Shopaholic and Baby - Sophie Kinsella

Becky Brandon (née Bloomwood) is pregnant!! She and Luke couldn't be more ecstatic. When Becky hears that a famous celebrity obstetrician named Venetia Carter has opened a practice in Becky's neighborhood, Becky does everything she can think of to get an appointment with Venetia. She drags Luke along to the appointment, only to find that Venetia is Luke's ex-girlfriend. And Venetia's beautiful and glamorous and smart, to boot!

As Luke and Venetia reconnect and start spending more time together, Becky's jealousy secretly rages out of control. She hires a private detective to follow Luke, and the information the PI gathers is shocking.

Not only is Becky's relationship with Luke getting worse, but Venetia admits to Becky's face that she's after Luke -- and that Luke is planning on leaving Becky after the baby is born. Becky is devastated. How could Luke do this to her?

Shopaholic and Baby is the best of the series! It's very, very funny, but it also deals with personal issues such as impending motherhood and spousal infidelity. I loved every minute spent reading it.

And now that it's done, I'm going through Becky withdrawal. Seriously. I finished the book last night, looked at Dave and said, "I don't know what I'm going to do with myself now that the Shopaholic series is done." I'll really miss reading about Becky, Luke, Suze, and all the rest. These books have been such great fun to read!

4.5/5

Shopaholic and Sister - Sophie Kinsella

After a 10-month dream honeymoon around the world, Luke and Becky Brandon are finally back in London. Becky thinks it will be wonderful to surprise everyone -- her honeymoon was supposed to last a full year -- and therefore doesn't tell anyone that she and Luke are coming home early. Imagine her own surprise when her parents act strangely upon her arrival, as does her best friend Suze. Seems Suze found a new best friend while Becky was traipsing around the world. And Becky's parents have recently discovered that Becky has a half sister no one knew about.

Since Suze is happy with her new friend Lulu, Becky decides to turn her newfound sister Jess into her new best friend. Only problem is, Jess hates everything Becky loves. Especially -- gasp! -- shopping. And the two of them aren't getting along very well, either. Not so for Luke and Jess, who have a discussion one evening (which Becky overhears) about how difficult Becky is to live with, what with her frivolous spending and all.

Even worse, Luke tells Becky that she should try to be more like Jess.

When Luke leaves on a business trip without even kissing Becky goodbye, Becky assumes her marriage is in tatters and shows up unannounced at Jess' house so that Jess can teach her how to be frugal. Jess, who'd had a major row with Becky while in London, slams the door in Becky's face. Becky doesn't know what to do. Her husband must not love her or miss her, and her sister hates her guts. Plus, Suze doesn't need her anymore now that she's got Lulu. What's a girl to do?

Things all work out in the end, of course, but the journey there is good fun to read about.

4/5

Shopaholic Ties the Knot - Sophie Kinsella

Oh my goodness, Becky Bloomwood's getting married!! And not only is Luke's mother, Elinor, planning a fairy-tale wedding at the Plaza Hotel in NYC, but Becky's mum is planning a backyard wedding in England -- both for the same day!

I'd had my own idea throughout the book of how Becky might pull everything off, which wedding she'd choose, etc., and I have to say that I was spot on! I guess it's not too difficult to guess, after reading about Becky for three books and knowing how her mind works. It was fun to read about the preparations for both weddings.

Luke was featured more prominently in Shopaholic Ties the Knot, which I liked. The way he proposed to Becky was so sweet. I can't say I really enjoyed the whole storyline with Luke's mother, though. Becky's right: she's a cow.

I'm growing to love Suze, Becky's best friend, more and more with every book. Suze got married and had a baby in this installment, which was great fun. Now Becky and Luke need to have a baby!

This was a cute read. Best of the series so far.

4/5

Shopaholic Takes Manhattan - Sophie Kinsella

Becky Bloomwood is back in this humorous sequel to Confessions of a Shopaholic. She's now host of a financial segment on a popular TV show. She's dating wealthy entrepreneur Luke Brandon. And she's running up her credit cards again, the same cards she'd previously paid off.

Luke decides to start a branch of Brandon Communications in New York City, and asks Becky to go with him. Of course, Becky's in heaven! There are so many trendy shops in the city! And even though Becky's set a budget for herself, it doesn't take much to convince her to buy the latest hot items.

Everything's going swimmingly, until a very unflattering article (with pictures!) about Becky surfaces in one of the newspapers. Becky's secret is out: she's awful at keeping within a budget and dreadfully in debt. What the heck is she doing dispensing financial advice when her own finances are such a disaster?

The article angers Luke; not only has Becky been lying to him about her spending habits, but the prospective financial backers for Brandon Communications' NYC division are getting cold feet. Becky and Luke have a major "row" (a big fight; I really"fancy" the words Brits use, by the way!) and Becky flies back to London, leaving Luke behind in New York.

Is this the end for Luke and Becky? Will Becky ever be able to curb her excessive shopping habits? Will her job still be waiting for her back home? There's only one way to find out -- read the book. Well, I guess two ways, since you could also ask someone who's read it.

Another amusing read from Sophie Kinsella! Don't overthink things too much; just laugh about the scrapes Becky gets into and enjoy the book for what it is.

3.25/5

Confessions of a Shopaholic - Sophie Kinsella

25-year-old Becky Bloomwood is a financial journalist for Successful Savings magazine. She lives in a beautiful flat in a trendy London neighborhood, wears designer clothes, and has successful friends. You'd think her life would be pretty fantastic, but she's flat broke and up to her ears in debt. And while she knows that her lifestyle must change, she just can't seem to give up her true passion . . . shopping.

Her path occasionally crosses with that of Luke Brandon, a gorgeous multimillionaire PR representative for a finance group that Successful Savings routinely features. Their meetings are awkward at best; Becky without fail finds a way to embarrass herself. But as Becky and Luke get to know each other better, Becky can't help but feel an attraction to the handsome Mr. Brandon.

I liked Becky; she was delightfully fun, and reading about her was very entertaining. While I couldn't really understand how she could do some of the things she did (like throw away credit card bills unopened because she couldn't bear to see the extent of her debt -- which, besides being just plain stupid, is a case of identity theft waiting to happen, if you ask me), she was just so likable that I had a hard time holding anything against her.

I enjoyed Confessions of a Shopaholic. Sophie Kinsella never fails to keep me entertained. Her books are surefire page-turners, very hard to put down. I've already placed library holds on the other 4 books in the series, and I'm anxious to see where Becky's relationship with dashing Luke Brandon goes (even though I pretty much already know from the titles of two other Shopaholic books, Shopaholic Ties the Knot and Shopaholic & Baby.) I liked Luke most of all, and I'm excited to read more about him in future books.

3.5/5

The Undomestic Goddess - Sophie Kinsella

I can't believe I only discovered Sophie Kinsella this year! It seems that whenever I want something light and fluffy to read, she's my go-to author. Her books are just so cute and fun. And while there are profanities scattered here and there throughout her books, I try not to dwell on them because the stories she tells are so entertaining.

Samantha Sweeting (love the name!) is an attorney for one of London's most prestigious law firms, Carter Spink. She's just been offered a partnership at Carter Spink when her world spins out of control. She finds a document on her disorganized desk and realizes that she is months past the filing deadline for said document, and has in effect cost the client 50 million quid. Not knowing what to do, and too terrified to tell anyone of her mistake, she dazedly walks out of the law firm and hops on a train. When the train comes to a stop, she finds herself in an unfamiliar country town. She knocks on the door of the nearest house, hoping to get a glass of water, and is mistaken for the new housekeeper. Samantha is so disoriented that she fails to correct the misconception. When she wakes up the next morning, she doesn't know how to get out of the predicament she's in, so she decides to go along with it, even though she has no clue how to cook or clean.

Nathaniel, the gardener, is on to Samantha. He offers Samantha help, in the form of his mother, Iris. Iris gives Samantha cooking and housekeeping lessons, and Samantha catches on quickly. She learns to love the easy-going, relaxed atmosphere in the countryside -- and the attentions of handsome Nathaniel. But when Samantha uncovers a secret about her former law firm, she has to decide whether to go back to the hectic life she's always known, or stay where she feels most at home.

This is my third Kinsella book. It definitely won't be my last. As implausible as her stories can sometimes be, they're great fun to read.

4/5

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

This book has a funny title, but it is one of the most charming, endearing books I've ever read.

It is 1946 and WWII has recently ended. Juliet Ashton, author of a successful London newspaper column-turned-book, is on the search for material for a new novel when she receives a letter from a man living on Guernsey Island, in the English Channel. His name is Dawsey Adams. It seems that a book by Charles Lamb, that Juliet had previously owned, has somehow found it's way into Dawsey's hands, and he's written to ask Juliet if she will be so kind as to find another book by Mr. Lamb and send it to him. Thus begins a correspondence between Juliet and Dawsey. When Juliet discovers that Dawsey belongs to a literary group with a peculiar name, she writes to ask how the group and the name came to be. As the exchange of letters continues, not only with Dawsey but with other members of the group, Juliet learns that the "Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" was formed one night as an alibi when a group of people were found out after curfew during the German occupation. Eager to know more about these people, their tastes in books, and their struggles during the occupation, Juliet corresponds with the members of the society. Thinking their stories will make a great book, Juliet visits Guernsey and finds the society members to be kindred spirits.

Told entirely through letters, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society is a warm and funny novel, one that will touch your heart. By the time the book was done, I had fallen in love with all of the characters. The historical aspect of the novel was really interesting, too. Very well written, and definitely a book I'd recommend.

5/5

The Lace Reader - Brunonia Barry

Look into the lace . . . When the eyes begin to fill with tears and the patience is long exhausted, there will appear a glimpse of something not quite seen... In this moment, an image will begin to form . . . in the space between what is real and what is only imagined.

Can you read your future in a piece of lace? All of the Whitney women can. But the last time Towner read, it killed her sister and nearly robbed Towner of her own sanity.

Towner Whitney, a dazed young woman descended from a long line of mind readers and fortune tellers, has survived numerous traumas and returned to her hometown of Salem, Mass., to recover. Any tranquility in her life is short-lived when her beloved great-aunt Eva drowns under circumstances suggesting foul play. Towner's suspicions are taken with a grain of salt given her history of hallucinatory visions and self-harm. The mystery enmeshes local cop John Rafferty, who had left the pressures of big city police work for a quieter life in Salem and now finds himself falling for the enigmatic Towner as he mourns Eva and delves into the history of the eccentric Whitney clan.

The Lace Reader was definitely a strange book, with many different layers to it. Towner is the main voice of the book, but the reader can never be sure if what is happening is real or imagined, given Towner's history of hallucinations and time spent in a mental hospital. Amongst witches and religious fanatics, Towner and Rafferty are on quest to discover what happened to Eva, taking the reader on a bizarre ride, full of mysterious and peculiar goings-on.

I can't say I loved this book, but I enjoyed it to a certain extent. Once I got the hang of how the story was being told, I enjoyed it more. It took me some time to get into the story at first because it was all so confusing, trying to keep things straight. And even when I thought I had things figured out, I discovered I was wrong. The ending was so unexpected; I liked that. And I loved Rafferty. I wouldn't mind reading more about the characters in The Lace Reader. If Brunonia Barry ever decides to write a sequel, I just may read it.

Also, having just read The Heretic's Daughter, which was also set in Salem, albeit during the witch trials of the 1600s, I more fully understood the history of Salem and all the talk about witches in The Lace Reader. I couldn't have read the two books at a more opportune time, I guess.

3.5/5

The Heretic's Daughter - Kathleen Kent

In 1752 Sarah Carrier Chapman, confined to her home and weak with infirmity, writes a letter to her granddaughter, revealing the secret she has guarded closely for six decades. It is a haunting account of the horrors that enveloped a New England town called Salem, and compelled Sarah, then just a young girl, to make a decision that would change her life forever.

A little more than a year before the witch trials will begin, Sarah and her family arrive in nearby Andover to face a community gripped by superstition and fear. With the increase in Indian raids and the spread of the plague, the Puritans come to believe that heretics in their midst are responsible for their misfortune. Based on the accusations of a dozen young girls, neighbor is pitted against neighbor, friend against friend, and the hysteria escalates, sweeping more than two hundred men, women, and children into prison on charges of witchcraft--Sarah's mother, Martha Carrier, among them. Often at odds with each other, mother and daughter must now stand defiantly together in the face of imprisonment, torture, and even death. Out of love for her children, Martha asks Sarah to commit an act of heresy--a lie that will most surely condemn Martha even as it will save her daughter.

The Heretic's Daughter was a very captivating read. To think that a small number of teenage girls pointing their fingers at others and proclaiming them to be "witches" started the mass hysteria that came to be known as the Salem Witch Trials. Dozens of men and women were hanged, and hundreds more imprisoned based on the lies told by these girls. I hope the girls got what they deserved on the other side!

The events in Salem are a sad part of our history, but a fascinating part all the same. The author of The Heretic's Daughter, Kathleen Kent, is a tenth generation descendant of Martha Carrier, one of the women condemned as a witch and hanged. I read that she spent five years researching this time in her family's history before writing the novel. And she did a wonderful job. Martha Carrier was ofttimes described as a cold, hard woman, and the author did an amazing job of portraying not only that cold side of Martha, but the warm, loving side of her as well. I loved the way the relationship between Martha and Sarah grew to be what it was in the end. I felt so bad for Martha's husband and children, and can't imagine what they all must have gone through--especially Martha and the kids when they were in jail. Kathleen Kent wrote such vivid descriptions of everything, though, that I could somewhat imagine what it would have been like.

This is a lovely novel, and one I'd recommend if you want to read one family's account of what really happened in Salem during the witch trials.

4.25/5

Life of Pi - Yann Martel

Life of Pi is the book for my church book group this month, and listening to some of the other women talk about it made me a bit hesitant to pick it up and read it. Once I got into the story, though, I really liked it. Not only is it a fascinating read, it's also very well written.

Pi (short for Piscine, as in the French word for 'swimming pool') Patel is 16 years old when his father sells the family zoo in Pondicherry India to start a new life in Canada. The family boards a ship, the Tsimtsum, with some of their zoo animals, eager to begin their journey. A couple of days later, the ship sinks, taking with it every living thing that was onboard -- with the exception of Pi, Richard Parker the Bengal tiger, a hyena, an orangutan, and a zebra. This motley crew float away on a lifeboat with rations enough to last Pi about three months. Pi is understandably worried about being eaten by the hyena or Richard Parker, and doesn't know how he'll survive with the animals aboard. The hyena eats the zebra and the orangutan, and then Richard Parker eats the hyena, leaving himself and Pi as the sole occupants of the lifeboat. Pi says:

I was alone and orphaned, in the middle of the Pacific, hanging on to an oar, an adult tiger in front of me, sharks beneath me, a storm raging about me. Had I considered my prospects in the light of reason, I surely would have given up and let go of the oar, hoping that I might drown before being eaten. But I don't recall that I had a single thought during those first minutes of relative safety. I didn't even notice daybreak. I held on to the oar, I just held on, God only knows why. [p. 107]

Pi survives (I'm not giving anything away; the reader discovers this right away), with one whopper of a story to tell.

I survived 227 days. That's how long my trial lasted, over seven months. . . . I survived because I made a point of forgetting. My story started on a calendar day--July 2nd, 1977--and ended on a calendar day--February 14th, 1978--but in between there was no calendar. I did not count the days or the weeks or the months. Time is an illusion that only makes us pant. I survived because I forgot even the very notion of time. [p. 191-192]

The ending really surprised me, in a good way. Pi tells his story to two members of the Maritime Department in the Japanese Ministry of Transport. The men have been sent to question Pi, hoping to discover what happened to make the Tsimtsum sink. They never forget the story they heard.

I can't say much more without giving something away, but I can say that I really liked this book. That Pi survived is incredible. And his story is pretty incredible, too.

4/5