Penny Pinchers Club by Sarah Strohmeyer.

Kat is in her 40s, married, living in the suburbs, and has a slight shopping problem.  Ok, maybe a major shopping problem. 

But when she discovers some emails and a secret bank account her husband has been hiding she realizes she needs to save some money and fast before her husband drops the bomb that he is leaving her.  After she discovers evidence of an affair, she meets with a divorce lawyer who confirms that her finances are in shambles and suggests she keeps her mouth shut and saves enough money for herself before her husband announces he is leaving her.

Kat joins a group called The Penny Pinchers Club who teaches her cost cutting ways to get her finances under control- from pumping gas at dawn when it is cheaper and thicker, to group shopping trips so they can maximize their coupons and buy in bulk, to dumpster diving for hidden treasures- Kat takes this stuff seriously.  An added benefit is that she starts to spend more time at home with her husband and they grow closer as a couple, even though it doesn’t seem as if anything has changed on the affair front.

Kat also has the added complication of taking on the man she almost married way back when as a new client.  He is newly divorced and a millionaire who has money to spend.  She would be stupid not to take advantage of that opportunity but will their past get in the way of everything?  Or was this who she was really meant to end up with?

I really enjoyed this book.  I liked reading about how Kat went about saving money and getting her finances under control.  Also the tangled web of secrets and lies that starts to unravel keeps things interesting right to the end.  And there is a twist near the end that even I didn’t see coming.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

All We Ever Wanted Was Everything by Janelle Brown

I really liked this book!  It had so much going on it was hard to ever get bored.  The three main characters are Janice and her two daughters, Margaret and Lizzie.  Janice's husband just had a very successful public launch of his pharmaceutical company but that day Janice learns that her husband is divorcing her and has been having an affair with her best friend.  Talk about timing!  Meanwhile 28 year old Margaret is in debt up to her eyeballs and is realizing she is finally going to have to give up on her homegrown magazine ever making it to the big time.  And 14 year old Lizzie finds out she is not becoming popular, but instead has made a name for herself as the school slut.

I think this except from Paperbackswap.com sums up the story pretty well:

The three Miller women retreat behind the walls of their Georgian colonial to wage battle with divorce lawyers, debt collectors, drug-dealing pool boys, mean girls, country club ladies, evangelical neighbors, their own demons, and each other, and in the process they become achingly sympathetic characters we can't help but root for, even as the world they live in epitomizes everything wrong with the American Dream. Exhilarating, addictive, and superbly accomplished, All We Ever Wanted Was Everything crackles with energy and intelligence and marks the debut of a knowing and very funny novelist, wise beyond her years.

My heart broke for these three characters as they each dealt with their worlds falling apart in very different ways.  It opens your eyes to the fact that not everyone has it together, and as much as they try to make it seem like they do, one thing, or a series of events, can bring them tumbling down.  But at the same time it is inspiring because you see that no matter how far you fall you can always just pick yourself back up and start to put the pieces back together again.

I give this book 4.5 out of 5 stars.

The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman

This book may just change my life.  I really think it is something everyone should read.

In this book Gary Chapman lays out the five distinct love languages we use to express love:

Words of Affirmation

Quality Time

Gifts

Acts of Service

Physical Touch


He says that we all have a "love tank" and when that "love tank" is empty we feel unloved and it is hard for us to love our spouses because we don't feel loved by them.  And everyone needs to feel like they are loved!

There are quizzes in the back of the book to help you determine your primary love language.  This is what you need from someone to feel loved.  Mine was Words of Affirmation.  It wasn't the one I would have guessed, but it makes complete sense now that I know it.

I do need to have words of affirmation from my partner.  I need them to tell me I'm smart and pretty and that they love me.  I think my last two relationships failed because I didn't get that.

My last boyfriend never told me he loved me and at a lot of points in the relationship I felt like he just did not want to hear my opinion on anything which made me feel like he thought I was stupid or something.  I can't remember him ever telling me I was pretty either.  I lost a lot of my self-esteem and confidence in that relationship.

The guy I dated before that was different.  He did write some of the sweetest things ever to me.  He did tell me I was pretty.  But he never came out and said he loved me until after HE broke up with me.  I swear I will never understand guys.

I wasn't totally blameless in either of those relationships.  I did not show them or tell them how much I loved them either.  Love kind of scares me, because I have had so many heartbreaks.  I am physically tired of getting my heart broken so it makes me so scared to start anything new.

After reading this book though, I feel like I know what I need now and even better I know how to show love more effectively.  I really think everyone should read this book!

And even though it was written for married couples, the same principles apply to every loving relationship you have from your parents, to your friends, to your children.  I think knowing how to give love is a very important trait to have and after reading this book I think I will be much more effective at making the people in my life feel loved.

I give this one 5 out of 5 stars!

The Day I Shot Cupid by Jennifer Love Hewitt

I have always liked Jennifer Love Hewitt.  I loved her back on Party of Five and I love her now on Ghost Whisperer.  I mean I am not a raving fan, but I have really liked her.  Somehow it brings me comfort to know that someone that pretty and successful still has bad luck in love sometimes and is still single.

Her book, The Day I Shot Cupid: Hello My name is Jennifer Love Hewitt and I'm a Love-aholic is so cute.  Granted I did not care for the graphics on the cover and used throughout the book.  It makes it seem more of a sex book than a cute, funny book on dating and trying to find love.

Here is a description of the book from Paperbackswap.com:

For any woman who has ever bought a self-help book and wondered why she bothered. (P.S. Now that I know he's just not that into me, where do I go from there? Yeah, thanks for that advice.)


Jennifer Love Hewitt is a self-proclaimed "love-aholic" and hopeless romantic (her middle name is Love, after all!). She has been lucky and unlucky in love, and lived to tell--and she's done it all in the spotlight. Much has been written about her love life--some true, most made up to sell magazines. Now Hewitt shares the real story of what she's learned navigating the dangerous dating waters.


In The Day I Shot Cupid, Hewitt offers her hard-won wisdom and tells us how to embrace love with both feet on the ground. First, we have to shoot Cupid. We have to believe that happily-ever-after is hard work--it's not all flowers and symphonies and floating hearts.


Wise and wry and refreshingly honest, Hewitt talks about how to pick the right guy and how to know when to let the wrong ones go free, and she offers some surprising truths about the opposite sex.


From twenty things to do after a breakup, to ten things to do before a date, to the perils of text flirting (Note: You are waiting. By the phone. For his response.), Hewitt uses stories and dating secrets to illustrate the idiotic, romantic, crazy, depressing, hilarious, awkward, glorious moments we all experience in relationships. Funny, quirky, and empowering, The Day I Shot Cupid deserves a place on every woman's nightstand, bookshelf, or coffee table, or tucked inside her oversized designer handbag.


It is a really cute and funny book.  Her story about getting Vagazzalied was freaking hilarious.  I also loved all her cute titles to the chapters.  She also included fun little extras like 10 Hardcore Truths about Men and 20 Things to do After a Break-up.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Secret Society Girl: An Ivy League Novel by Diana Peterfreund

I like reading stories about secret societies. I don't know much about if any real ones exists or what they are like, but it makes for some really good fiction.

In this story Amy Haskel-who is the editor of one of the smaller publications on campus- gets tapped for a secret society, just not the one she was expecting. She was expecting to spend her senior year as a member of Quill & Ink. Every other editor has been in Quill & Ink, but instead she gets tapped by one of the most powerful secret societies on campus- Rose & Grave (think Skull & Bones).

She never expected this because a) why would they tap her? Most of the members are known for the wealth, power, and "ins" with powerful people. She does not fit that description. And b) they have never been known to have any female members.

You get to read about the "tapping" process and her initiation- which are interesting. She struggles keeping it all a secret from her roommate/best friend and the guy she is seeing.

Then as with any organizations an issue emerges. Apparently this is the first class that has had females and the alums are not happy about. They use their power and influence to start to intimidate the new class and the class that decided to open the society up to females.

Overall it was a good, quick read. It made me think about gender issues and reminisce about my old sorority days.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult

Yes, I have been on a Jodi Picoult kick recently. This one sounded really interesting. Here is a description from Library Journal:

When seven-year-old Faith White and her mother, Mariah, swing by the house on the way to ballet class, they find that Daddy is home and he's brought a playmate. This is not the first time he's been caught cheating. After the fuss and feathers have settled and Dad has moved out, Faith begins talking to an imaginary friend who, it seems, is God. And God is not male but female. Faith is able to effect miraculous cures and is also occasionally afflicted with stigmata. When the media gets wind of this, the circus begins. The local rabbi takes an interest (Faith and Mariah are technically Jewish), and the local Catholic priest pays several inquiring visits. There is also a gaggle of psychologists. Throw in a professional atheist for the romance angle and a vicious custody fight with an egomaniacal lawyer, and you have a riveting read. Picot (The Pact, LJ 2/15/98) gets better and better with each book. If you can suspend disbelief on one or two points, this is an entrancing novel. Highly recommended

This book was pretty good, but not my favorite. I kept waiting for them to explain what was happening to Faith. I kept waiting for some big reveal, but it never really came. She apparently develops Stigmata- where you have the injuries Christ endured on the cross. There was no medical explination for it. I don't know if that is something that has happend to people in real life, but it was just kind of hard for me to believe. The story didn't move slowly or anything, but I just never felt like things were getting resolved. Also, the love story angle in the book seemed a little weak and unurealistic to me. There weren't any huge twists and turns like I've come to expect in Picoult's books.

I give this one 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

I have turned in to a huge Jodi Picoult fan. Her books are always about topics with grey areas between what you typically think of as right or wrong and always make me stretch outside of my normal thinking about situations. They are the kind of books you can't put down and have you talking about the topics of the book with anyone who will listen.

I don't ever remember being a bully or getting bullied in school. But apparently it happens often. In Jodi Picoult's book Nineteen Minutes, Peter is terrorized by bullies from the moment he steps on the school bus on his first day of school. Throughout elementary school he has his one and only friend Josie. But when Josie finds popularity, she feels it is so precarious a status and is so afraid of losing it, that she stops being friends with Peter. Peter endures the physical and mental abusive throughout high school until one final event sends him over the edge and he commits an act of violence that can't be taken back.

The book follows Peter, his parents, Josie, her mother, and basically the whole town through the aftermath, investigation, and trial. It is so interesting to see how the different characters in the book react and cope with what has happened and there is a twist in the end that you might not see coming.

Again it was another great book from Jodi Picolt and one of my all time favorites.

I give this one 4.5 out of 5 stars!