Sunday, May 15, 2011

Oh, dear... Book Reviews

Hm... I'm slipping! I thought I had skipped maybe 1 or 2 books, but come to find out I'm 4 behind now! Yikes! So I will just give a quick overview the books I've read in the last couple months.

"The Penny Tree" by Holly Kennedy - This was a rather true-to-life feeling story about a single mom and the trials she faces in going thru a divorce and raising 2 teenage boys on her own, 1 who is sick and 1 who has been acting out. One day a very romantic ad appears in the local paper - someone is looking for her. When she tries to contact the person, she has no luck and contacting the newspaper only tells her that the person who bought them wishes to remain anonymous and he will reveal his identity in 6 weeks' time, after the rest of the ads have run. Of the many possibilities of men she thinks it could be, her true secret admirer is someone you would never expect!

"The Monk Downstairs" by Tim Farrington - This was a really cute story about another single mom who rents out her basement as an apartment for a little extra income. She ends up renting to an ex-monk, fresh from the monastery and they, of course, fall in love. Very sweet.

"Jinxed" by Beth Ciotta - This was a pretty fun little novel. I wasn't too sure about it, because I bought it at the Dollar Tree, and there are typo's and stuff. But the story was quite amusing. Heroine Afia St. John is quite possibly the unluckiest woman alive. She was born on Friday the 13th, which her mother has never let her forget, and has been brought up to be superstitious and believing she is jinxed. Most people would agree. When she was 16 her father was killed in a freak rhinoceros attack. Her first husband died in bed with her when she was 22. Her second husband has also recently died (I don't remember the circumstances). And because of the wealth these 3 men have left behind for her, the magazines and newspapers refer to her as the Black Widow. But then her business manager runs off with all her money leaving her penniless and almost friendless. But, with the help of her godfather, unbeknown to her, she gets a job with a PI, who is actually being paid to babysit her and make sure she doesn't get into trouble. But he calls off the job when he realizes he's in love with her, then it's only a matter of convincing her that she is not bad luck or jinxed. You choose your own destiny.

"Confessions of a Shopaholic" by Sophie Kinsella - I won't lie, I didn't like Becky Bloomwood's character at all at first. I just wanted to shake her and yell "Have you no control?!" But then I realized that in my own way, I'm very much like her. She has this obsession with shopping that seems to be bigger than her. She's thousands of pounds in debt, and the thought of the state of her personal finances is enough to throw her into a panic fit, which usually results in more shopping to make her feel better. The way she justifies every purchase is just ridiculous sometimes... Anyway, the hilariously ironic part is that Becky's job is in finance journalism. She thinks she doesn't know anything about finances, because her own are such a mess and she keeps running away from them. But in the end, she (and everyone around her) realizes she knows a lot more about finances than she thought, and she finally grows up to face her problems. I really enjoyed it... looking forward to getting into the next one...