.

My Stack

I used to have a large stack of books waiting to be read. Now, I have a large stack of books waiting for me to BLOG! So, here goes.

I'm a huge fan of thrillers of all sorts. I just finished two by Alex Berenson, The Faithful Spy and The Ghost War. They both are current event style thrillers concerning Iraq, al Qaeda and the mess we having going in the middle east.

In Faithful Spy, Berenson introduces his main character, John Wells, who is in the midst of a ten year long infiltration of al qaeda. He's had very little contact w/his CIA handlers during this time. Consequently, the powers that be in the CIA think he may have actually crossed over to the other side. Not true but only one CIA employee actually believes John still is a valuable and true source in the post 9/11 war on terror. The book is full of intrigue and drama as Wells tries to foil a terrorist plot to release a deadly plague causing bacteria in New York City. There's a lot of murder and mayhem very reminiscent of Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne spy series.

The Ghost War pretty much picks up where The Faithful Spy left off only John Wells is now back in the Satates and life is BORING. Of course, he volunteers to return to the Middle East to determine what world power is sponsoring a sudden surge in Taliban activity. What he uncovers is a plot that reaches into the highest levels of the CIA and he has to stop China and North Korea from going NUCLEAR!! Again, lots of spine tingling, last possible second only John Wells can save the world from destruction action. I really can't wait to see how John saves the US and world from the bumbling ineptitude of the CIA and other spy agencies in Berenson's next book.

Stephen King uses a little lighter hand w/the paranormal and supernatural in his newest best seller, Duma Key. It's still there along w/his scatological vulgar vocabulary which he also uses less of than usual. Duma is set in the Florida Keys where his characters are part of the wealthy Florida art scene. His "hero" is a Minnesota contractor who is involved in a terrible work site construction accident, loses his arm, chucks the building business and goes off to Florida to recoupe. There he discovers an extraordinary(of course, this is Stephen King) painting talent and meets a wealthy, ancient crone and her caretaker, a former high powered attorney, who is also escaping real life on Duma Key. As in all King's books, there's murder and weird events but what I really liked about this book was King's cast of Minnesota characters from real suburbs of the Twin Cities as well as his art related plot twists including Salvador Dali. He just spoke to native Minnesotan, Art History minoring me.

Easter Brunch is calling so more later. I've hardly gotten through half my book stack.

Man Walks Into A Room by Nicole Krauss

I really wanted this to be a five-star review, and if I had stopped around page 75, it would have been. Krauss is a fantastic writer, and there are passages of achingly beautiful prose that highlight the potential that is never realized in this, her first novel. But Man Walks Into A Room is too scattered and wanders off on too many tangents. The book begins with a memory seemingly unrelated to any of the characters we meet for those first 75 pages, and this was annoying, but I was sucked into the gentle exploration of Samson, who is found wandering in the desert, all memories since the age of 12 obliterated by a tumor. He does not recognize his wife, Anna, and Krauss explores her reaction to Samson's condition in a peripheral kind of way. The story up to this point is fascinating and beautifully written. Then Krauss veers off onto a science-fictiony tangent that the framework just can't support. I tolerated this for a while, but by 125 or so pages, I was irritated and cranky and wanting the story to be over, but the opening had been so promising that I felt compelled to keep reading to see if she redeemed herself. Nope. After the science fictiony bit is finally blissfully over, we go into this other part in which Samson connects with a teenager and then his senile uncle in sort of obvious, yet obscure, ways. And the ending just fizzled out. This could have been a really amazing book, but Krauss was too ambitious in her scope and the story suffered for it. Ultimately, I don't recommend this book, but I do want to read her second novel, The History of Love, in the hopes that she reaches her potential there.

Edited to add: I have current books from ToB to read, but I started this while waiting for them to arrive. I think I felt spurred to clear some of my literary backlog by the imminent arrival of new books :) I'm reading these interspersed with my Jane Jeffry mysteries.

The Pact by Jodi Picoult

I finished The Pact over the weekend while I was laying around recuperating from this cold/flu bug that has been going around. Again, as with her other books, it was a very easy, quick read. However, this one was not quite up to my expectations. It wasn't bad. It just wasn't as good as Salem Falls or My Sister's Keeper. I think Plain Truth was a bit better as well.

The story is about a teenage couple, both age seventeen, who have known each other all their lives. They lived next door to each other. They had a very mature relationship for their age and were apparently in love. Then one night the boy shows up in the hospital with a head wound and the girl winds up dead from a gunshot wound. According to initial interviews with the boy, this was a suicide pact gone wrong. However, we find out that might not necessarily be the truth. Aside from the boy and girl having a relationship, both their families are the best of friends. The boy ends up being accused of murdering the girl and the trial tears the families apart. As with other Picoult books, the last third plays out in the courtroom.

I think one of the things that bothered me about the book is that I didn't find the topic as interesting as some of her other books. The front cover of my copy of the book had an icon claiming, "Soon to be a Lifetime Original Movie!". Now, nothing against the Lifetime channel or their movies. I can definitely see where this book would fit their usual type of storyline. But I found it a bit sappy for my tastes. I felt the book was pretty contrived and I guess the characters didn't grow on me the same as some of her other characters have. I didn't have much sympathy for Emily, the character who commits suicide. And there was an underlying storyline of sexual abuse that I felt Picoult could have made stronger which might have made Emily a little more sympathetic or perhaps the courtroom scene more dramatic. I think it would have been more interesting if the abuse had been revealed to the boyfriend or the parents by the end of the book.

Not to say this book is a waste of time, because it is not. I'm just being more critical in comparing it to some of Picoult's other books. I'm looking forward to reading some more of her books that I have on my bookshelf and I think her newest release Change of Heart sounds like an interesting story. I think I'm just not a big sucker for romance. :-) If you are, you might like this more than I did.