I've Got Your Number

Dates Read: November 2012
I was in the mood for a light-hearted read so I decided to pick up this chick-lit book from the library. I thoroughly enjoyed it - as evidenced by the fact that I read it in approximately 48 hours. It is a silly, slightly unrealistic, but wonderful read!

Summary: (from the amazon)
Poppy Wyatt has never felt luckier. She is about to marry her ideal man, Magnus Tavish, but in one afternoon her “happily ever after” begins to fall apart. Not only has she lost her engagement ring in a hotel fire drill but in the panic that follows, her phone is stolen. As she paces shakily around the lobby, she spots an abandoned phone in a trash can. Finders keepers! Now she can leave a number for the hotel to contact her when they find her ring. Perfect! Well, perfect except that the phone’s owner, businessman Sam Roxton, doesn’t agree. He wants his phone back and doesn’t appreciate Poppy reading his messages and wading into his personal life. What ensues is a hilarious and unpredictable turn of events as Poppy and Sam increasingly upend each other’s lives through emails and text messages. As Poppy juggles wedding preparations, mysterious phone calls, and hiding her left hand from Magnus and his parents . . . she soon realizes that she is in for the biggest surprise of her life.

Twenties Girl

Dates Read: January 2012
I was craving a light-hearted easy read and this book was perfect! It started a little slow but once it picked up, I couldn't put it down! The main character has some boyfriend troubles, a ghost that is trying to run her life, and she has trouble telling her family the truth about what's happening. In essence, it's a great chick book!

Summary: (from Amazon.com)
Lara Lington has always had an overactive imagination, but suddenly that imagination seems to be in overdrive. Normal professional twenty-something young women don’t get visited by ghosts. Or do they?

When the spirit of Lara’s great-aunt Sadie—a feisty, demanding girl with firm ideas about fashion, love, and the right way to dance—mysteriously appears, she has one request: Lara must find a missing necklace that had been in Sadie’s possession for more than seventy-five years, because Sadie cannot rest without it.

Lara and Sadie make a hilarious sparring duo, and at first it seems as though they have nothing in common. But as the mission to find Sadie’s necklace leads to intrigue and a new romance for Lara, these very different “twenties” girls learn some surprising truths from and about each other. Written with all the irrepressible charm and humor that have made Sophie Kinsella’s books beloved by millions, Twenties Girl is also a deeply moving testament to the transcendent bonds of friendship and family.

Firefly Lane

Dates Read: December 2011
"A Book is Good Company" reviewed this book and it sounded good so I picked it up from the library. I was a little intimidated by the size (approximately 500 pages) and it took me about 100 or so pages to really get into the story (for the first couple hundred, I was reading to find out what happened, but I wasn't "into" it or anything). After the halfway point, I was hooked and could not put it down (until the last few chapters when I had to put it down to find a tissue!)!! Amazing chick lit book about female friendships!! I loved this book!

Summary: (from Amazon.com)
Hannah (On Mystic Lake) goes a little too far into Lifetime movie territory in her latest, an epic exploration of the complicated terrain between best friends—one who chooses marriage and motherhood while the other opts for career and celebrity. The adventures of poor, ambitious Tully Hart and middle-class romantic Kate Mularkey begin in the 1970s, but don't really get moving until about halfway into the book, when Tully, who claws her way to the heights of broadcast journalism, discovers it's lonely at the top, and Katie, a stay-at-home Seattle housewife, forgets what it's like to be a rebellious teen. What holds the overlong narrative together is the appealing nature of Tully and Katie's devotion to one another even as they are repeatedly tested by jealousy and ambition. Katie's husband, Johnny, is smitten with Tully, and Tully, who is abandoned by her own booze-and-drug-addled mother, relishes the adoration from Katie's daughter, Marah. Hannah takes the easy way out with an over-the-top tear-jerker ending, though her upbeat message of the power of friendship and family will, for some readers, trump even the most contrived plot twists.

The Best of Me

Dates Read: November 2011
Despite the fact that someone always dies, I love the books that Nicholas Sparks writes! And this book was no different! A great romance with a Nicholas Sparks plot twist thrown in!

Summary: (from Amazon.com)
"Everyone wanted to believe that endless love was possible. She'd believed in it once, too, back when she was eighteen."

In the spring of 1984, high school students Amanda Collier and Dawson Cole fell deeply, irrevocably in love. Though they were from opposite sides of the tracks, their love for one another seemed to defy the realities of life in the small town of Oriental, North Carolina. But as the summer of their senior year came to a close, unforeseen events would tear the young couple apart, setting them on radically divergent paths.

Now, twenty-five years later, Amanda and Dawson are summoned back to Oriental for the funeral of Tuck Hostetler, the mentor who once gave shelter to their high school romance. Neither has lived the life they imagined . . . and neither can forget the passionate first love that forever changed their lives. As Amanda and Dawson carry out the instructions Tuck left behind for them, they realize that everything they thought they knew -- about Tuck, about themselves, and about the dreams they held dear -- was not as it seemed. Forced to confront painful memories, the two former lovers will discover undeniable truths about the choices they have made. And in the course of a single, searing weekend, they will ask of the living, and the dead: Can love truly rewrite the past?

Christmas Wedding

Dates Read: November 2011

I have only read one James Patterson book before but this one sounded interesting so I decided to reserve it at the library. I picked it up on Saturday and finished it Sunday morning. It was a great, light-hearted, quick read. (It was especially nice to have a light book to read after finishing Sarah's Key.) The summary states there were "twists" and I guess there were, but they weren't as shocking or surprising as the twists I've read in other books. Regardless, I now want to read more of his books (perhaps his mystery series?) but I will wait until a few other books have been crossed off my reading list.

Summary: (from Amazon.com)
The tree is decorated, the cookies are baked, and the packages are wrapped, but the biggest celebration this Christmas is Gaby Summerhill's wedding. Since her husband died three years ago, Gaby's four children have drifted apart, each consumed by the turbulence of their own lives. They haven't celebrated Christmas together since their father's death, but when Gaby announces that she's getting married--and that the groom will remain a secret until the wedding day--she may finally be able to bring them home for the holidays.  But the wedding isn't Gaby's only surprise--she has one more gift for her children, and it could change all their lives forever. With deeply affecting characters and the emotional twists of a James Patterson thriller, The Christmas Wedding is a fresh look at family and the magic of the season.

Mansfield Park

Dates Read: October 2011

This is another Austen novel that I downloaded on my Kindle App. I had never read it but had heard good things so I was intrigued.

The basics of the plot are the same as the plot lines of the other Austen novels, but this one had a lot of twists and turns. There were several lulls in the plot, but behind each lull was a nice plot twist. I think this book was longer than the other Austen novels I have recently read and at times I wasn't sure it was ever going to end, but it was still a relatively fast read. And I definitely was not sure what Austen was going to do until I read the final chapter. Good read!

Sense and Sensibility

Dates Read: September 2011

I downloaded the Austen novels on my Kindle and I enjoy her novels (or at least I do so far), so I figure I might as well read all of them.

I vaguely remember seeing the movie for this book, but I forgot some key scenes so I read this book very quickly as I was anxious to see the results of the twists and turns.  This was a great read! I had trouble putting this book down (as evidenced by the fact that I would read during my lunch break).

Persuasion and Lady Susan

Dates Read: September 2011

Last summer during my long road trip from NJ to Texas, I listened to these two books on tape. This year, when I downloaded the Jane Austen book set onto the Kindle, these two books came with it. Although I had already "read" them, I decided to read them again. I must have been paying more attention when listening to Lady Susan because I remembered the plot as I was reading, but with Persuasion, I was reading as if I'd never read it before.

Persuasion was similar to the other Austen novels (romance novel with twists and turns) while Lady Susan was quite different as it was written in the form of a series of letters and the main character was somewhat of a villain (but it was still a romance with twist and turns).  Very interesting reads (if you like Austen novels).

Northanger Abbey

Dates Read: August 8 to August 24

This was my first book to read on my subway commutes and it was my first book to read on the Kindle. I downloaded it because I got five Jane Austen books for $2 and Elaine mentioned this one so I thought I would read it first. 

I wasn't so sure about the book in the beginning, but it didn't take too long to get hooked! The plot follows Catherine Morland through friendships and romance in true Jane Austen form.  If you like Jane Austen's novels, I definitely recommend this book!