Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner

Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner
Series: Cannie Shapiro, #1
Source: Bought
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Publication Date: April 2, 2002

For twenty-eight years, things have been tripping along nicely for Cannie Shapiro. Sure, her mother has come charging out of the closet, and her father has long since dropped out of her world. But she loves her friends, her rat terrier, Nifkin, and her job as pop culture reporter for The Philadelphia Examiner. She's even made a tenuous peace with her plus-size body.

But the day she opens up a national women's magazine and sees the words "Loving a Larger Woman" above her ex-boyfriend's byline, Cannie is plunged into misery...and the most amazing year of her life. From Philadelphia to Hollywood and back home again, she charts a new course for herself: mourning her losses, facing her past, and figuring out who she is and who she can become.

I'm going to start off by saying that I've been in a chick lit mood lately - and Good in Bed didn't satisfy my needs. It just made me want to read more and more, because it was exactly the sweet, fluffy bit of literature that I was looking for. Cannie was the perfect heroine for me - I immediately identified with her. She's a larger girl, just going through life like the rest of us, and that made her very easy to like.

She was very sassy and sarcastic, which I just adored. But she didn't have that prickly outer shell that some main characters tend to have - she was still very sweet in my opinion. To be honest, I'd recommend this book to fans of Bridget Jones' Diary, because that's what it reminded me of. Cannie and Bridget have very similar personalities, and they live similarly. I loved Cannie's fight to lose weight, and her regular girl thoughts of lost love, paired with the horror of the magazine article, it was quite a wild (if sort of tame and fluffy) ride.

Good in Bed was written in a very humorous style, with several over-dramatizations and a lot of humorous hijinks - and some not so humorous as well. It has every level of drama, from not-that-bad to crazy-bad and it always kept me on my toes. At any point something could happen, and I didn't want to miss any of it.

Speaking of something happening - I just hoped and prayed for a love connection between Cannie and the doctor. There just had to be something there, you know? They seemed to have fabulous chemistry and I found him to be very kind and wise - the perfect traits for a women like Cannie. He was solid, something that I really felt that she needed.

But let me be clear here - a man did not save Cannie Shapiro.

Cannie Shapiro saved herself. I loved the feel-good empowerment of the ending. There was so much "love yourself" vibes coming from the end article that it could have only been a great ending. It may have been fluffy, and a little bit mushy, but I enjoyed Good in Bed immensely.
  

Etched on Me by Jenn Crowell + Giveaway

Etched on Me by Jenn Crowell
Series: N/A
Source: Publisher for Review
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Publication Date: February 4, 2014

In the surface, sixteen-year-old Lesley Holloway is just another bright new student at Hawthorn Hill, a posh all-girls prep school north of London. Little do her classmates know that she recently ran away from home, where her father had spent years sexually abusing her. Nor does anyone know that she's secretly cutting herself as a coping mechanism . . . until the day she goes too far and ends up in the hospital.

Lesley spends the next two years in and out of psychiatric facilities, where she overcomes her traumatic memories and finds the support of a surrogate family. Eventually completing university and earning her degree, she is a social services success story - until she becomes unexpectedly pregnant in her early twenties. Despite the overwhelming odds she has overcome, the same team that saved her as an adolescent will now question whether Lesley is fit to be a mother. And so she embarks upon her biggest battle yet: the fight for her unborn daughter.

I'll be the first to say that the premise of Etched on Me appealed to me - I love the dark, gritty stories that I read, but this one didn't really work for me. It's not that it wasn't dark or gritty (it was!), the problem was that I couldn't connect with the main character, Lesley. She's a girl with a lot of problems, and although I understand that... I don't think that she was fleshed out enough.

I liked the inside look at mental institutions, and the people that are in them. It was interesting to see the things that they experience, and how Lesley reacted to them. I also liked the mystery of Lesley and her baby - it's said that they ended up on TV, and that there was a big battle between social services and such... but I didn't know why. I liked that these strings were tied up in the end.

I have to say, though... there were some parts throughout this book - well, they made me cringe, and I didn't exactly want to read them. But I did anyway - and I think I came through it with one thought - "I don't think I get this book".

I really don't think that I did. There were so many... plot twists. There was just so much going on, and I couldn't really get into it. My disconnection with Lesley didn't help either, because not only could I not connect with the story, the character just escaped me.

The message of this book is good - it lets people that are in Lesley's situation know that there is hope, and that they will get through it... but that message just isn't for me. All in all, Etched on Me just wasn't my thing, but I'm not going to try and dissuade you from reading it.

About the Author:

Jenn Crowell’s debut, Necessary Madness, was released when she was just 19; her second novel, Letting the Body Lead, when she was only 24. Both were critically acclaimed and reviewers marveled at the wisdom, maturity, and depth of feeling expressed by so young a writer. Over the next ten years, Jenn earned her MFA, but also underwent treatment for depression and self-harm—issues that she writes about so vividly in her latest novel, ETCHED ON ME (Atria/Washington Square Press, February 4, 2014).

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*Giveaway*
The publisher has been kind enough to offer up a copy of Etched on Me to give away! It will be a signed paperback copy. US/CAN ONLY! Remember, even if I didn't really get this book... that doesn't mean that you won't love love love it! I hope that you enter! :)

(Pssstt... Etched on Me releases on February 4, 2014!)

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Between You and Me by Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus

Between You and Me by Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus
Series: N/A
Source: Netgalley
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Publication Date: June 4, 2013

Growing up in small-town Oklahoma, cousins Logan and Kelsey Wade were raised like sisters. Rarely separated, they became each other’s lifelines, escaping into the small joys of childhood to survive the increasing chaos in their family. Then one day Logan woke up and Kelsey and her parents were gone.

Years later, Kelsey has been propelled by her relentless parents to mega-stardom, her voice a radio fixture and her face on billboards worldwide. Meanwhile, Logan is trying to carve out her own life in New York City despite the constant reminders of her cousin’s absence. Though she has long since stopped trying to solve the mystery of their last hours together, the inexplicably fractured memories haunt her.

Then on Logan’s twenty-seventh birthday, she gets the call that she’s been longing for—and dreading. Before she can second-guess herself, she’s on a plane to L.A. to reunite with Kelsey and the parents who ripped them apart, but Logan will soon learn that some family secrets are kept hidden for a reason.

Honestly, the most that I took away from Between You and Me was the fact that I didn't particularly like it. Sadness doesn't even begin to describe how I felt about the familial relationships in this book - it doesn't even begin to cover it at all. I can't imagine having a family that only wanted you because of what you could do for them, which is what Kelsey has. And to tell you the truth, I feel so so bad for her, and I don't even really know how she feels about it - because her cousin Logan is the main character, and there are no alternating points of view.

Logan runs the show, and to be honest I really didn't like Logan. Not to say that she was unfeeling or anything... but girl was a little cold! Not to mention the fact that she had terrible taste in men, only thought about herself, and completely abandoned her immediate family... let's just say that we wouldn't get along.

I just didn't like her. On top of being unfeeling and cold, she was also incredibly dense. Like the kind where you just want to be able to hit them over the head with information - that's how I felt about her.

To make matters worse, I really couldn't follow along with the story very well. There was a lot of skipping around, coupled with unneeded drama. There's no scene where Logan gets hired to be Kelsey's assistant - first few chapters she's just staying there, and the suddenly she's the assistant. I don't understand how we made the jump, honestly. The "fractured memories" didn't even come up until 3/4 through the book, and it was just for added drama. It didn't add to the story in any way - in my opinion, of course.

I feel so much for Kelsey for some reason, but I can also say that I don't particularly care for her personality. She does what she's told, and anything that she does by herself is remarkably immature, because she's been sheltered for most of her life. She behaves like a teenager. Her problems & quasi relationship with Aaron do not bring that up. She still behaves like a teenager. She lets her parents control her without ever fighting for it - and they suck. They push her so hard. So hard. Everything has to be perfect, and if you're sick it doesn't matter sweetie... we've got you covered. This girl is on stage 24/7, and it's obvious that it's starting to wear on her. The more the book progressed, the more I just felt horrible for Kelsey - who is, again, not our main character.

The ending was terrible too - nothing was resolved, and that was what I was counting on. Now I still have no idea what happened, and to be honest I don't really care anymore. It just... ended. All in all, I really didn't enjoy Between You and Me. I would recommend giving it a shot if you enjoyed The Nanny Diaries.