It pains me to write this book review of The Friends We Keep. Many of you know that I’m a huge Jane Green fan; I’ve read all of her books, and I’ve recommended quite a few of them on the Tart. Whenever I hear she has a new book coming out, I immediately get on the waiting list for it at my local library. (And, there’s always a waiting list for her new books.) However…after reading The Friends We Keep, I have to finally acknowledge that...
Love's a funny thing. I’m a big fan of weird and difficult love stories. This is because real love is never easy, and I like to see that fact realistically portrayed. And, sure, while romantic love can be mind-boggling at times, I happen to think that familial love takes the cake. It's perhaps the most twisted, complicated form of love there is. On that thought-provoking note, let's move into my book review of The Mother-in-Law. I decided to...
Well. I'm never visiting a health resort. EVER. I'm just going to start this review by saying that Nine Perfect Strangers did not go at all where I thought it would. A lot of people said they had a hard time getting through this entire book, and I didn't quite understand what they meant until about halfway through -- which is about halfway through the titular "nine perfect strangers'" experience at a luxury spa and health resort called...
Goodreads and some other book bloggers tell me I’m in the minority on this one – but I just don’t care. The Last Romantics was a DNF for me. I requested the ARC of author Tara Conklin’s newest novel in a moment of optimism. I hadn’t been able to finish her debut novel, The House Girl; the premise had interested me, but the writing fell flat and refused to suck me into its story. Still, I had hoped that my encounter with The Last...
As so often happens, I started reading The Endless Beach on a grey, rainy, Saturday morning, snuggled up in bed between a husband and a cat. I had only gotten a little into the book when I had to wrench myself away in order to find some breakfast. Seriously, the only thing that could have made me stop reading this book at that moment was hunger. I was only about 15 pages in, and I was already lost in another world from which I didn’t want to...
The Perfect Nanny would not exist if Myriam and Paul Massé had just bought themselves some nanny cams from the French Home Depot. I'm serious, though I didn't have this realization until I was more than halfway done with the book. I So much trauma could have been prevented in this psychological thriller if these parents had been a little more invested in their children’s safety, But, that's part of the problem in The Perfect Nanny, The...
Well, the holidays are over. Enter the looooooong winter months of January, February, and March, when it's freakishly cold outside and successive snowstorms foil your plans way too often. I used to dread this time of year. Once Christmas was over, my seasonal depression would kick in big time, and I would spend these next few, miserable months counting the days until the robins returned and brought springtime with them. Yeah, notice that I'm...
I think I seriously missed out on a life experience by not rushing a Southern sorority. That's something I never thought I would say, since I pretty much mocked sororities every chance I got back in college. And, for a good halfway through Rush, I was feeling pretty darn smug about my decision to eschew all Greek life when I had the chance. By the end of this amazing book, though, author Lisa Patton had completely sold me on Southern sorority...
Another DNF. *sigh* This one pained me. To add yet another title to my Did Not Finish tally, and to have it be the third time I've had to do this in about a month. On the plus side, that TBR pile that looked so intimidating just a week ago is now looking pretty darn manageable. But, I mean...BARBARA KINGSOLVER. She's a legend who writes some damn fine novels. The Bean Trees was eye-opening for me when I read it the summer before high school....
This novel was like a breath of fresh air. I love discovering wonderful books by debut authors. I may be slightly biased toward them, as I hope to be a debut author sooner rather than later, but I really feel like you’re unearthing a hidden treasure when you find such a gem from a previously unknown writer. I mean, you didn’t find that gem. The publisher did. Well, really, the agent did. BUT STILL. You took a chance on reading a new book by...
