The Perfect Fit by Louise Kean (2007)

Subtitled "Fat-Free Dreams Just Don't Taste the Same", I picked this up at my favorite junk shop (Practical Collectables and Antiques) in Two Harbors. 

We meet Sunny Weston after she has shed a good amount of weight and is taking up with her longtime work crush who finally notices her. But guess what? Things are not everything she thought they would be when she was thin. Then, she meets a mysterious man (while saving a child from kidnapping). 

The story is not the point here, nor is the romantic relationship or the characters. What's fascinating about this book is Sunny's own relationship with her body and her weight loss. This is some of the best writing I've ever read on a woman's relationship with her body and her weight. Fascinating. It's unsurprising that the author used her own weight loss as inspiration for this novel--her story is so incredibly well-told and authentic.

Oh! You Pretty Things by Shanna Mahin (2015)

Jess is third-generation Hollywood and deeply immersed in the culture, from her failed actress/stage mother to her friends in the industry. She gets a job as a personal assistant to an agoraphobic composer, then gets stolen away by an A-list actress, who is also best friend to one of her best friends. 

I love all the wit in this novel--I love Jess's sense of humor. This is one of those novels where I could quote my favorite lines on about every page. The plot itself is less compelling, with a romantic prospect that keeps popping up in the unlikeliest places, and a seriousness that comes out of left field at the end. But the characters are great, the friendships are realistic and truthful, and it was delightful summer reading.

Because I can't recreate the entire book, here's a tiny bit is from when Jess is working as a barista:

"I consider charging him an extra dollar because he made me strain to hear the word "coconut," but I've already hit my limit on groundless irritation for the day." (p. 4)

Groundless irritation!  Love it!

Scrumptious by Amanda Usen (2011)

Pretty adorable romance novel about a chef and the hotshot new chef that her friend hires to come in and fix her ailing restaurant. 

There's a less interesting subplot about someone sabotaging the restaurant, but the romance itself is pretty adorable. It's fun to read a romance about grown-ups--two people who aren't afraid to get busy, but aren't so sure about commitment. Good characters, well-done and spicy sex scenes.

Single, Carefree, Mellow by Katherine Heiny (2015)

It's been a while since a collection of short stories has grabbed me as much as this collection did.  

Fabulous characters and really interesting meditations on the nature of love and infidelity and unrequited love and inappropriate relationships. Amazingly insightful and funny to boot.

Us by David Nicholls (2014)

David Nicholls is quickly turning into an Author I Adore. I loved his One Day (book AND surprisingly well-done movie) as well as The Understudy, so I was looking forward to his newest novel.

Us is about Connie and Dan, a long-married couple whose son is graduating. They have a Grand Tour planned when Connie tells Douglas that she doesn't want to be married anymore. But they go on the trip anyway, and, unsurprisingly, things go awry. A lovely meditation on marriage and love, featuring flawed characters and realistic situations.  Nicholls has such wonderful insights into emotion and love, and he has such marvelous, humorous turns of phrase. Like:

"Other people's sex lives are a little like other people's holidays: you're glad they had fun but you weren't there and don't necessarily want to see the photos. At our age too much detail leads to a certain amount of mental whistling and staring at shoes, and there's also the problem of vocabulary. Scientific terms, though clinically accurate, don't really convey the heady dark intensity, etc., etc. and I'd like to avoid simile of metaphor -- valley, orchid, garden, that kind of thing. Certainly I have no intention of using a whole load of swear words. So I won't go into detail, except to say that it worked out pretty well for all concerned, with that pleasant sense of self-satisfaction, as if we'd discovered that we were still capable of performing a forward roll. Afterwards we lay in a tangle of limbs." (p. 71)

The Secret Side of Empty by Maria E. Andreu (2014)

M.T. is finishing up her senior year of high school, but where her classmates are eagerly anticipating college and the next chapter in their lives, she dreads the end of high school. Monserrat Thalia (M.T. for short) is illegal.

Her parents came to American from Argentina when she was a baby, and they are undocumented immigrants. Which means no papers, and no papers means no college, no jobs, no future. . Her rocky relationship with her parents makes life even harder, despite the presence of good friends and a new boyfriend. M.T. needs to figure out a way to make a life for herself in this country and face the challenges ahead.

The subject of being an undocumented immigrant is beautifully handled in this novel, and based on the author’s own experiences. Although it’s a really tough subject and M.T. goes through some brutal times, M.T.’s voice and humor keeps this eminently readable. Andreu creates wonderfully vivid depictions of parent-teen relationships as well as the experience of first love, and there are some great hilarious lines in this novel. Andreu, born in Spain and raised in Argentina, crossed the Mexican border into US at age 8 and became a citizen under the American Dream Act.

A few quotes I love:

“I will always be a stranger everywhere. With my parents, I am too American. With Americans, I am spectator with my nose pressed against their windowpanes, watching their weird rituals and rites of passage, never quite understanding them completely. A little chunk of me will always be a stranger everywhere, different chunks of stranger in different situations.” (p. 98)

“But then maybe there is no such thing as good kissers and bad kissers. Maybe there is only finding someone who kisses like you do, and kissing each other, only to ten find it breathtakingly good.” (p. 142)

Honeymoon Hotel by Hester Browne (2014)

I love Hester Browne's work. She writes lovely, light, romantic and funny fiction. Her characters are fully developed and her relationships are realistic (and don't focus solely on the romantic ones, but all the relationships in our lives).

Rosie is a wedding coordinator (events manager) at a posh London hotel who organizes her life the way she does weddings. All is well and good until the son of the owners pops back into the picture with his California ways and shakes up her worldview.

Romance, light misunderstandings, work-life balance and professional fulfillment ensue. And romance, too.

Sweetshop of Dreams by Jenny Colgan (2014)

I warn you: I'm about to use the word "sweet" WAY too many times. The word totally looks like gibberish to me now. But it's the perfect word.

Sweetshop of Dreams is a typically charming novel by Colgan, who used to write witty chick lit, but who has now taken to writing sweet (but not sickly sweet) novels set in various sweet locations (cupcake cafes, chocolate shops, and now a sweetshop). 

The story:  Rosie's mother asks her to go and visit her great aunt and sell her defunct sweetshop and pop her into a home. Rosie meets a whole bunch of interesting characters and finds her way to romance (leaving behind her non-committal, mama's boy, but sweet longtime boyfriend, who recovers quickly.) 

Very sweet. Not life-changing but full of wonderful characters, and lots of charming meditations on the emotional, nostalgic response that people have for sweets. As someone who definitely has those, it hit the sweet spot for me. (Hee.)

Horrorstor: A Novel by Grady Hendrix (2014)

Horrorstor is so cool, it should have its own theme song.

And yes, as you may have guessed from the cover, it's a horror novel set in the big-box semi-Swedish home furnishing retailer Orsk. The fabulous book design by Andie Reid hilariously replicates the iconic IKEA catalogs.  

Some strange things have been happening at the Orsk store and a few employees have been enlisted to stay after closing and keep an eye out. Another couple of employees are conducting their own ghost hunt and when they get together to have a seance, all hell breaks loose.  

In addition to the great, realistic characters, this novel has a great in-depth backstory that is beautifully supported by the book design.  And it actually had me at the edge of my seat--I was genuinely biting my nails to see if the characters would make it through.  Beautifully done.

The Cinderella Deal by Jennifer Crusie (1996)

Another utter love. Picked this up at a used bookstore out of a remembered fondness for Jennifer Crusie and she did not disappoint. 

Daisy is a scattered, free spirit artist trying to make her living through her art. Her neighbor, Linc, is a straitlaced English professor who is angling for a job at a prestigious school but needs a fiancee to complete the picture. 

Crusie creates a charming story out of this familiar premise, thanks to her vivid and realistic characters, her humor and her ability to create real chemistry and believable romance for her characters. Beautifully done as always.

The Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery (1926)

As a longtime lover of the Anne of Green Gables stories, I can't believe I had never heard of this novel.  I finally read about it in the lovely booklovers' catalog Bas Bleu and immediately requested it from the library (sorry, lovely catalog--I promise to buy it soon!).

Montgomery's only novel for adults (though at my library, it's cataloged as YA), The Blue Castle is about Valancy, a 29-year-old mousy spinster living with her overbearing, unkind family and dreaming of life in her beautiful, imaginary Blue Castle.  When Valancy learns that she has a fatal illness, she decides to stand up for herself with her family and do what she wants to do--including getting a job, asking a man to marry her and finding her Blue Castle in real life.  

I utterly loved this novel, and would put it right up there with my favorite romances of the early 20th century, such as Daddy Long-Legs and I Capture the Castle.

I always love a quote about houses: 

"Would you like a house like that, Moonight?" Barney asked … "No," said Valency, who had once dreamed of a mountain castle ten times the size of the rich man's 'cottage' and now pitied the poor inhabitants of palaces.  "No.  It's too elegant.  I would have to carry it with me everywhere I went.  On my back like a snail.  It would own me -- possess me, body and soul.  I like a house I can love and cuddle and boss."

Me too!

Pride and Pyramids by Amanda Grange and Jacqueline Webb (2012)

How can you not love a Pride and Prejudice retelling which is essentially P&P combined with The Mummy? 

Pride and Pyramids finds Elizabeth and Darcy married with five (six?) children and in search of a bit of adventure.  Their cousin proposes a family trip to Egypt to join him on an expedition to Egypt to find an abandoned tomb. There's also a story about a restless Egyptian spirit and a little mystical element. 

Nice depiction of well-loved characters, a setting that is original, and lots of good characters. Quite fun!

The Vacationers by Emma Straub (2014)

Started reading this in a digital ARC, but it didn't grab me immediately.  It did in book form, though.  I really liked her book Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures and it stayed with me quite a bit.  This one will as well.  Although when I started it, I was like, ooh white people problems, it did draw me in.  

The characters:  a couple whose husband just cheated on his wife and got fired from his job, her best friend and his husband, their grown son and his girlfriend, and their daughter who is off to college in the fall.  They all stay in a house on Mallorca.  Marvelous character and relationship writing; I loved the depictions of both Franny (the cheated-upon wife) and Sylvia (the daughter, who has her first crush and is crushed).  Just spot-on.

And a quote I loved: 

"Yes, it was true that Franny had gotten thicker in the last decade, but that was what happened unless you were a high-functioning psychotic, and she had other things to think about."  (p. 29)

Cure for the Common Breakup by Beth Kendrick (2014)

I am always so proud of myself when I read a book that was actually published in the current calendar year. You'd think being in a library almost every day would give me a leg up on the new releases, but I tend to be a bit behind the times.  I blame the excess of amazingly readable books I see every day (and my constantly expanding GoodReads To-Read list--current count: 298).

Anyhoo, this is a delightful chick littish novel about an airline attendant who gets in a plane crash and her pilot bf (who was about to propose), breaks up with her while she's still in the hospital.  So she takes her settlement and her injuries and goes to Black Dog Bay, a town whose entire tourism industry is dedicated to healing people who are getting through break-ups.

The surprisingly delightful part of this novel is that Summer, the stewardess, is hilarious and full of the devil.  No neurotic, shy, insecure chick lit heroine here.  She's funny and full of sassafras and turns the town upside down, in a good way.  A host of wonderful little details (like the Rebound Salon and local bar the Whinery) and great, rich characters, as well as a very dashing romantic lead, make this great fun.

The Outsmarting of Criminals by Steven Rigolosi (2014)

This mystery novel, subtitled: A Mystery Introducing Miss Felicity Prim, is absolutely adorable.

Miss Prim lives in NYC, but gets mugged and decides to move to Connecticut and take up her dream job: Criminal Outsmarter. This book has so much love for mysteries and books, and great, rich characters, including the fabulous Miss Prim herself, who is practically perfect in every way (but has NO idea that she drives like a bat out of hell) and is not averse to a slight crush on an attractive policeman. So darling. And she's one of those characters who gets everyone to do what she wants--kindly and with excellent etiquette--but it gets DONE.

A few things I particularly loved:  The signs at her local bookstore:

 "New York Times Best-Sellers That Nobody Reads, The Latest Dreck from Writers Who Phone It In, Ponderous Literary Prose with No Plot and Snotty Characters, Urban Musings by Self-Involved Authors who Don't Take Showers, Ongoing Sagas/Series That Lost Their Edge 4-5 Books Ago," and my all time favorite: "Books by Ivy League Graduates That Got Glowing Reviews in Prestigious, Low-Circulation Magazines Edited by Other Ivy League Graduates." (p. 123) Hilarious and SO true.

 Also: 

"Why, Miss Prim could even see a highly talented novelist writing about her exploits. The book jacket would feature a slim, attractive woman in her rose garden. under the title, the words "A Mystery Introducing Miss Felicity Prim" would appear, thus positioning her tale as the first in a wildly successful, long-running series. But no--Miss Prim was getting carried away. All of that was fiction, and this was the real world." (p 151-2)

Killer Librarian by Mary Lou Kirwin (2012)

A pretty adorable mystery novel despite the cheesy tagline on the cover: "When she checks in, someone always checks out."

Karen Nash is a librarian at a small-town Minnesota library who has dreamed of travelling to London her whole life. She planned a trip with her boyfriend and is all set to go when he breaks up with her. She decides to go anyway (spying him at the airport with a new, younger woman) and stays in a charming bed and breakfast. All goes well apart from a few murders here and there.

Great characters, charming setting, and a fascinating profession (librarian!) make this a lovely cozy mystery that hits all my favorite points: libraries, bookstores, London, pubs. Fun!

Who Asked You? by Terry McMillan (2013)

I listened to the audiobook of McMillan's latest novel, and much like reading Stephen King, I was so pleased to be back in Terry McMillan's world again. I forgot how much I loved Waiting to Exhale and her other books.  I was disappointed by her sequel to Waiting to Exhale (so dark!), but this renewed my love for McMillan all over again.

Betty Jean has her hands full.  She has an ill husband, two opinionated sisters, a hard job, and challenging grown children.  Things just got even more complicated as her daughter has just flaked off and left her children in Betty Jean's care.  

The audiobook is read by Phylicia Rashad, Michael Boatman, Carole DeSantis, and the author and it's one of the best audiobooks I've ever listened to.  The novel is structured so that a variety of characters are narrating the action, and the narrators so perfectly embody the characters, I can hear them in my head right now. Rashad narrates all three sisters and she creates three separate characters so wonderfully that you never wonder who's telling the story, and you can practically see the characters.

I loved this book and I've never listened to an audiobook where I actually said (out loud in my car) things like: "WHAT?" or "Oh, Luther!" The whole book surprised, touched and delighted me. I often half listen to audiobooks but this had me fully engaged and invested. LOVED.

White Girl Problems by Babe Walker (2012)

 Recommended by a co-worker, this looked fun.  And it was! I love when an author creates a character who is so self-unaware that you can't help but like them even though they're incredibly irritating.

Babe Walker ended up in rehab after spending $246,893.50 at Barney's, and is writing her memoir to explain how she got there. With chapters like "I hate my horse", "Sorry for texting you ninety-three times last night" and "I miss you, unless you miss me, in which case I'm over you and into me being me", this novel is incredibly hilarious and over-the-top and somehow even a little endearing.

Followed by the equally hilarious Psychos: A White Girl Problems Book.

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks (2012)

There are few things that I love more than having a fabulous book just fall in my lap.  I was checking in returns at work, and this one caught my eye, despite the rather common looking cover.  (Not to say it's not a nice cover, it's just that there are a lot of covers that look just like this one.)

This is a terrifically fun and touching novel narrated by Budo, imaginary friend to eight-year-old Max Delaney. Max is in school and is on the spectrum, and Budo is about his only friend.  When Max gets in trouble, it's up to Budo to figure out how to rescue him--with the help of a few other imaginary friends. 

Although it sounds a bit on the twee side, it's really not. It's charming, but poignant, and also incredibly suspenseful. The world of imaginary friends that Dicks has created is beautifully imagined and incredibly vivid--a lovely insight into the strange minds of kids. For example, Budo doesn't sleep, because Max never imagined him sleeping.  And when Budo gets lonely, he goes to the children's hospital, because he can always find imaginary friends there.  The descriptions of the other imaginary friends are so endearing, like one that is made of the paper on which kids draw outlines of themselves, and one that is little more than a spoon.  A lovely book.

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy by Helen Fielding (2013)

Reading this book was exactly like visiting an old friend.  Bridget is the same darn character we've seen through trials and tribulations and some awfully bad decisions, but she's awfully fun to hang out with.

It was also lovely to catch up with her hilarious friend Tom, note-perfect mess Daniel Cleaver, and her parents as well.  I did miss Shazzer like crazy, and thought there was a bit too much Jude. Very, very fun.