And Then Everything Unraveled by Jennifer Sturman

Title: And Then Everything Unraveled
Author: Jennifer Sturman
Young Adult
256 pages
Publisher: Point (July 1, 2009)
Rating: 4.25 out of 5

About the book:
Delia Truesdale has no idea her life’s about to change forever. She’s too busy enjoying the California summer. Her internet tycoon mother, T.K. Truesdale, is out of town, and that means Delia can spend all her time at the beach, surfing. That is, until everything unravels.
Her mother suddenly goes missing, and everyone thinks she’s dead – except Delia, who knows T.K.’s way too organized to simply disappear. But Delia’s still sent to New York to live with her two aunts – a downtown bohemian and an uptown ice queen.
And in case that’s not bad enough, she also has to deal with a snooty new school and trying not to fall for the wrong guy. Oh, and finding her mother.
As she delves deeper into the tangle of conspiracies and lies surrounding T.K.’s disappearance, Delia begins to suspect that the wrong guy may be the right guy…and that some secrets – especially the dangerous ones – were never meant to be unraveled.

My Review:
Cordelia Truesdale or Delia had a nice, carefree life in California with 2 best friends and a school she likes. All this comes to an abrupt end when her mom T.K goes on an environmental trip to Antarctica. Her ship is said to have disappeared and everyone, including her mom’s manager Thad, believes she is dead. But Delia is not convinced. After all there no body is found.

When her mother’s will is read, Delia is sent to her aunts Patience and Charity to New York. Although Delia believes her mom is going to return, she has no choice. She decides to investigate into the matter from New York.

This book was awesome, really. I could not keep it down. It was just so much fun with all the quirky characters. The fun and carefree Charity, the controlling and uptight Patience, her genius geek friend Natalie, the psychic Carolina, and yes the very cute and handsome Quinn. Quinn reminded me a lot of the guy from the movie The Cinderella Story staring Hilary Duff. A caricature, yes, but cute anyway. The sense of humor was amazing and I found myself laughing out loud many times.

From the blurb I thought this book would be funny, but I was really unprepared for how sad I felt for Delia and what she was going through. Maintaining a level of humor and yet making Delia’s pain real was a very good and difficult balance. That was one of the reasons I liked the book more.

I was kind of surprised when everyone called their parents by their first name. I mean, is that normal? I didn’t find any explanation of that in the book, so it left me a little confused. But other than that, And Then Everything Unraveled
was very good.

This book obviously has a sequel. But this book has just released, so I wonder how long I will have to wait for that. Anyway, do read it if you like Young adult or just want to tuck into a nice, fun novel.

About the Author (from Amazon)
JENNIFER STURMAN is the acclaimed author of several adult mystery novels, including The Pact and The Jinx. After graduating from Harvard College, Jennifer earned her MBA from Harvard Business School. She now lives in New York City, a few blocks from Delia’s aunt. She has no free time, but if she did she would probably spend it watching teen movie classics and playing poker.

BTT: Do you read Celebrity memoirs?

Do you read celebrity memoirs? Which ones have you read or do you want to read? Which nonexistent celebrity memoirs would you like to see?

uummm….generally no. I do skim through them if I come across any in the bookstore or the library. But I don’t really read them from cover to cover. Although I love reading memoirs, celebrity memoirs just don’t interest me unless they have something other than their movie careers in their books.

If models come under celebrities, I would like to mention one book that I have been searching for a long time but unable to find.

Desert Flower by Waris Dirie. I really do want to read this one. Her life story fascinates me.

From Publishers Weekly
Joining the current rage for model memoirs (see review above) is Dirie, a native of Somalia, who has for more than a decade stalked the world’s catwalks and appeared in numerous glossy magazines. This, however, is no fluff-job dictated into a tape recorder on transatlantic flights, then recomposed by a hired gun back in New York. Rather, it is a striking account of a personal odyssey that began in the Somali desert, where Dirie grew up without shoes, living amid nomadic tribes and tyrannized by patriarchal strictures. As a pubescent girl, Dirie was circumcised?a procedure described here in chilling detail?before escaping an arranged marriage to stay with an aunt in Mogadishu. Landing a job as a house servant in London, Dirie struggled to launch a modeling career while dodging British immigration authorities and the dreadful results of marriages of convenience. At the end of this affecting and at times very entertaining book, Dirie’s metamorphosis from desert nomad into jetsetting nomad culminates in a post as a human rights ambassador to the UN, where, these days, Dirie campaigns for the eradication of female circumcision and women’s rights around the globe. It’s easy to forget that Dirie’s memoir is a book about someone whose success has come from posing for the camera. Indeed, it is Dirie’s remarkable lack of narcissism or entitlement that makes her so captivating a raconteur.

I’ve read Britney Spears mom’s memoir if her mom does come under celebrities. It was good. See my review here.

Sushmita Sen

One autobiography I would be interested in reading would be ‘The butterfly’ by Sushmita Sen (which is not out yet). She is one actor I really admire. She was Ms. Universe somewhere around 1997, I think. And she is one of the very first celebrity women who had adopted a girl in spite of being single. That’s a huge thing here.

Other than that? Not really interested.

P.S: I almost forgot. I would really love to read Oprah’s Memoir/ Autobiography too. Or is there one already?

Oh ans yes, I’ve read Sidney Sheldon’s autobiography which I didn’t like so much. For me he was a Celebrity

Vamped by Lucienne Diver

Vamped

Title: Vamped
Author: Lucienne Diver
Young Adult
Publisher: Flux; 1 edition (May 1, 2009)
Paperback: 240 pages
Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars

About the book (This is what is on the back cover):
Gina Covello’s Perks and Pitfalls
of Vamp Life
1. Hello?! Eternal youth and beauty!
2. Free. Designer. Clothes.
3. My hot new boyfriend Bobby went from chess dud to vamp stud.
4. No reflection! First order of business: turn my own stylist to stop the downward spiral from chic to eek.
5. Vampire vixen Mellisande has taken an interest in my boyfriend, and is now transforming the entire high school into her own personal vampire army. If anyone’s going to start their own undead entourage it should be me.
I guess I’ll just have to save everyone from fashion disasters and other fates worse than death.

My Review:
I let out a deep satisfying sigh after I saw the book in the mail. I love the color red and I loved it on the cover of this book. Even though I have finished reading this book (obviously), I still haven’t shelved it. I like to look at the cover now and then.

Now that this important piece of information is out, let’s get on to the review.

Gina Covello wakes up in a coffin after she dies in an accident. To her horror she realizes she is a Vampire and the boy who made her one, Bobby, is one of the geeks turned dashing and handsome vampire too. Bobby is kidnapped by Mellisande and Gina is sent to a dungeon like place where she finds many of her classmates, apparently turned into vampires too.

Now Gina has to discover Mellisande’s purpose in building a teenage vampire army. And also why Bobby is singled out by her? What exactly does Mellisande want?

Gina is such a likable vamp. She cares about her manicure, brands, her hair, but yes, she also has a conscience which makes for interesting conversations with herself.

This book was so much fun, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The author, Lucienne Diver, has a sarcastic and snarky sense of humor and a very fresh voice.

If you want to read a chic, cool and fun vampire story, you should definitely read this one. If you want to read something different than the hordes of dark vampire books, Vamped is definitely it.

The only problem with the book was that the action was a little difficult to follow at times. As there is one POV to the story, Gina’s, the reader is left as confused and in the dark as Gina is. You kind of discover and understand what’s going on along with Gina. The end is open ended so I am guessing there is a sequel? I have read this book being compared to Buffy, but I wouldn’t know as I haven’t seen a single episode yet. Sad, I know.

If you like Young Adult or Chicklit, this book is definitely for you. Vamped could be a perfect beach read.

One of the passages just to give you an example of the writing style:
Superhuman strength or no, by the time I broke through to the surface, my manicure was totally shot, my nails were split, and I was covered in dirt. And I mean covered. I was about to wig out when I realized just what I was brushing off-and one shock kind of cancelled out the other. My parents had me buried me in a truly heinous dress of white eyelet, which made me look like a stylistically challenged child bride. I had a vague repressed memory of being forced to wear it to my first communion years ago and marveled that it still fit. Not that I’d grown out, except for, you know, up top. Sadly, I hadn’t done much growing up either; I’d maxed out at, like, five foot nothing. Anyway, if anything deserved to be covered in grave dust, it was this old rag.
(Any mistakes, in spelling or grammar, are all typos from my side)

About the Author:
Lucienne Diver is a literary agent by day, a writer and journeyman jeweler by night. She started writing in her teens because talking back to the voices in her head wasn’t socially acceptable—and she already had enough to deal with being a drama and AP English geek.

Her credits include short stories and a romantic comedy written under the pseudonym Kit Daniels. With her young adult novel Vamped, she’s taking off the mask and stepping into the full glare of … indirect sunlight. Because as her heroine would tell you, anything else is hazardous to your health, especially once you’ve been Vamped.

Half Yearly Review…

I wanted to do Monday Musings this week, but somehow didn’t get the time. So I thought why not do a personal half-yearly review?

Last year I read around 40 books and I remember saying that I would love to read at least 50 books in 2009. And surprise surprise, I’ve already read 49. How cool is that. This makes me more than happy. I’ve also been really good at keeping track of what I read this year, with writing down books read month wise and actually linking them to their respective reviews. It’s really no work at all if you do it immediately.

These are my favorites so far.
There are 3 books with 5 stars (Jackie, I thought I had read the other 2 last year in December )
5 stars:

Mommy I’m still in here by Kate McLaughlin
My Father’s Paradise by Ariel Sabar
A damsel in distress by P.G.Wodehouse

4.5/ 4 stars

Things fall apart by Chinua Achebe
The last Empress by Anchee Min
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Crossed Wires by Rosy Thornton
Dragon’s Keep by Janet Lee Carey
Cutting Loose by Nadine Dajani
Nefertiti by Michelle Moran
Drawers and Booths by Ara 13
The map of a known word by Lisa Ann Sandell
Bad Girls dont die by Katie Alender
Secrets of a Summer night by Lisa Kleypas (Not Reviewed)
Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel
Triumph of Deborah by Eva Etzioni-Havely
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
The Heretic Queen by Michele Moran
Saffron Dreams by Shaila abdullah
The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax

Have you seen Swapna’s Review Database? I can only imagine how much work it must have taken.

What else?

Challenges

I have been so bad at these. When I joined them I did a nice separate page with all the buttons and links and all. But I guess I forgot to keep track. I did add a book to a challenge as and when I remembered.
I’ll just do a quick recap here and update the page along with this if I get the time. The ones not with the reviews have to be read.

• 2009 Pub Challenge

1. A Duke to die for by Amelia Grey
2. The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax
3. Saffron Dreams by Shaila abdullah
4. That Went Well by Terrell Harris Dougan
5. The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
6. Falling in Love by Pauline Trent
7. Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel
8.
9.

• World Citizen Challenge

1. Mommy I’m still in here by Kate McLaughlin
(Memoir)
2. Wisdom of Whores by Elizabeth Pisani (Worldwide issues). I really want to read this book, but I don’t know when I’ll get the time.

• The Baker Street Challenge

1. The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle
2. The Hound of the Baskervilles

• Chunkster Challenge 09

1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
2. The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
3. The House at Riverton

• Casual Classics 2009

1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
2. Great Expectations
3. A trees grows in Brooklyn
4. Little Woman
(This list could change)

• Orbis Terratum Challenge (I’ve been really lacking in adding the links on the Challenge site. Sorry Bethany)

1. Saffron Dreams by Shaila abdullah (Author born in Pakistan)
2. Triumph of Deborah by Eva Etzioni-Havely (Author born in Austira)
3. Cutting Loose by Nadine Dajani (Author born in Lebanon)
4. Things fall apart by Chinua Achebe (Author born in Nigeria)
5. The last Empress by Anchee Min (Author born in China)
6. A damsel in distress by P.G.Wodehouse (Author born in England)

• 4R’s Challenge

1.

How are you doing?

The extra tidbits in a review…

Okay, there is this one thing I wanted to ask everyone who reads or writes books reviews.

Don’t worry, it’s not about what should or should not be there in the actual review, but the little things that might or might not matter.

When I started reviewing I did not include any information except the review of course. But as I started reading reviews on other blogs I started to note down what I liked and what I didn’t. I started including information in my reviews what I wanted to read in others.

The title and author: Obviously.
The Publisher and the publishing date: I like to know old the book is.
The number of pages: As I have mentioned many times, I dread chunksters. So if you are reviewing an 800 pages book, I’ll not bother adding it to my wishlist. It will just save me time, rather than to Google it and then realize it’s too huge for my taste. I might exclude Classics from this though.
Author Information: Not necessary actually. I add Author Information only for new authors or review copy authors. I don’t see much point in adding information on Stephen King or Wodehouse.
Rating: I never rated books before, just because I found it really difficult to rate books. But I’ve realized that whenever I read reviews, sometimes it’s not really very clear about how much the reviewer really enjoyed the book unless he/she says, ”Go, get the book now” or “Outstanding”. You liked the book, but how much? Well, you get my point.

Should I include something in my reviews too? I just read on TheKoolAidMom’s site that she likes to see an ISBN. I never really paid much attention to it.

See? Confusion, confusion!!!

What do you expect when you see reviews? Or what extra information do you really wish people should include in their reviews? Something that is to your liking? Or it absolutely does not matter?

My Father’s Paradise by Ariel Sabar

Title: My Father’s Paradise
Author: Ariel Sabar
Genre: Non-Fiction
Publisher: Algonquin Books (August 21, 2008)
Hardcover: 325 pages
Rating: 5/5

I read the first 100 pages of this book and then I misplaced it. I was very disappointed as I was really into it. And then after some time I found it again. It had slipped underneath my bed from the tiny space between the bed and the wall. When I started reading it again from the point I left, I couldn’t follow the story, so I thought I would skim the first 100 pages again. But I ended reading them instead of skimming. And I’m so glad I did. I understood the book so much better because of that. For someone like me who didn’t know anything about Kurdish Jews or Zakho, I’m actually glad I misplaced it. This doesn’t mean you’ll have to re-read the beginning too. I know that’s just me. That’s just to say how engrossing the book was even the second time around.

In a small and dusty village called Zakho at the border of Iraq, nestled between the mountains and almost secluded from the rest of Iraq, a boy called Yona Sabagha, Ariel Sabar’s father, was born. Yona was the son of Rahmain and grandson of Ephraim, who was a respected dyer and was known to talk to angels. Yona spent his first 11 years in Zakho, a place where where Muslims and Jews lived in Harmony. But somewhere around the time of the Second World War, things began to change. The Arab Islamic movement took hold in Baghdad and the rest of Iraq, which resulted in conflicts between the Jews and Muslims. Majority of the Jews from the Arab World fled to Israel. Along with the millions of Jews, Yona’s family too had to go.

In Israel, Yona struggled with life and getting a job and studying. What really amazed me was the courage and conviction of Yona and his friends to become something, to pull themselves and families above the poverty line. When Yona was granted scholarship in the States, he decided to take it. There he met his future wife. So in a way his son Ariel did not experience or know what it was like to be a Kurdish Jew. He was an American through and through. Yona could never really accept the American culture, nor could he go back to his past .So he was in a way strange to his son.

After many years Ariel decides to go back to Zakho with his father in the hopes of getting to know him better and also to close the rift that had divided them for so many years.

I absolutely LOVED this book. It reads like fiction where he describes his father and his life and like non-fiction where he writes about the Kurdish Jews and the history of Aramaic. But no where does it get boring or over-bearing. The descriptions of Zakho, what it was like then and now, were mesmerizing. It was like discovering a whole new world.

The journey of a son to understand his father, his past and his own roots was beautiful, heartbreaking, captivating and hopeful. This book felt like a tribute to his father and the Jews from Zakho who are relatively unknown to the world. Author Ariel Sabar has documented history in the most beautiful way possible.

Very highly recommended. Let me know if you need more convincing.

About the author:
Ariel Sabar covered the 2008 U.S. presidential campaigns for the Christian Science Monitor and is an award-winning former staff writer for the Baltimore Sun and the Providence (RI) Journal. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, The Times Sunday Magazine, The Washington Monthly, Mother Jones, Moment, Christianity Today and other publications. He lives with his wife and two children in Washington, D.C. This is his first book.

Hot!!!

Now that summer is here (in the northern hemisphere, anyway), what is the most “Summery” book you can think of? The one that captures the essence of summer for you?
(I’m not asking for you to list your ideal “beach reading,” you understand, but the book that you can read at any time of year but that evokes “summer.”)

That is a tough question, the answer of which could depend each person’s perspective of what summer is. I like to read books that will take me away from the hot summer’s here. I would like to read a book that is based in the colder regions or the rainy ones, something like Chasing the monsoon. You get the point.

But if you ask me what books remind me of summer, I would mention books that remind me of lazy days and relaxed evenings. I would put most romances in this category. I don’t like to read anything heavy when it’s too hot, it’s gets difficult to concentrate.

As I said I would put all romances (Lisa Kleypas, Nora Roberts, Jude Deveraux, Sandra Brown etc, etc) as summer reads or even Young Adult books that do not deal with difficult subjects.

I hope I have answered the question correctly. Even if I haven’t, I can think of a cover that reminds me of summer though

I know it says autumn, but for me it’s similar to Summer. This is the book I’m reading currently (which reminds me I have to update the Currently Reading section) and although it’s somewhere between the end of summer and the start of the rainy season here, I find this a perfect distraction

What books remind you of Summer? Or let’s say, What exactly is Summer in your parts like?

Son of the Great River by Elijah Meeks

Title: Son of the Great River
Author: Elijah Meeks
Publisher: Booklocker.com, Inc. (March 12, 2009)
Paperback: 144 pages
Rating: 2.75 out of 5

What do I tell you about the book? Even after 2 days of reading it, I’m still confused. Let’s start with the plot, shall we? Or what I understood of it.

A stranger woman gives Saffu a tiny cylinder with mysterious carvings before her death. All Saffu knows about the woman is that she is somewhere from the South and that the cylinder like thing should be returned to their people because it could be something important. So leaving his love and his people behind, he sets off to an unknown land.

Samhail is another boy who leaves home to go to another city. On the way he helps a girl called Rheem escape from her families clutches. When these two boys meet in the Imperial city, the King sends them on adventures against their wishes. What follows is basically their adventure in unknown lands.

Now the main question is ‘Did I like this book’? Before I picked it up, my younger sis said she wanted to read it. As I was already reading another book so I asked her to go ahead. She left it after 20 pages. I asked her if there was any problem with the book. But all she could say was, ‘The book isn’t bad, but I don’t know, something doesn’t feel right’.

That’s exactly what I thought about Son of the Great River. Have you read a book where you are not quite able to figure out what was wrong with the book? The writing was good; the plot was good, at least for the 90% of the book. The strange lands, the witches’ story was all quite nice. But it wasn’t leading anywhere. Everything seemed unnecessary. I felt as if the story was written in parts and then put together without any order. I was so confused at times that I had to re-read, sometimes an entire page. At one point I got tired of it. Although everything did tie up neatly in the end, it somehow felt weird while reading it. And the meaning of the symbols on the Cylinder because of which everything happened was a let down.

I somehow feel like that this book would have had great potential if it was fleshed out properly.

But there are many people who liked this book. If you go to Amazon or GoodReads, you’ll see quite a few 4 or 5 start reviews. The 2.75 stars from me is for the good writing and a few scenes that were quite good, mainly the witches scene.

Elijah Meeks

About this author (from Goodreads)
An academic studying environmental history and the digital humanities. My literary influences come from a wide variety of sources, some high-brow (Chekhov and Voltaire) some decidedly not (HP Lovecraft and Edger Rice Burroughs). In my first novel, Son of the Great River, I tried to give the feeling of early history without devolving into jargon or patronization. I’m currently working on two other novels, one a ponderous, Russian-style science fiction epic and the other an adventure story with a hero modeled after John Carter, Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. [close] An academic studying environmental history and the digital humanities. My literary influences come from a wide variety of sources, some high-brow (Chekhov and Voltaire) some decidedly not (HP Lovecraft and Edger Rice Burroughs). In my first novel, Son of the Great River, I tried to give the feeling of early history without devolving into jargon or patronization. I’m currently working on two other novels, one a ponderous, Russian-style science fiction epic and the other an adventure story with a hero modeled after John Carter, Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.

Reading meme…

I’ve seen this meme around and find it really interesting. So I’ll give it a shot. I have sort of combined Jackie’s and Eva’s meme.

1. What author do you own the most books by?
Lisa Kleypas. If my library didn’t stock all Sidney Sheldon and Nora Roberts books, theirs would be the max I would own. After Lisa Kleypas, I would say Jane Austen. I own almost 4 books by her but have read only, one Pride and Prejudice.

2. What book do you own the most copies of?
None. I don’t own multiple copies of any books. Fortunately I remember all the books I own, except I sometimes get confused with the classics.
 
3. Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
Nope

4. What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
I won’t say I’m in love with a character but I do like Mr. Darcy from P&P a lot and Rhett Butler from Gone with the wind comes a close second. I like all Lisa Kleypas heroes too. There is something about the mysterious outcasts I must say. Other than that I like Elizabeth from P&P and Scarlett again from GWTW.

5. What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children)?
My Girl by Patricia Hermes. I might have read it 4-5 times and cried each time.

6. What was your favourite book when you were ten years old?
I never read when I was young. I started reading somewhere around the 7th Grade.

7. What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
Sorry, I’m not giving names

8. What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
Many actually. Jane Eyre, Legends of Pensam and so on and so forth. Please don’t ask me to name one.

9. If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
ummm…Anne of Green Gables?

10. Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
Oh…please, I don’t know. All this prize winning books stuff is tangent to me.

11. What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Shantaram. But they are already making a movie on it. May be, Nefertitti by Michelle Moran. It would be fun to watch. Just imagine, you’ll get to see all those pyramids and temples and tombs of ancient Egypt.

12. What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
The Alchemist

13. What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
I haven’t completed the most difficult books I had to read. Midnight’s Children and Savitri by Rabindranath Tagore.

14. Roth or Updike?
Haven’t read either. Where should I start?

15. David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Haven’t read Eggers but I like David Sedaris, kind of.

16. Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Shakespeare, just because I’ve read one book of his.

17. Austen or Eliot?
Never read Eliot but love Jane Austen.

18. Name the last book by a female author that you’ve read.
The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax. I have noticed that most of what I read is by female authors, although it’s not intentional.

19. Name the last book by an African or African-American author that you’ve read.
I think Things fall apart by Chinua Achebe.

20. How about one from an Asian country or Asian-American?
Sushi for one by Camy Tang

21. Why not name an Israeli/Arab/Turk/Persian writer, if you’re feeling lucky?
Does Ariel Sabar (author of My father’s Paradise) count? Well, he isn’t from the above places, but his father is from Israel.

22. Any other ‘marginalized’ authors you’ve read lately?
What does marginalized mean? Please enlighten me people.

Give it a shot if you feel like.

The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax

Title: The Accidental Bestseller

Author: Wendy Wax
Publisher: Berkley (TRD); 1 edition (Jun 2 2009)
Paperback: 432 pages
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Reading this book was like reading a book within a book or reading about how the book was written. Well, kind of. Confused? Keep reading.

It’s a story about 4 friends, their happiness, their loss, their struggles, but most of all their friendship. Four women, Mallory, Tanya, Kendall and Faye meet in a writer’s conference 10 years ago when they were just aspiring writers. 10 years later each is successful in her own right. But even though they have been friends for so long they have things they have hidden from each other and other people closest to them.

Mallory is a New York Times bestselling author but as far as her life is concerned, she is a closed book. She has a compulsion of completing at least 20 pages of writing everyday no matter what. Tanya works 2 jobs, has 2 girls, is a single mother and in spite of being an author of multiple books, the income isn’t enough to support her family. She has always been so independent and the people in her life have disappointed her to the extent that she afraid of relying on anyone again. Faye is the wife of a Pastor and a famous evangelist. She writes inspirational fiction, but underneath all that happiness and success is a secret which will have the power to destroy her as well as her husband’s career.

Finally we come to Kendall. She is the connecting thread between all the individual stories. When her husband of 25 years leaves her for another woman and her career is going down the drains, her friends help her out in the time of need. What results is a book, Sticks and Stones, which had Kendall’s name on it but is ghost written by all her friends. It’s a book about 4 writers who are friends just like they are. As they write their own parts, they struggle with how much to reveal and how much to hide. Finally they end up writing about their deepest secrets, something they haven’t shared with their friends or even family.

When the book becomes a Bestseller, the scrutiny and analyzing that comes with it threatens to destroy their careers and their friendship.

What I liked most about the book was how it handled the individual characters as well as their impact on each other without confusing the reader. There are these 4 friends that are central to the story, but there is also an editor, the editor’s assistant Lacy, besides their spouses, love interests, children and grandchildren. Before reading the book I wondered about how Ms. Wax would keep everything clear and smooth flowing. But all I can say is that the execution is flawless. The publishing process, the life of a writer and the inside tidbits of a publishing house mentioned in the book are fascinating.

The process of writing a book, struggling through it all, making it to the bestseller’s list intermingled with the stories of triumphs and tribulations of four best friends and writers was entertaining, exciting, and unputdownable.

I would especially say that I LOVED the ending, everything neatly wrapped up with an upbeat or happy note, just as I like it.

Highly Recommended.

About the author: Wendy Wax began her broadcast career at a tiny radio station in Athens, Georgia, where she chose to attend college after reading Gone With the Wind one too many times. Over the last twenty years she has written and produced a wide range of corporate and broadcast projects and has worked on commercials and feature films. She is also an experienced on-air and voice-over talent and hosted a live radio talk show called “Desperate & Dateless” in the early eighties.

She lives in Atlanta with her husband and their two elementary school-aged boys. Annnddddddddd, she has written 4 other books, how happy does that make me? Here they are.

Read Melody’s review here. She has some awesome quotes from the book too.