Short, Fast and Furious Read: Life and Other

What it's about (from the publisher):

Libby Miller has always been an unwavering optimist—but when her husband drops a bomb on their marriage the same day a doctor delivers devastating news, she realizes her rose-colored glasses have actually been blinding her.

With nothing left to lose, she abandons her life in Chicago for the clear waters and bright beaches of the Caribbean for what might be her last hurrah. Despite her new sunny locale, her plans go awry when she finds that she can’t quite outrun the past or bring herself to face an unknowable future. Every day of tropical bliss may be an invitation to disaster, but with her twin brother on her trail and a new relationship on the horizon, Libby is determined to forget about fate. Will she risk it all to live—and love—a little longer?

From critically acclaimed author Camille Pagán comes a hilarious and hopeful story about a woman choosing between a “perfect” life and actually living.

 My take:

This is what adults call short chick lit, fast prose and furious circumstances. It is a formula, true, but the quick pace necessary for a short read makes it less formulaic somehow. You get to know Libby and want to root for her and everything happens fast enough that you don't get tired of her. She will seem familiar to the middle reader because especially in the beginning, she kind of acts like a middle schooler.

I guess I would call this a beach read, but I actually should create a different category. This is a plane read as long as you are able to create a translucent wall around yourself so that no one sees you crying (that is if you are a crying kind of person). I am not giving out a spoiler alert, so do not read too much into this comment. Still, at 250 Kindle pages, you can finish this book on a flight from Honolulu to Seattle.

How To Bake a Perfect Life

Author: Barbara O'Neal
Paperback: 398 pages
Publisher: Bantam Books (2011)

Rating: 4 out of 5


If you're looking for a light read, chick lit, recipes interspersed, multi-generational romance, this is a great book to hunker down with. Try to eat ahead of time and let it sweep you away.

Erin McCahan Blog Tour: I Now Pronounce You Someone Else

The blog tour is on for this book and I must say, I totally just LOVED it and knew that this was a message that I wanted my students to read about. I actually jumped the whole blog tour gun by posting my review early, so my review is linked here.

Review for I Now Pronounce You Someone Else

I would love to give this book away except that it is making its rounds among my own students and there's still a waiting list.

Who is this book for? Girls who want to read a romance story without the sleaze factor and the girls behaving badly scenes. Guys who want to read about a genuinely good guy who doesn't have to be the "bad boy" to get the girl.

If this sounds like the right book for you, check out I Now Pronounce You Someone Else by Erin McCahan.

I Now Pronounce You Someone Else by Erin McCahan

Rating: 5 out of 5
Softcover: 258 pages
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
Genre: YA chick lit
Source: this book is courtesy of Selena from Booksparks in exchange for an honest review

About the book (from the publisher)

High school senior Bronwen Oliver swore she was switched at birth.  She has nothing in common with her stoic, blonde mother or her ketchup loving brother and dreams only of her fantastical family, the Lilywhites, coming to take her away. 

However, when 22-year-old Jared Sondervan comes into her life she can hardly believe how lucky she is.  He is respectful, sweet and a part of the most wonderful family Bronwen has ever met.  When Jared proposes she doesn’t hesitate to say yes.  But as the wedding draws closer she has to decide whether she wants to be a Sondervan or fully embrace being Bronwen Oliver.

My thoughts

I honestly had a very full Saturday planned when I woke up this morning, but I received this book in the mail this week and just was going to start reading the first chapter with coffee.  I didn't put it down until the very last page. Finally, a refreshing YA chick lit book with romance of the human kind, no conniving, back stabbing drama, and although there is heartbreak, it doesn't wallow in it for 200 pages. Thank you Ms. McCahan! Bronwen is a heroine that young women can look up to. She's got a good head on her shoulders, her morals are sound, and although she dreams that she belongs to another family, she really tries to be a good daughter and a loyal friend. I find Bronwen's voice in the book charming and fresh. Finally a character with her own high standards. It also helps that Jared, the love interest, is a character to "sigh" for. He's got the cutest, non-cheesy, "wish a boy told me that" lines and I think the girls will go gaga for him. No moody, angst-ridden, bad boy here. I laughed, I cried, and at the end, my heart was full. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday.

Erin McMahan has a lovely bio on her blog. Its got Bronwen written all over it. I can't do it justice, just go to her site to read about this first-time novelist. I, having already enjoyed her bio, will wait for her to write more books.

By the way this book, as well as all the other review copies I get this school year are going to the the middle school classroom of Mrs. Tamara Wong Morrison at the Volcano School of Arts and Sciences in Volcano, Hawaii. Public charter schools, and especially Mrs. Morrison's 6, 7, and 8th grade English classroom, are doing a great job of finding creative ways to continue the literature discussions beyond the classroom walls, and I'd like to help by providing books to teens. Middle schools are where we keep readers or lose readers forever. Let's continue to "mind the middle."