Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella

I love all of Sophie Kinsella's books.  I especially like her non-shopaholic series books (but the Shopaholic series is good too).

Lara Lington is the niece of a man who started a famous branch of coffee shops.  Her last name is very recognizable.  The book opens with her family gathered for the funeral of her great aunt Sadie.  The funeral is really sad.  The only people there are Lara, her parents and sister, her famous uncle and his wife and their daughter.  That's it.  And none of them even knew Sadie at all.  And none of them want to be there.  There are no flowers.  Sadie suddenly appears to Lara and insists she can not be buried without her necklace.  This sets off a hilarious chain or events as they try to find the necklace so Sadie can rest in peace.

Through this process Lara really gets to know the 23 year old version of her great aunt Sadie.  They become great friends, have some really fun adventures together and Sadie even inadvertently helps Lara find love.

I loved it!  I loved the characters.  I loved the adventures.  It was all great!

And now I will put in my last will and testament that I want everyone to be served a cocktail or glass of champagne upon entrance to my funeral! :)

I give it 5 out of 5 stars.

At First Sight by Nicholas Sparks

Nicholas Sparks is so predictable.  Most of his stories are about love and they have some tragedy wrapped up in the plot.  I love most of them because they are set in North Carolina, my home.  I chose this one because I was in the mood for a gushy love story that would make me cry.  This one was different.

Yes, it was about love.  There really wasn't any great tragedy.  And I really did not like it.

Here is a synopsis from paperbackswap.com:

Nicholas Sparks brings back two characters from his beloved bestseller, True Believer, in this continuing saga of extraordinary love. There are few things Jeremy Marsh was sure he'd never do: he'd never leave New York City; never give his heart away again after barely surviving one failed marriage; and most of all, never become a parent. Now, Jeremy is living in the tiny town of Boone Creek, North Carolina, married to Lexie Darnell, the love of his life, and anticipating the birth of their daughter. But just as his life seems to be settling into a blissful pattern, an unsettling and mysterious message re-opens old wounds and sets off a chain of events that will forever change the course of this young couple's marriage.

Basically Jeremy starts to doubt his relationship because of rumors and some drama.  It was all very boring and silly to me.  I did not enjoy it at all and I am surprised I even finished it.

I give it 2 out of 5 stars, simply because of the love aspect to the story and it being set in NC.

Perfect on Paper by Maria Murnane

The (mis)Adventures of Waverly Branson

Waverly Branson is engaged to marry the man of her dreams (in fact she kind of wonders if he is a little out of her league).  But two weeks before the wedding he calls it off.  He says he just doesn't love her anymore.  (Um...I might have to murder the guy for putting me through something like that!).  Waverly eventually starts to pick herself up and start living again with the help or her two friends.

She is embarrassed and feels like a failure about the end of her engagement so she proceeds to tell almost everyone that she was the one who called it off.  Meanwhile the guy goes on to get married shortly after and she actually runs in to them in the grocery store!  Talk about torture!

She has a great job in sports PR and her life over the next year or so just follows some of her (mis)adventures of being a single girl.  As a single girl I could relate.  But her life is much more glamorous than mine.  I mean she befriends a famous basketball player at one of her trade shows and then becomes BFFs and shopping buddies with his wife (a Olympic figure skater) later while in NYC.

It was kind of comforting that she doesn't automatically fall in love with a new prince charming.  In fact she kind of develops a crush which I enjoyed!

I also loved that her best friend's name was McKenna!  That is one of the names I picked if I ever had a baby girl (so don't steal it!  But ummm...the chances of that happening are looking pretty slim, so I may never get to use it!)

Overall this was a good, quick read!  A great chick-lit book for the summer!

I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Crazy Love by Francis Chan

I had heard good things about this book so I was looking forward to reading it.  This book explores what it means to be head over heels for God.  It starts with why you should have crazy love for Him.  It's because He has crazy love for you and if you really think about it and how undeserving you are of that after ignoring Him, treating him like a genie in a bottle and only going to him when you need something, how much pride you have in thinking you are "good enough" and how much you have ignored His instructions and broken His commandments, it is simply amazing the God continues to pursue us and love us!

He explores what it means to be a lukewarm Christian.  This one struck me: "Lukewarm people choose what is popular over what is right when they are in conflict."  I know I have been guilty of that one before.  Or this one "Lukewarm people gauge their morality or "goodness" to the secular world."  Well I mean I am more moral than a murderer or prostitute, right?  Or this one: "Lukewarm people love others but do not seek to love others as much as they love themselves."  Got to look out for #1 right?

This one is so me: "Lukewarm people are continually concerned with playing it safe; they are slaves to the god of control.  The focus on safe living keeps them from sacrificing and risking for God."  I hate risk.  I like feeling safe.  I like knowing that I have things under control  So much so that when one person tells me I don't have my sh*t together, it stays with me for months and months.  I don't like feeling scared and trusting God completely with a situation.  It makes me very uncomfortable.  But I can tell you that the times I have, He hasn't let me down.

He then walks you through what "obsessed" people look like.  How they act and think and what it really means to be in love with and trust God completely.  The point is crazy love like that is challenging.  You are never going to be "good enough" nor should you want to just be "good enough".  It gave some great tips and pictures of what it would look like if I stretched myself and my relationship with God to the max.

He ends the book with some profiles of real-life people who really turned over their whole lives to God and how God used them in amazing ways.  It is really inspirational.

I give this one 4 out of 5 stars.

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!