me again by Keith Cronin

me again by Keith Cronin
322 pages
Published August 2011 by Gale Cengage Learning
Source: the publisher and TLC Book Tours

"I was born on a Tuesday morning. It was a difficult birth, because I was thirty-four years old."

Six years after slipping into a coma following a stroke, Jonathon Hooper miraculously wakes up. His body is atrophied and he can't remember much of anything or anyone from his past. Not the girlfriend who breaks up with him the first time she visits him, not the brother who seems to take a little too much pleasure in watching Jonathon suffer, not the parents who are so eager to have him remember his past. Not wanting to hurt anyone, though, Jonathon immediately decides it's best to let them think that even though he can't remember his previous life, he can remember them.

The only person who really seems to understand what Jonathon goes through in the next few months is Rebecca, a beautiful young woman who has also suffered a stroke and goes through rehabilitation in the same facility Jonathon starts out in. Neither Rebecca or Jonathon is the person they were before their strokes. In Jonathon's case, this soon proves to be a good thing; he was not a good person. But for Rebecca, it means that she is no longer than wife she once was, which puts a tremendous strain on her marriage.

Jonathon's mother works very hard to bring his memory back, pulling out photo album after photo album and having people his life stop by to visit. All of this seems to be moot until one afternoon Jonathon rounds a corner in the house to find the first familiar face he has seen. Once the door to memories has opened, it is only a matter of time before some of Jonathon's past comes back to him.

I can't recall my immediate thoughts when presented me again for review, but I'm quite sure that curiosity was the deciding factor in me agreeing to review this book because the words "stroke," "coma," and "humor" all appeared in the email. I had to see how Cronin could possibly make a book about stroke recovery humorous. Once again, an author has proved to me that a serious subject can be handled in a light way without making light of the subject. As soon as the staff in the hospital which has been housing Jonathon becomes aware he has awakened:

"Other voices joined in, overlapping each other in conversation, and the name Jesus came up repeatedly.

I formed my first conscious thought: I must be Jesus."

 Ah, irreverence. This book and I are going to get along. Because, seriously, what would you think if you were Jonathon in this situation? And so the story goes; Cronin writes in a way that assured me that he knew what he was talking about when he described the experience of waking up from a coma, recovering from a stroke, and dealing with the aftermath of what the stroke has done. But doing it all with a sense of humor and irony.
" "Did you like that sherbet?"
"No, not particularly."
"Me neither." She leaned forward, her voice growing more insistent. "Now imagine everybody telling you that you used to just love orange sherbet. And that it's really important that you start loving it again."

"That's what my life is like right now. I don't like orange sherbet, but I used to. And now everybody want s me to like it again, and tells me that if I don't, I'm not the person I used to be. And not the kind of person they want to be with.""

There is a side story about that Cronin uses to demonstrate what a terrible person Jonathon used to be that Cronin uses in the end to solve a plot problem. This particular part of the book really didn't work for me. I did, however, think the way Cronin dealt with the relationship between Jonathon and his father was wonderfully real. Perhaps everything wrapped up a bit too neatly for my tastes but I liked the last line as much as I liked the first line.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour. For other opinions, view the full tour schedule. To learn more about Keith Cronin, visit him online at his website, keithcronin.com, or on Facebook.

**Well, this is embarrassing! Even though I had the book right in front of me as I wrote this review, I repeatedly referred to the author as "Kevin" instead of "Keith." I blame a flashback to my years listening to REO Speedwagen. No wonder I couldn't find Cronin on Twitter!

The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine by Alina Bronsky

The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine by Alina Bronsky
304 pages
Published April 2011 by Europa Editions
Source: the publisher

When 17-year-old Sulfia Kalganowa tells her mother that she's pregnant and doesn't know who the father is, her mother, Rosa, doesn't jump to the usual conclusion that her daughter has been sleeping around. Instead, Rosa believes that Sulfia must have gotten pregnant by looking at a man. Is Rosa stupid? Not at all, Rosa just has such a low opinion of her daughter that doesn't think any man would have her. Even if her daughter happens to be a medical miracle, Rosa isn't going to allow her daughter to have this baby and bring shame to her own good name. Despite her best efforts, however, some months later, Aminat is born and Rosa is smitten, despite the child's tendency to cry all of the time. The little girl looks just like Rosa, after all, and isn't that a fortunate thing?

Beginning in 1978 Russia and for the next thirty years, Rosa will spend all of her time and energy "helping" Sulfia find a suitable husband, raising Aminat in the right way (something Sulfia clearly isn't capable of doing), and making sure she gets everything she deserves out of her own life.

Those of you who have read "Olive Kitteridge" will cringe when I tell you that Rosa Achemetowna makes Olive look like the mother of the year. She is, perhaps the most egotistical character ever brought to life on the page and one of the most conniving.

"I think it pleased Sergej to have such a graceful swan like me as his mother-in-law, especially given that he had married such an ugly duckling."

Far from finding Rosa so disagreeable that I didn't want to read another word about her, Bronsky pulled me into Rosa's world. Even after Rosa essentially sells her daughter to a pedophile, I still could not bring myself to hate her. In fact, by the end of the book, I even began to feel sorry for this woman who was so wrapped up in her own view of the world, that she couldn't see what was really happening around her, couldn't really see the people around her for who they were.

Bronsky's writing is crisp, yet detailed and she writes with a wit that makes a character like Rosa someone the reader will care about. I accepted this book as part of my continuing effort to widen my view of the world and I was not disappointed. Bronsky shows the reader what life was like in Russia in the 1980's and 90's for the average citizen and what it felt like for those who finally decided they needed to find another life for themselves in another country. Although the title of this book may give the impression that the book is a light read, Bronsky pulls together a number of serious themes, making it an excellent choice for book clubs.

Helen of Pasadena by Lian Dolan

Helen of Pasadena by Lian Dolan
256 pages
Published November 2010 by Prospect Park Publishing
Source: the publisher for participation in the Manic Mommies Book Club discussion

Helen Fairchild's year has not gotten off to a good start. Oh sure, she lives a life of privilege in her "forever" house, but her pillar-of-the-community husband, Merritt, has just been killed at the Rose Bowl parade.  By a panda float.  Just the night before he had confided to Helen that he was leaving her for another woman so to say that Helen is not entirely grief stricken would be an understatement. The day after the funeral Helen receives another shock when her lawyer, and Merritt's best friend, breaks the news to Helen that Merritt, financial guru, had managed to lose nearly all of their money as well as that of his clients.

Now Helen is faced with the fact that she is going to have to start life all over again.  She's just not sure how.  She has always regretted not finishing that master's degree before she married Merritt and now it turns out that all of the hundreds of hours of volunteering and organizing school and charity events just don't amount to much in the job market.  If she sells the house, the artwork and most of the furniture, Helen just may have enough money to send her son to the private high school he has to attend.  Pretty quickly Helen learns just how much she can count on her very wealthy mother-in-law for help--not at all.

Fortunately Helen knows people and knows people who know people.  Soon she's got the best real estate agent in town and a part-time job for the next few months, working for the gorgeous Patrick O'Neill, archaeologist extraordinaire.  Throw in a couple of great friends and strength she never knew she had and Helen just might do more than survive.  She might just find the happiness that's been lacking in her life for a very long time.

Those of you familiar with Lian Dolan will not be surprised to find out that this book is humorous and smart.  While Dolan doesn't break any new ground with Helen of Pasadena as far as the plot is concerned, she does take take traditional chick-lit (or mom-lit as one reviewer on the Barnes & Noble site called it) and give it some depth and brains.  Helen does not just flounder along following Merritt's death, despite the fact that she often feels that way.  She is, after all, an intelligent woman even if life has just thrown her a major curve ball.  It's obvious that Dolan is familiar with the Pasadena area and soon the reader feels right at home.  You may not mingle with the same kind of monied crowd that Helen does, but you do know these people.

I did think that Helen did fall for Patrick a little too quickly but this being chick-lit, it's to be expected.  And after the dull life she and Merritt had, despite all of their money and possessions, you really can't help but cheer for her.

If you aren't familiar with Lian Dolan, check out her blog, The Chaos Chronicles, and her podcast by the same name, which is recorded in her bedroom closet.  I can't wait to participate with the other Manic Mommies next week when we'll be discussing this book with Ms. Dolan!

Everything I Never Wanted To Be: a memoir of alcoholism and addiction, faith and family, hope and humor

"Everything I Never Wanted To Be: a memoir of alcoholism and addiction, faith and family, hope and humor" by Dina Kucera
218 pages
Published October 2010 by Dream of Things
Source: the publisher and TLC Book Tours

Dina Kucera is the granddaughter of an alcoholic, the daughter of and alcoholic and an addict and herself an alcoholic and addict.  Is it any wonder then that all three of Kucera's daughters also because addicts?  This is the true story of Kucera's family that also includes her husband and sometimes his twin, her mother who suffers from Parkinson's disease and her grandson who has cerebral palsy.


When I was first offered this book, I knew that if it were a work of fiction I would say that the author was trying to do too much.  But you literally cannot make some of this stuff up.  Like the fact that Kucera is a stand-up comic.  Can you even imagine someone who has had this kind of life finding anything to laugh about?  Kucera does bring some of that humor to the book but most of the time she is brutally honest.  She makes no excuses and does not try to back away from taking her share of the blame for what happened to her daughters.  When Kucera was married to her youngest daughter's father, she started to become a mean drunk who picked fights night after night.

"I would scream things like that all night.  I know now the damage it caused to all three of our girls.  I wish I could erase it, but I can't.  I was a lunatic.  The girls started getting into trouble, and I would stagger to their rooms and slur my warnings about how alcohol problems run in our family.  Of course, this didn't include me because I went to work every day and I waited until seven thirty to drink...And they didn't take my advice.  They were teenagers, and they were drinking and using drugs regularly - just like their parents."

It clearly breaks Kucera's heart to think of all that her daughters have suffered through, but it is the experiences of her youngest, Carly, that seem to have been the hardest for her to deal with.  Maybe because Carly started using drugs even younger than her sisters.  Maybe it was because Kucera had to face the fact that she had failed yet another daughter.  Maybe it was just because it had reached the point where it was all too much to bear.

"Carly is nineteen now and has not been to school since she was thirteen.  She has never worked or had a driver's license or had anything or done anything that other people do.  She didn't smoke pot in junior high school and progress to other drugs as she got older.  She smoked pot one day and it seems like she was smoking heroin the next.  There is a slang term for smoking heroin: Chasing the dragon.  That's when Carly began circling the drain.  And because she was so young, it unfolded in front of our eyes as we watched in horror."

The book hops back and forth in time, which could be confusing, and in tense, which didn't really work for me.  Kucera tells "stories" in the book and these are in italics which I didn't understand the need for.  But Kucera pulled me into her family's story and it is a story I will not soon forget.  I defy you to read this book without becoming emotional--horrified, weepy-eyed, and, in the end, hopeful.  Hopeful that this family, who have been through so much, are finally on the road to a happier life.

To learn more about Kucera, visit her website, which including a reader's guide for book clubs and advice on what to do if you think your child is using drugs.  For a full listing of other reviews of this book, visit TLC Book Tours. 

Everything Hurts by Bill Scheft: A Guest Review

"Everything Hurts" by Bill Scheft
Published April 2009 by Simon & Schuster Paperbacks
Source: Bostick Communications and the publisher

Summary from the book:
"Phil Camp has a problem.  Not that he wrote a self-help parody, Where Can I Stow My Baggage?, that the world took seriously and became a bestseller, or that he's been using a phony name.  No, Phil's problem is the limp he's had for months.  His constant pain leads him to Dr. Samuel Abrun, a real doctor who wrote a real self-helpbook (The Power of "Ow!") that has made thousands of people pain free.

So what happens when the self-help fraud meets the genuine item?  Does Phil get better? Can he hoble out of his own way to help himself?  Most important, can the reader make it through fifty pages without thinking, Wait a minute. Is that a twinge I feel in my lower back, or just gas?

Phil embraces the doctor's unorthodox treatments, but saves some passion for Abrun's daughter Janet - who has her own theories about relieving his pain  Meanwhile, Phil delves into his dark past with the Irish Shrink, his psychotherapist.  And to top it off, Phil confronts his nemesis, a right-wing radio blowhard, only to find out they share a common enemy - the same family.

Please welcome my husband, affectionately known here as The Big Guy, to Lit and Life.  When he saw the offer for this book in my email he insisted that we had to give it a read. So I told him I'd ask for a copy if he promised to do the review.  Without further ado, The Big Guy's review of "Everything Hurts."

For those of you that have lived in New York or just enjoy New York stories and culture, this should be an excellent book as it is strongly seasoned with a New York City flavor.  In addition, the story develops some engaging relationships between the main character Phil and his brother, girl friend, ex-wife (in abstentia), neighbor who also does work for him (and her daughter), Irish therapist and the famous author or the "Power of Ow."

You get the impression that Bill Scheft has lived a majority of this book as the characters and story come to life with his extreme wit and a*^ pain that rears its head throughout.  Having sat in disagreeable chair for a few months and picking up a sciatic pain in my leg and rear end for a short period of time, I could relate to Phil's pain.  Luckily  for me it wasn't long term or psychosomatic. His leg and b*#@ pain play the leading lady in the book and seems symbolic for his life and relationships.

Bill shows his penchant for sports and sport writing throughout and you can tell he has great experience in comedic quick-paced writing for David Letterman as he threads his wit into conversations and observations.

The book leans a bit toward a male audience, but will also appeal to women due to Phil's ups and downs with with the women in his life and due to Phil's is vulnerabilities throughout. "Everything Hurts" would be best enjoyed by a reasonably educated crowd but will appear to a wide audience. 

I'm not sure The Big Guy enjoyed this one quite as much as he had hoped to--there was very little laughing out loud--but it was a nice change of pace for him.

Seven Year Switch by Claire Cook

Seven Year Switch by Claire Cook
256 pages
Published June 2010 by Hyperion
Source: the publisher and Pump Up Your Book Promotions

Meet Jill, single mother of ten-year-old Anastasia, who teaches a cooking class one day a week at a senior center, does consulting work, and also works for "Great Girlfriend Getaways" as the webmaster and eight-hour-a-day phone answerer (yes, I know that's not a word!). Jill's been on her own since Anastasia's father disappeared to join the Peace Corp, leaving Jill destitute. It's not so much that she likes things they way they are now but Jill's gotten used to them. Then one day, at the end of her cooking class, Seth, Anastasia's father, appears in the doorway. Seven years later.

"There are seven types of intelligence and seven habits for highly effective people. Hollywood has Seventh Heaven and The Seven Year Itch. There's even a New Age notion that every seven years you shed your skin and become a completely new person, sort of a seven year switch."

Jill wants nothing to do with him but knows that Anastasia, or Asia as her father calls her, has more and more been wanting a father. So Jill allows Seth back into their lives and Seth and Asia hit it off so well that soon both of them are imagining what life might be like if they were all a family again. But Jill isn't so wild about the idea. She knows that if Seth were even five minutes late getting home, she'd be worried that he had left them again. And there's the matter of Billy, a guy she's doing some consulting work for who she also happens to have just started dating.

When the chance to be the group leader for a trip to Costa Rica comes along, Jill jumps at the chance to get away from it all and that may be just what she needs. Meanwhile, Seth is left behind to care for his daughter--and that may be just what he needs as well.

Claire Cook is also the author of "Must Love Dogs." I admit I haven't read that but I love the movie starring Diane Lane and John Cusack. I figured that anyone who wrote the book for that must write books that I would enjoy so I jumped at the chance to read this. And it was just the thing to get me back on track. It's fun, light, and a quick read with the predictable love triangle, quirky friend and struggle to balance it all. But Cook made it all work for me. The characters are fun and, for the most part, believable and you can't help but cheer for Jill even though you aren't really sure which way you're hoping things will turn out.

Here's what other authors are saying about the book:
With wit and tenderness, Claire Cook sweeps us into the life of Jill Murray, a feisty single mom trying to stitch together a future after being abandoned by her husband. This is a delightful story of love, loss, and the surprising events that healed her heart. I cheered for Jill the entire way. (Beth Hoffman, author of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt)

A perfect beach read. Claire Cook once again demonstrates that she's a master in creating funny, warm, relatable characters you root for from the very first page. (Allison Winn Scotch, New York Times bestselling author of The One That I Want and Time of My Life)

Thanks to Dorothy and Pump Up Your Book Promotions for including me on this tour!

**Be sure to check out this giveaway on Claire's site!**

Go to http://ClaireCook.com to win a beach bag filled with all 7 of my novels, plus a beach towel!!

Get Lucky by Katherine Center

Get Lucky by Katherine Center
288 pages
Published April 2010 by Random House
Source: the publisher and TLC Book Tours

Sarah Harper has had a crisis of conscience. Either that or she's just stayed up too late and in her sleepless state made a terrible decision. Either way, she has just sabotaged herself by forwarding on an email that her sister had sent Sarah to her entire company. Which might not be, in and of itself, a bad thing, except that the email was filled with pictures of women's breasts. So the lady that is responsible for the company's latest ad campaign for a line of bras now finds herself without a job. Fired by her former lover. A workaholic, Sarah doesn't know what to do with herself so she puts her things in storage and hops a plane for Houston and her family. As if she were not down enough, Sarah finds herself seated on the plane next to a high-school sweetheart. She broke his heart; he tells her now that she looks old. She can't wait to get to her sister, her closest friend.

But when her sister, Mackie, picks her up at the airport, Mackie has a confession to make. She has come to the end of her options for having a child of her own. She and her husband, Clive, are giving up. Which sets Sarah's mind in motion--why can't she carry Clive and Mackie's baby? After all, they have plenty of room for her to stay with them, can afford to support her and she has no where better to be. Soon Sarah finds herself pregnant with twins and life is not quite as idyllic as she had anticipated. For one thing, she soon tires of Mackie's constant hovering as she tries to protect her babies. Also, it turns out that ex-high school boyfriend was headed to Houston to work with Clive's company, a situation that will put Sarah and him together frequently. And Sarah starts to wonder about giving up these little humans that have been growing inside of her.

Toss into all of this a situation involving the ex-boss and the model for the bra campaign, her widowed father's new girlfriend (Dixie), a crush on her brother-in-law, a new job with a preservation society and a Clive and Mackie's va-va-va-voom tenant and Sarah's life has become anything but the relaxing break she was expecting when she left New York.

I defy you not to get pulled in by a book that opens like this:

"First: I got fired. For emailing a website with hundreds of pictures of breasts to every single person in our company. Even the CEO and chairman of the board. Even the summer interns."

Looking back, I may have been ready to leave my job. I'd like to give myself the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes the crazy things I do are actually very sensible. And sometimes, of course, they're just crazy."

Center's books are probably considered chick-lit by many. And, to be fair, they probably do fall into that category to some extent; at least the two books I have read by her do. There are handsome men, leading ladies in distress, complications, other women--that sort of thing. And in this book, the relationship with the the handsome leading man in this one didn't work that well for me. It just didn't seem to have much development--things just sort of happened.

But this book is so much more than chick-lit. Center's style of writing is unique. She mixes in humor (the kind that sometimes makes me laugh out loud), with moments that really tug at your heart (like the scene where Dixie discovers that Sarah's dad has never gotten rid of one single thing that belonged to her mother), and some really terrific observations about people, our relationships and our life choices.

"Either way, I couldn't get around what they had to say. That an economy based on buying stuff needed to keep us all dissatisfied and miserable, needed to keep us focused on what we didn't have instead of what we did, and needed to convince us that things like happiness and peace and beauty could be bought."

"I should mention that my sister and I were close. We weren't best friends exactly, though--because a best friend is a person you choose. A best friend, in most cases, is a temporary person, too, until she moves away, or gets a promotion and starts working too hard, or just drifts off. Friends depend on a certain amount of convenience. With friends, you have to have their number handy, or work in the same office, of live in the same city. With sisters, none of that matters. And in the end, for me, that would be a lucky thing."

It's gems of truths like those that make me get over the fact that I wasn't wild about the way Sarah's feelings about seeing the babies after they were born was resolved. It's the fact that Center can so accurately describe the feelings that Sarah has about not being in her old life while she's pregnant or how she feels about seeing her father become more and more hermit like that keep me reading. It's lines like "He dressed like a handsomer man" and "...when you're tethered, all you can do is flap like hell to get free---long after your feathers are gone, or even maybe your wings" that make reading Center's books so delightful. And even though the book pretty much wraps everything up with a tidy bow, Center acknowledges that some things in life just aren't that easy to wrap up neatly.

"All this time later, I am glad Mackie got what she wanted, and I'm happy I was able to help her, and I know it was the right thing to do. But I still can't shake the feeling that I've lost her. The weirdness from that pregnancy has fallen away, but the babies did change everything."

For more thoughts on "Get Lucky," check out these stops on the tour:
Thursday, April 1st: Bermuda Onion
Friday, April 2nd: Stephanie’s Written Word
Monday, April 5th: Book Club Classics!
Tuesday, April 6th: Thoughts of an Evil Overlord
Wednesday, April 7th: Pop Culture Junkie
Thursday, April 8th: Caribousmom
Friday, April 9th: Write for a Reader
Monday, April 12th: Peeking Between the Pages
Tuesday, April 13th: Luxury Reading
Wednesday, April 14th: S. Krishna’s Books
Thursday, April 15th: My Friend Amy
Friday, April 16th: Lit and Life
Monday, April 19th: Park City Girl
Tuesday, April 20th: The 3 R’s Blog
Wednesday, April 21st: Jenn’s Bookshelves
Thursday, April 22nd: Maw Books
Monday, April 26th: Write Meg!
Tuesday, April 27th: Rundpinne
Wednesday, April 28th: Diary of an Eccentric
And for more information on Katherine Center and her work, check out www.katherinecenter.com. Thanks to Trish and TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour!

The Bright Side of Disaster by Katherine Center

The Bright Side of Disaster by Katherine Center
256 pages
Published April 2008 by Random House Publishing
Source: Library

Jenny Harris always thought she'd do things the old-fashioned way: fall in love, get married, have a family. After her parents' divorce, it was very important to her to get it "right." But life doesn't always work out the way we think it will. Jenny and Dean are, at least, engaged before she finds herself pregnant. And Jenny thinks that will be fine. And it would have been, of course, if Dean had been a different person. Not the kind of guy who would sleep in while his very pregnant girlfriend is hauling things out onto the lawn for a garage sale.

"Right around eleven-thirty, Dean woke up. He showed up on the porch, still in his clothes from the night before, which were wrinkled and emitting a thick odor of cigars. His boxers were edging up out of his waistband. He did not appear to have brushed his teeth. There he stood, hungover, unshaven, squinting."

Not the kind of guy that would suddenly express an unusual amount of sadness over a coworkers death and significantly less interest in Jenny right when she needed him most.

"I wanted someone to rub my feet and tease me about my belly. I wanted a friend, a distraction from the interminable waiting, anything to give me some assurance about something."

Particularly not the kind of person that would walk out on his pregnant girlfriend. The day after Dean leaves, Jenny goes into labor. It turns out that raising an infant is much more work than Jenny ever expected.

Fortunately, Jenny has some people in her life she can still count on. Her mother helps as often as she can, despite her terrible allergy to a cat that Jenny has somehow gotten saddled with. Mom is full of practical advice, although Jenny isn't always willing to take it.

And there's Gardner, a neighbor Jenny met when he saw her hauling furniture out the morning of her garage sale and stopped to help. When Jenny next sees Gardner, the baby has been born and Jenny is feeling very lonely and shut in.

"He got it. In twenty-five words or less, he knew my whole, sad, cliched story. And knowing the story seemed to make him angry. Most people seemed angry when they found out. But there was something extra nice about his response. A touch of big-brother protectiveness. I breathed it in like a good aroma. Cookies baking, say. Or onions sauteing in butter."

For months Jenny struggles trying to figure out how life with a baby works. Then just when she's starting to get it altogether, Dean returns and Jenny is forced to make some decisions about the life she wants for herself and her child.

Center writes a story filled with humor and warmth. While there are some things in the story that are predictable in this kind of story, the story kept me interested. I was cheering for Jenny to make the right choices and I looked forward to the times when her mom was in the story. Having raised a family while working full-time, I didn't always have a lot of patience with Jenny. I often wanted to shake her by the shoulders and say to her, "quit whining." After all, she was able, thanks to a monthly income from Dean's parents, to stay home with her baby. Yet she never seemed to stop complaining about how little sleep she got, how difficult it was to go anywhere, how showers were all but impossible. Even so, Center was able to make me sympathize with Jenny. A side story about Jenny's father's attempt to reconcile with her mother was delightful. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I'll certainly be looking for Center's most recent book, Everyone is Beautiful.

Only Milo by Barry Smith

Only Milo by Barry Smith
256 pages
Published September 2009 by Inkwater Press
Source: the publisher

Milo is, literally, a closet writer, a man with a stack of unpublished manuscripts neatly stacked in his closet. He has just turned 62 and is finally eligible for Social Security which will allow him to give up his job delivering the Thrifty Nickel want ads. When he takes Margaret on a date, he has her read one of his manuscripts. Milo has used some Spanish in the manuscript and it's this that catches Margaret's attention. She's just discovered a Mexican author and is keen to have his works translated. She's sure he's the next big thing in the publishing industry and Milo is more than happy to have the work. The problem is that the novel is terrible. Since Margaret has no idea what the book is about, Milo decides to entirely rewrite it using one of his own manuscripts. And the book is an enormous success. So successful that the Mexican "author," who is perfectly fine with the whole plan, appears on Oprah. Where he almost spills the beans about the ghost writing. Which does not please Milo at all, because Milo is already hard a work rewriting the Mexican's next novel. Milo has got to take matters into his own hands.

"Maybe it was the SPAM Reuben sandwich."

"If we ate quickly we could catch the "early bird" matinee at the Rialto. $3 a ticket.

Maybe it was the TV tables."

How's that for a first date?

This is definitely the most unique book I have read in a very long time. In fact, I have never seen anything written in the same way. It's a quick read, made much quicker by the fact that I just could not put it down. It's a dark comedy, emphasis on the comedy. Smith has stripped the story down to the essentials and it's a refreshing change. I kept wanting to read passages to the hubby, but I knew almost from the start that I wanted him to read the book as well. It's next up on his tbr stack. When he's done with it, it's going to make the rounds of my family. It's a book that I'm sure everyone from my 17-year-old son to my father might enjoy.

Tomorrow, I'll be posting an interview with Barry Smith and posting a giveaway for your chance to win an autographed copy of "Only Milo."

Family Plots: Love, Death and Tax Evasion by Mary Patrick Kavanaugh

Family Plots: Love, Death and Tax Evasion by Mary Patrick Kavanaugh
300 pages
Published October 2008 by iUniverse Inc.
Source: Pump Up Your Book Promotion

Mary is in debt up to her eyes, has a 3-yr-old daughter and her boyfriend has just admitted to infidelity. When the 1989 San Francisco earthquake hits, it starts Mary on a new path to try to put her life in order. She gives up alcohol and cigarettes, begins to put her finanaces in order and begins a job search. She also makes contact with her old boss, Dan, and soon the two are in a relationship. Mary's daughter, Rachel, loves Dan and he offers Mary everything she's been looking for in a man. The problem is that Dan, a criminal attorney, seems to have a lot of legal problems of his own and a lot of shady associates. Despite all of this, Mary and Dan move in together and even get married (well, sort of). Dan also has an interesting family and a past that Mary can't help digging into, unearthing family secrets along the way. Family plots doesn't just refer to the cemetary plot that Dan's parents are so fond of.

You'll notice that on the front of this book, there's a gold medallion, the kind used to indicate an award has been given to the book. Ms. Kavanaugh herself, in a preview to the type of wit you will find in the book, has added this award. It says "Awarded Sixteen Rejections from Prominent NYC Publishers 2008." "Family Plots" is autobiographical and Ms. Kavanaugh pulls no punches, not even when that punch will land squarely on her own jaw. Periodically I would think to myself, "This is too much. No way does this much go wrong in one person's life." Then I'd remember that, in fact, it had. This book is equal parts love story and suspense novel.

Ms. Kavanaugh's own disjointed family life growing up convinced her that the most important thing she needed as an adult was a stable family home life. Apparently that meant she was willing to put up with someone that was clearly committing criminal acts, who lied to her repeatedly and who was adamant that things be done his way. I had a hard time believing that any woman would put up with Dan; clearly there was a side to him that made it all worth while, but I didn't see enough of it in this book to make me understand. I did get a kick out of the things that clearly showed the age difference between Mary and Dan. Dan, for example, still had a stereo system in the early 1990's that had an 8-track player and he loved Neil Diamond and ABBA.

Nevertheless, as I read on, I became fond of the characters and cheered for Mary as she became more and more the person that she had set out to become. And I could relate to much of what she went through (none of the stuff with Dan's financial life, thank heavens!). When she's still raising Rachel by herself and Rachel has a complete meltdown, I could completely empathize with Mary's frustration. Mary's relationships with her own family, and Dan's, are relationships that all of us can understand and relate to. Although, I'm very glad I didn't have these actual people as my relatives!

For another review, see Kay's review at Kay's Bookshelf. And to learn more about the book and what Mary's up to now, head over to her site at My Dream Is Dead, BUT I'M NOT. Thanks to Dorothy at Pump Up Your Book Promotion for including me in the book tour for "Family Plots."

The Smart One And The Pretty One by Claire LaZebnik

The Smart One and The Pretty One by Claire LaZebnik
292 pages
Published September 2008 by Hatchette Book Group

Ava and Lauren Nickerson are sisters who look a lot alike. And that's about where the similarities end. Ava is a sucessful lawyer who doesn't care much about her appearance and has hardly dated in years. Lauren is all about her looks, to the point where she has spent herself right into moving back home because she's been evicted.

Ava, in trying to help Lauren, sets Lauren up with a credit counselor and makes her sign a spending agreement. When Lauren finds an old "marriage contract" betrothing Ava to the son of old friends of her parents, Lauren decides to get even. She contacts the "fiance" and arranges for Ava and him to reconnect.

On top of dealing with these issues, the girls mother has recently been diagnosed with cancer. While taking her mother to chemotherapy, Lauren meets the son of another patient and they strike up a relationship.

This book reminded me a lot of "In Her Shoes" by Jennifer Wiener and it certainly falls in the same chick lit vein. This one is saved by the fact that these sisters feel much less one-dimensional than the characters in most chick-lit books and by LaZebnik's handling of cancer. It is in those parts of the story that the book shines; LaZebnik does a lovely job of showing the emotional and practical aspects of dealing with cancer.

Both of the sisters learn somethings about themselves, each other and their parents as they work to overcome their personal issues. And they do feel like real sisters; some fighting, some embarrassing moments, some fun, some jealousy.

The male characters were more one-dimensional and I really didn't buy that the sisters would be attracted to these guys for anything other than their looks. But at least the girls' father turned out to have some redeeming qualities.

It's mostly light and it's mostly fun--the beach read you didn't get to this summer.

Now for the best part! The five winners of a copy of the "The Smart One and The Pretty One" have all been contacted by email for their addresses. And the lucky winners are:

Heather of Gofita's Pages
Care of Care's Online Book Club
Nadia of A Bookish Way of Life
Aliya
Delilah

Thanks to everyone who entered! Be sure to enter for a copy of Christopher Buckley's "Supreme Courtship." And I promised another giveaway when I reached 75 followers. As of tonight, I'm at 74 so it looks like that giveaway will be here soon.

The Mighty Queens of Freeville by Amy Dickinson

The Mighty Queens of Freeville by Amy Dickinson
240 pages
Published February 2009 by Hyperion
Source: borrowed this one from the library

Dickinson is the author of the syndicated advice column "Ask Amy" which appears in more than 150 newspapers nationwide and appears on several NPR shows.

Synopsis:
This is the tale of Amy, her daughter and the women in her family who helped raise them after Amy's husband abruptly left. It is a story of frequent failures and surprising successes, as Amy starts and loses careers, bumbles through blind dates and adult education classes, travels across country with her daughter, and tries to come to terms with the family's aptitude for "dorkitude." Though they live in London, D.C., and Chicago, all roads lead them back to her original hometown of Freeville (pop. 458), a tiny upstate village where Amy's family has tilled and cultivated the land, tended chickens and Holsteins, and built houses and backyard sheds for over 200 years. Most important though, her family has made more family there, and they all still live in a ten-house radius of each other. With kindness and razor-sharp wit, they welcome Amy and her daughter back weekend after weekend, summer after summer, offering a moving testament to the many women who have led small lives of great consequence in a tiny place.

The Book Lady, at http://thebookladysblog.com/, says: The Mighty Queens of Freeville is full of quirky stories and insightful thoughts on life. It will make you laugh out loud. It will make you smile as you recognize characters familiar from your own life, and it will bring tears to your eyes as you remember the difficult moments of your own life. More than anything else, this book will make you want to pick up the phone and call your mother, favorite aunt, and closest girlfriends and tell them exactly how much you love and appreciate them.

My review:
The Book Lady is right--this book made me laugh out loud again and again. My husband got tired of me reading whole passages to him (apparently things just aren't as funny when you do this!). This book will make the rounds through the women of my family. Some really awful things have happened to Dickinson--her father abandoned the family and her husband leaves her for another woman. But Dickinson never gets maudlin, nor does she use this opportunity to bash these men. Instead she focuses on the humor, love and family that help her get through her life as she tries to find her way. Is it a great book? Perhaps not. But I loved it!