The Year of Yes: A Memoir

By Maria Dahvana Headley

A few years ago, author Maria Headley realized that she was tired of dating losers and desperate to fall in love. Since it never seemed to work out with the type of men she usually dated - intellectual, creative types- she decided that for one year, she would say yes to every man who asked her out in the hope that she would find love where she least expected it. As you can imagine, Maria ends up dating a LOT of weirdos. Highlights include:

• a graphic designer who eats only raw vegetables, makes her a cake made of birdseed, and never lost his virginity
• a homeless man who believes he is Jimi Hendrix
  
• a handsome bicyclist from Cyprus with a great body who wants Maria to bite his penis


• a fellow film student who takes her to a really tacky strip club & later tells their entire class all the gory details of their horrific date
  
• a lesbian who is only using her for her womb


• an gorgeous actor who is "mostly" gay and engaged to another woman
  

The list goes on and on. This book reminded me how elusive love is and how lucky I am to have a wonderful husband so I never ever have to date again. All along, I predicted that Maria would eventually end up with her roommate or have one of those corny moments of self realization that it's ok to be alone because you have to learn to love yourself first or some other b.s. So I was pleasantly surprised by the last pages when my predictions turned out to be completely wrong. Also liked this passage on the final page:

"Love is hard to pin down. There is no language for it. A glorious sparking inside you, an alchemy. All your hurt suddenly turned into joy. Love is inexplicable...Nothing could have prepared me for it. All I could do was open my heart. I didn't understand everything that I was holding. I only knew that it was right."

All the men become a little monotonous after a while and I still can't decide if I like Maria or not, but I still found this book somewhat amusing. ***

Be Mine

by Laura Kasischke

This novel was so bad that I'm embarrassed to add it to this blog. I think it was supposed to be chick lit crossed with suspense but it was just STUPID! On Valentine's Day, Sherry finds the first of a series of love notes in her mailbox at the community college where she works as a professor and they aren't from Jon, her husband of twenty years. Jon is all turned on by the fact that some stranger is stalking his wife so he keeps asking about the notes and encouraging her to be with this secret admirer. NOTE: spoilers ahead-- stop reading now if you don't want to know the big ridiculous ending. So, after Sherry has tons of crazy sex with her kinky husband and also with the "hot" auto mechanic teacher at the college, Jon starts crying and claims he was only kidding! Ooops! The real kicker is that the secret admirer turns out to be Laura's once beautiful but now frumpy and overweight best friend Sue, who says she was just trying to cheer her up. What a waste of paper!

Speaking of bad books, here are two others to avoid at all costs:

The Ruins by Scott Smith


Stephen King RAVED about this one in Entertainment Weekly and although I'm not a big mystery person, I didn't want to miss this great book. It was HORRIBLE! I thought it was supposed to be scary but the entire plot was ridiculous and the characters were totally stereotypical and bland. Instead of feeling scared as I read it, I just wanted to laugh because it as sooo bad!! My only consolation was the fact that most readers on amazon.com agreed with me.


User I.D. by Jenefer Shute


This book was so bad that I think I blocked it out! The plot about identity theft sounded intriguing but then more and more bad things happened to the victim and it was just excruciating to read. Hated it!

Still Life with Husband

by Lauren Fox

Emily never thought she'd be so completely bored with her life and she's only thirty. She is bored but not miserable in her marriage to her college boyfriend Kevin, who loves his dull job as a technical writer. She compares their ten year relationship to reading the same novel over and over and over. Her work as a freelance writer and part time assistant editor of a medical journal may sound interesting but that's unfulfilling as well. Now Kevin has started pressuring Emily to buy a house in the suburbs and start a family, both of which are completely unappealing to her. She is ambivalent about having kids, especially with Kevin right now, and loves their apartment in the city, but when she tries to tell him, he basically ignores her. One day, Emily is having coffee in a cafe with her best friend Meg, who is newly pregnant and on leave from her job as a teacher, when she meets a fellow writer. David is everything that Kevin isn't -- interesting, attentive, and new. They try to ignore their mutual attraction but soon Emily is hiding her wedding ring, lying to Kevin and sneaking off to meet David at his apartment. Against all odds, the author somehow makes Emily a likeable yet flawed character and Kevin is just annoying enough to make her affair seem somewhat justified. The plot thickens when David breaks her heart, Kevin discovers the truth and Emily finds herself pregnant. Sounds a little soap opera-ish but with solid writing and believable characters, Fox pulls it off. The ending is a bit open ended which sometimes annoys me but it felt right for this book. Recommended. ****

Black and White

by Dani Shapiro

Another thought provoking novel from the author of Slow Motion and Family History. Clara Brodeur's quiet life with her family in Maine is suddenly interrupted by an early morning phone call from NYC. Her sister Robin is calling to tell her that their difficult and overbearing mother is very sick with advanced lung cancer. Clara and Ruth have been estranged for 14 years, when Clara left home at eighteen. Ruth is a photographer who became famous after shooting a very controversial series of nude photos of Clara from age three to fourteen. Clara hates everything about the photos and has never forgiven her mother for caring more about her career than the feelings and needs of her child. Now Clara must decide whether she will make amends with Ruth before she dies. An interesting book about art, families, secrets and forgiveness.

The Lavender Hour

by Anne D. LeClaire

One of the best books I've read in a while, the Lavender Hour is the time of evening when the sun sets and the sky turns shades of violet and rose; the day is dying. "...Most people think black is the color of death but its true color is lavender."
Jessie Long is an artist from Virginia living on Cape Cod after her job teaching art in a high school is downsized. She spends her quiet days walking on the beach and creating jewelry made from human hair, then decides to be a hospice volunteer in her spare time. Jessie, who lost her father to a heart attack at age 14 and recently survived brain cancer herself, was taught to give back to the community and believes that people in the last stages of life have lessons to teach the living. She is assigned to care for Luke Ryder, a 46 year old fisherman suffering from pancreatic cancer, who wants nothing to do with hospice. Jessie is just supposed to give his elderly mother a much needed break a couple of times a week. However, Luke and Jessie develop a special friendship and begin to fall in love, despite his advanced illness and her longtime fear of love. Soon, Jessie is breaking hospice rules, desperately wishing for a miracle and forced to make a heartbreaking decision. This beautifully written book is difficult to put down and you can't help wishing Luke & Jessie could be together somehow. The dark subject matter is not for everyone, but many people who have lost loved ones to long illnesses will find it a riveting and rewarding novel. ****

So Much For My Happy Ending: A Novel

by Kyra Davis

I feel a little bit cheesy for admitting that I liked this book. April Silverperson is a 28 year old department store manager living in San Francisco. She agrees to marry Tad Showers after a whirlwind three month romance, even though the little voice in her head is screaming, "Don't do this!" Life with Tad is dreamy one minute and a complete nightmare the next. He lies to her about their finances, her mother and his past, plus his moods can turn on a dime. Most readers probably aren't too surprised when April's McDreamy turns out to be bipolar, but her struggle with her marriage, her family problems and her career choices make for an interesting story. Davis's writing is a step above most of the chick lit I've picked up lately.***1/2

The Kommandant's Girl

by Pam Jenoff

Its the beginning of WWII in Krakow, Poland. Emma and Jacob are a young Jewish couple, recently married when the Nazis invade. Emma is forced to fend for herself after Jacob disappears underground to help with the Resistance Movement. She lives with her parents in the ghetto until the resistance workers rescue her, give her a new identity as a Catholic girl named Anna and send her to live with Jacob's wealthy aunt outside the city. Things get interesting when Emma nervously accepts a secretarial position working for a high ranking Nazi commander, in the hope that she will be able to find a way to help the resistance. Although she loves her husband deeply, Emma finds herself strangely attracted to the Kommandant and she realizes that both her identity and her marriage vows could be compromised at any moment.
Publishers Weekly gave this novel a starred review and called it "a breathtaking debut." Maybe the fact that I've read so many Holocaust memoirs made me a tougher critic here but I thought it was just okay. The plot is interesting, the characters are courageous but it just isn't very believeable and it doesn't feel bleak enough. A book like this should make you cry or feel something and I didn't. It's an interesting novel if you like historical fiction mixed with chick lit and your expectations aren't too high.