Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan

I kept seeing this book everywhere and saw it got some good reviews so I thought I’d give it a shot. I like books about a bunch of best friends a la Sex and the City because you get a little bit of everything.

When I first started reading this book I thought I would have liked to go to an all female college. There is one in Raleigh- Meredith College, and I just love the idea of all those traditions and like it is one big sorority.

This book made me re-think that. In the book everything was so focused around lesbianism that it was not appealing to me. And they were all sooo feminist. Too liberal for me.

Anyway, the book is about four friends who are all VERY different. They end up on the same floor in their dorm freshman year and develop a friendship that follows long after graduation. Bree is the beautiful, southern girl who is engaged when she comes to college, but ends up in a relationship with a woman. Sally is Miss Perfectionist who wants to go to med school but ends up to be the first to settle down and get married at 25. Celia is the bubbly, outgoing peacemaker of the group. She’s the kind of girl who gets along with just about anyone. And April is your hard core, radical feminist who joins all the radical organizations and fights for equal rights and causes she believes in.

The book starts with the girls meeting on their first day in their dorm. It follows them through college and then meets up with them a few years later for Sally’s wedding. The main portion of the book centers on what happens at and after the wedding with flashbacks to their college days.

Each chapter is written from the perspectives of one of the girls. I enjoy that layout for a book.

The only thing I didn’t like about this book was the ending. It walks you up to the end of the cliff and then you step off and then nothing. I wanted to see their reactions and know what happens, but the book just ends. That was frustrating.

But overall I really enjoyed this book and give this one 4 out of 5 stars.

The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly

I borrowed this book from a friend. She liked it a lot and I wanted to read it before I watched the movie on DVD. Plus I have been really into crime/law stuff ever since that stupid Brad Cooper trial.

I really enjoyed this book. It is the story of a defense attorney who lands a very wealthy client who is accused of attempted rape and murder. I am really bad at knowing how much or how little to reveal about a story in my reviews, so here is a synopsis from goodreads.com:

Criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller's father was a legendary lawyer whose clients included gangster Mickey Cohen. But Dad also passed on an important piece of advice that's especially relevant when Mickey takes the case of a wealthy Los Angeles realtor accused of attempted murder: "The scariest client a lawyer will ever have is an innocent client. Because if you [screw] up and he goes to prison, it'll scar you for life."

Louis Roulet, Mickey's "franchise client" (so-called becaue he's able and willing to pay whatever his defense costs) seems to be the one his father warned him against, as well as being a few rungs higher on the socio-economic ladder than the drug dealers, homeboys, and motorcycle thugs who comprise Mickey's regular case load. But as the holes in Roulet's story tear Mickey's theory of the case to shreds, his thoughts turn more to Jesus Menendez, a former client convicted of a similar crime who's now languishing in San Quentin. Connelly tellingly delineates the code of legal ethics Mickey lives by: "It didn't matter...whether the defendant 'did it' or not. What mattered was the evidence against him--the proof--and if and how it could be neutralized. My job was to bury the proof, to color the proof a shade of gray. Gray was the color of reasonable doubt." But by the time his client goes to trial, Mickey's feeling a few very reasonable doubts of his own

The book keeps you on your toes trying to figure things out from what really happened with the crimes and how it is going to play out for Mickey and his clients in court.

If I had read this book before seeing the trailers for the movie, I would have never ever envisioned Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller. But it was nice to picture that hottie as I was reading the book. I can’t wait to see the movie now!

I give this one 4 out of 5 stars.