Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

If you haven't heard of this series by now, you might be living under a rock. People are comparing this to the Harry Potter craze. I had so many people recommend this series to me that I just had to read it. When I first started Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, I thought I was going to become obsessed and finish it over the weekend. But to be honest with you I just couldn't get in to it for the first half of the book. It was the story of this high school girl, Bella Swan, who moves to a small town in the Northwest called Forks to live with her dad. She slips easily into high school life there and meets Edward Cullen. He is beautiful, dazzling, and kind of weird at first. Of course you should know this by now- he is a vampire. All the guys are crazy about Bella at her new school, so I'm guessing she probably isn't so bad herself. But for the first 300 pages or so it was just this little high school story.

I think the turning point for me was the baseball game. After that chapter, things started moving really fast and I got into it. For those last few chapters I could almost get the Harry Potter comparisons. It was exciting and you had to use your imagination to visualize what was going on. But Harry Potter this is not. It is a good book and I will read the others in the series: New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn. I will also see the movie. But I'm not jumping right in and reading all four books overnight. I'm going to take an Edward/Bella break for now, but I will come back for more.

I give this book 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Jen Lancaster's next book: Pretty in Plaid

Pretty in Plaid: A Life, a Witch, and a Wardrobe, or, the Wonder Years Before the Condescending, Egomanical, Self-Centered Smart Ass Phase

Jen says of this book on her blog "I've been telling people Pretty in Plaid is a memoir about being a socially awkward 'tween, privately summing it up as The Book in Which I Go David Sedaris All Over Your Asses..."

The cover is super-duper cute!

According to Amazon it comes out May 5, 2009.

Something to look forward to for poolside/beach reading next year!

Such a Pretty Fat by Jen Lancaster

I finished Jen Lancaster's Such a Pretty Fat on the plane ride to Orlando. It was a pretty good book. Not as great as her first Bitter is the New Black, but still good. In this book Jen attempts to loose weight following Atkins, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, hiring a personal trainer, and taking up swimming.

The best thing about her books is her quick wit and her footnotes. Seriously, the footnotes are usually so funny. But in this book she used her footnotes to promote her other two books a few too many times for my liking. Also, now that she has published three books it is hard to feel sorry for her when she complains. At least for me...

Overall the book was a fun, quick read. I don't have much else to say except you will chuckle at her writing and adventures, but don't expect this to be life changing or anything. I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.