If You Were Here by Jen Lancaster

Jen Lancaster writes one of the funniest blogs I've ever read (www.jennsylvania.com), so I had high hopes for her first fiction book. Annnd, she did pretty good. Not great! But pretty good. As most books like this are, the story followed a certain formula and was fairly predictable, but the plot was fairly original and one that I could somewhatly relate to (I love HGTV).

Summary: If You Were Here follows Amish-zombie-teen- romance author Mia and her husband Mac (and their pets) through the alternately frustrating, exciting, terrifying-but always funny-process of buying and renovating their first home in the Chicago suburbs that John hughes's movies made famous. Along their harrowing renovation journey, Mia and Mac get caught up in various wars with the homeowners' association, meet some less-than-friendly neighbors, and are joined by a hilarious cast of supporting characters, including a celebutard ex- landlady. As they struggle to adapt to their new surroundings- with Mac taking on the renovations himself- Mia and Mac will discover if their marriage is strong enough to survive months of DIY renovations.

Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

MY. MIND. IS. BLOWN.

I speed read this book on my flight home for vacation. As in, after the miserable first leg of my red-eye flight, I sat for 3 HOURS! in the Dallas airport at 5am and read this book. My mouth was open the entire time.

Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz

As a gal in her late twenties, I felt like I was a little old to be reading a book that was so obviously written for 16 year olds...but holy cow, I really liked this book. It was Gossip Girl meets Twilight with a touch of modern-day Nancy Drew (if Nancy Drew were a bitchy high-schooler who wore Tory Burch and DVF).

Summary: De la Cruz has revamped traditional vampire lore in this story featuring a group of attractive, privileged Manhattan teens who attend a prestigious private school. Schuyler Van Alen, 15, the last of the line in a distinguished family, is being raised by her distant and forbidding grandmother. Schuyler, her friend Oliver, and their new friend Dylan are treated like outsiders by the clique of popular, athletic, and beautiful teens made up of Mimi Force, her twin brother, and her best friend. 


What they have in common is the fact that they are all Blue Bloods, or vampires. They don't realize that they aren't normal until they reach age 15. Then the symptoms manifest themselves and they begin to crave raw meat, have nightmares about events in history, and get prominent blue veins in their arms. Their immortality and way of life are threatened after Blue Blood teens start getting murdered by a splinter group called the Silver Bloods. This novel constantly name-drops and is full of product placements, drinking, drugs, nonexplicit sex, and superficial characterizations.

20 Times a Lady by Karyn Bosnak

This was the perfect book to read on the beach with nothing better to do. I wouldn't say that this is a book that you must run out and read right now, but for what it was...it was a fun read.

Summary: Delilah Darling is a woman on the cusp of 30 who loses her job and sleeps with her heinous former boss in an entanglement that's the 20th notch on her headboard. It's a painful realization, as she'd just read in the New York Post, that the average person has 10.5 partners in their lifetime. Fearing she has more than reached her quota, Delilah takes off on a cross-country trip, determined to find "the one" among the 20 of her former lovers. But she soon discovers that the men of her romantic past "an inmate, a rehab patient, a dog-obsessed Amway salesman and a Muppeteer among them" aren't exactly life-partner material.

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

If you've read previous posts of mine, you'll know that this is a book that I've been looking forward to for some time. The premise of the book really sings to me...a group of beauty queens stranded on an island trying to survive. And it's all told in a satirical format. But after getting into the book, I realized there are so many layers to this book that I did not expect.

Summary: Teen beauty queens. A Lost-like island. Mysteries and dangers. No access to emall. And the spirit of fierce, feral competition that lives underground in girls, a savage brutality that can only be revealed by a journey into the heart of non-exfoliated darkness. Oh, the horror, the horror! Only funnier. With evening gowns. And a body count.

A Game of Thrones : Book 1 by George R.R. Martin

I'm halfway through A Game of Thrones (or as one of my book reading buddies calls it...Throner Boner) and it is SO. GOOD.

Disclaimer: I don't think I would enjoy this book as much without having watched the HBO show. The show follows the book fairly closely and has helped me map out all the different characters and families involved...because there are a LOT of characters / families to keep track of. Normally I like to read the book before I see the movie/show, but in this instance I'm glad the show came before the book for me.

Vacation Reads!

I'm leaving the city for a week-long vacation back home and I have quite the list of books that I plan on reading. It's a good mix of real books and e-books...of course the majority are fluff books, but I'm pretty jazzed about laying in the sun and reading mindlessly. Not sure if I'll get through all of them, but I will certainly try.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

I first ran across this book via it's trailer on Entertainment Weekly's book blog (http://shelf-life.ew.com/) and it's stuck with me because it was such a spooky, fun video. The author is also a filmmaker and flew to Belgium to create this video because Belgium has quite the collection of abandoned, eery houses.

Summary: As a kid, Jacob formed a special bond with his grandfather over his bizarre tales and photos of levitating girls and invisible boys. Now at 16, he is reeling from the old man's unexpected death. Then Jacob is given a mysterious letter that propels him on a journey to the remote Welsh island where his grandfather grew up. 


There, he finds the children from the photographs--alive and well--despite the islanders’ assertion that all were killed decades ago. As Jacob begins to unravel more about his grandfather’s childhood, he suspects he is being trailed by a monster only he can see. 

Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson

I went into a bookstore today (something I surprisingly haven't done in a long time) and really enjoyed looking at / holding the books that I've been researching on the Internet. The one that caught my eye was, Robopocalypse. I've seen it on my Amazon "Recommended for You" screen, but have blown it off because the cover doesn't do much for me. But I threw caution to the wind and picked up the book to read the inner flap and it actually sounded like a really fun book (especially since I love a good apocalyptic story.)

Summary: They are in your house. They are in your car. They are in the skies…Now they’re coming for you. 

In the near future, at a moment no one will notice, all the dazzling technology that runs our world will unite and turn against us. Taking on the persona of a shy human boy, a childlike but massively powerful artificial intelligence known as Archos comes online and assumes control over the global network of machines that regulate everything from transportation to utilities, defense and communication. In the months leading up to this, sporadic glitches are noticed by a handful of unconnected humans – a single mother disconcerted by her daughter’s menacing “smart” toys, a lonely Japanese bachelor who is victimized by his domestic robot companion, an isolated U.S. soldier who witnesses a ‘pacification unit’ go haywire – but most are unaware of the growing rebellion until it is too late. 

When the Robot War ignites -- at a moment known later as Zero Hour -- humankind will be both decimated and, possibly, for the first time in history, united. Robopocalypse is a brilliantly conceived action-filled epic, a terrifying story with heart-stopping implications for the real technology all around us…and an entertaining and engaging thriller unlike anything else written in years. 

Call Me Irresistible by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Susan Elizabeth Philips was my first foray into the world of romance novels. My mom is an avid fan of hers and she passed a couple of her books off to me when I was younger. I loved reading them when I was younger, because there was a huge backlog of books that I had to read...but now that I've read most of her books - I have to wait for her new ones to come out before I can really enjoy another one of her stories...which stinks. Either way, SEP is the most solid romance/chick-lit writer that I have come across. Every book is like a romantic comedy waiting to be made into a movie. I can't recall one of her books that was a dud.

Summary: Onetime PGA star and smalltown mayor Ted Beaudine is about to marry Lucy Jorik, the daughter of a former president, when she's persuaded to break it off by her best friend, Meg Koranda , the aimless daughter of Hollywood royalty. Everyone in Wynette, Tex., loves Ted, but Meg feels Lucy deserves a passionate partner, not a god of self-control. After the disaster of calling off the wedding at the last minute, Meg's parents cut her off, stranding her in the hostile town. As Meg finds her own path and helps Ted discover his heart, the townspeople stoutly (and hilariously) defend their golden boy.

A series of underwhelming books...

I don't know what it is, but lately I've been reading some real bombs. I finished two really great books (Divergent by Veronica Roth and Simply Irresistible by Susan Elizabeth Phillips) and was really on a high after those two...but now I've hit a wall. I've gotten about 100 pages in to both of these books and my concentration was going 5 different ways both times. Maybe it's because I'm stockpiling all the books I'm jazzed about for my upcoming vacation, but these were real snoozes for me...

Official Book Club Selection: A Memoir According to Kathy Griffin

Kathy Griffin is a very polarizing person...you either love or hate her. I've always been on the side of dislike because I didn't care for her publicizing all of her plastic surgery and her comedy style feels a little cheap-shot to me. But after a friend mentioned that she picked this book up for summer reading, I looked into it and it sounded interesting enough to try!

Summary: Kathy Griffin has won Emmys for her reality show Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, been nominated for a Grammy, worked and walked every red carpet known to man, and rung in the New Year with Anderson Cooper. But the legions of fans who pack Kathy’s sold-out comedy shows have heard only part of her remarkable story. Writing with her trademark wit, the feisty comic settles a few old scores, celebrates the friends and mentors who helped her claw her way to the top, and shares insider gossip about celebrity behavior—the good, the bad, and the very ugly. 

She recounts the crazy ups and downs of her own career and introduces us to some of the supertalented people she encountered before they got famous (or, in some cases, after fame went to their heads). Word to the wise: If you’ve ever crossed Kathy Griffin at some point in your life, check the index for your name.

Along the way, Kathy reveals intimate details about her life before and after she made the big time. She opens up about everything from growing up with a dysfunctional family in suburban Illinois to bombing as a young comedian in L.A., from her well-publicized plastic surgery disasters to her highly publicized divorce, and more. Only in this book will you learn how the dinner table is the best training ground for a career in stand-up, how speaking your mind can bite you on the ass and buy you a house, and which people in Kathy’s life have taught her the most valuable lessons—both inside and outside the entertainment industry.