71. Heart, You Bully, You Punk

This one was quirky. I can't really describe it and do it justice. I liked it even though the ending wasn't happy. It wasn't sad either, just left things up in the air, but I was OK with it. I'm going to stop trying to analyze the book - and my feelings about it - and just let this review from BN.com do it for me:

"Prickly" Iphegenia Julia Esker, a math teacher at a private Brooklyn high school, is the guarded figure at the heart of this accomplished, lovingly crafted and somewhat suffocating novel by Cohen, whose previous books include the novel Heat Lightning and the poignant memoir Train Go Sorry. Esker (she goes by her last name) begins tutoring a brilliant and potentially troubled math student at home after Ann James's fall from school bleachers ("I was kind of nudged from the inside") leaves her wheelchair-bound with two broken heels. Ann adores her teacher and wants her father, the kindly, semimarried restaurant owner, Wally James, and Esker to get acquainted. Though Esker has lived a hermitlike existence for nine years, ever since her beloved Albert Rose, then 22, married the girl his family expected him to, Wally is able to get past Esker's defenses and make her, momentarily anyway, "baskingly, destabilizingly happy" in this odd tale of love and loneliness. As if Esker's natural resistance to happiness weren't enough, the Prospect School frowns on her nascent relationship with Wally, and Wally's wife (and Ann's mother), who left three years ago to act in independent films, visits at Christmas. But this slim novel is short on plot, which leaves Cohen room for enchantingly poetic observations and romantic similes, a sustained metaphor of physical injury, and characters who compulsively take their own emotional temperature. Small gestures carry great weight, and images and details reverberate throughout, as tension builds, not organically from situations, but from Cohen's descriptive layering. One wishes her characters-especially Esker-would stop thinking so much about how to live and just start doing it.

70. The Rest of Her Life

This was a really good read. Similar to a Jodi Piccoult book. I highly recommend it.

Here's the description from B&N.com:

In The Rest of Her Life, Laura Moriarty delivers a luminous, compassionate, and provocative look at how mothers and daughters with the best intentions can be blind to the harm they do to one another.Leigh is the mother of high-achieving, popular high school senior Kara. Their relationship is already strained for reasons Leigh does not fully understand when, in a moment of carelessness, Kara makes a mistake that ends in tragedy -- the effects of which not only divide Leigh's family, but polarize the entire community. We see the story from Leigh's perspective, as she grapples with the hard reality of what her daughter has done and the devastating consequences her actions have on the family of another teenage girl in town, all while struggling to protect Kara in the face of rising public outcry.Like the best works of Jane Hamilton, Jodi Picoult, and Alice Sebold, Laura Moriarty's The Rest of Her Life is a novel of complex moral dilemma, filled with nuanced characters and a page-turning plot that makes readers ask themselves, "What would I do?"

69. Little Beauties

This was a really quick read. And a quirky read as well. Told from three perspectives - a woman with OCD, a teenager who is about to have, then has a baby and the unborn child, then infant. Who is the reincarnated wife of the stranger who helps deliver the baby in the back of his car.

Yeah.

But despite being a pretty bizarre story, in the end, I liked it.

Here's the description from B&N.com:

Diana McBride, a thirty-four-year-old former child pageant contender, now works in a baby store in Long Beach. Between dealing with a catastrophic haircut, the failure of her marriage, and phone calls from her alcoholic mother, Diana has gone off her OCD medication and is trying to cope via washing and cleaning rituals. When pregnant teenager Jamie Ramirez enters the store, Diana's already chaotic world is sent spinning.

Jamie can't stand being pregnant. She can't wait to get on with her normal life and give the baby up for adoption. But her yet-to-be-born daughter, Stella, has a fierce will and a destiny to fulfill. And as the magical plot of Little Beauties unfolds, these three characters' lives become linked in ever more surprising ways.

68. Summer at Willow Lake

This was actually the first book in the Lakeshore Chronicles series but I read it last. I really like these books, yes, there is always a predictable, happily ever after ending, but the characters seem realistic and the stories are well written. And, of course, I do like happily ever after, even if it is predictable.

Here's the review from B&N.com: The latest contemporary from Wiggs (Table for Five) is a quiet, character-based romance set at the Catskills camp that Olivia Bellamy is renovating for her grandparents' 50th anniversary. Helping out is contractor Connor Davis, who initially doesn't recognize Olivia as the girl whose heart he broke a decade before at the very same camp. Now, both hold grudges against the other that hide their insecurities; although he's become successful and sophisticated, Connor believes Olivia's social status puts her out of his league, while Olivia remains buried in her awkward-little-fat-girl memories. The narrative switches off between present-day action and the summers Olivia and Connor spent at Camp Kioga, filling in the spaces of their relationship with each other and with their dysfunctional families. Wiggs's storytelling is heartwarming, but avoids schmaltz, and her chick-lit-ready leads seem older than their 20-some years, adding weight to their stories. Happily clutter free-no subplots to take attention away from the intelligent, appealing couple-this book, first in a series, should appeal to romance and women's fiction readers of any age.

67. Durable Goods

The online reviews for this one are mixed, as our my feelings about it. I didn't disklike it but didn't like it all that much either. It was well written but the story line was pretty depressing but the ending did indicate a better future...

Here's a description from B&N.com:

"Sometimes life is so hard and then, bingo, it's like happiness is pushing at your back, waiting to come out of your front...." On the hot Texas army base she calls home, Katie spends the lazy days of her summer waiting: waiting to grow up; waiting for Dickie Mack to fall in love with her; waiting for her breasts to blossom; waiting for the beatings to stop. Since their mother died, Katie and her older sister, Diane, have been struggling to understand their distant, often violent father. Diane escapes into the arms of her boyfriend. Katie hides in her room or escapes to her best friend's house - until Katie's admiration for her strong-willed sister leads her on an adventure that transforms her life. About Durable Goods Christopher Tilghman has said, "Elizabeth Berg's prose and passion come at us with all the deceptive strength of her heroine." Written with an unerring ability to capture the sadness of growth, the pain of change, the nearly visible vibrations that connect people, this beautiful novel reminds us of how wonderful, and wounding, a deeper understanding of life can be.

66. Dedication

This was a really cute chicklit read... I was pretty hooked from the start and read it in one sitting (I know that's not really that unusual but...)

Here's a review from B&N.com:

The team behind The Nanny Diariesand Citizen Girlreturns with another breezy chick lit portrayal of a woman wronged and, eventually, empowered. When Kate Hollis's childhood chum Laura calls from their Vermont hometown and announces the arrival of Jake Sharpe, a mega rock star and Kate's high school sweetheart, Kate jumps on a plane from Charleston, S.C. (where she's a sustainable development consultant) and makes for idyllic Croton Falls. Through it's been 13 years, Kate still has a primal need to confront not only the boy who abandoned her before the senior prom, but the musical pirate who used her personal life as fodder for his most celebrated songs and cheated his high school bandmates out of deserved recognition and royalties. Chapters switch back and forth between the present and the pivotal middle and high school years where Kate (then Katie) and Jake did the first-love thing: readers get to see Jake's growing he's-just-not-that-into-you-ness and how (surprise!) their Zima-fueled love (it was the '90s) was idealized. While one spends much of the book wanting to shout at Kate to give it up, go back to Charleston and get on with it, McLaughlin and Kraus do get the nagging need for closure in even the shallowest relationships comically right.

65. Dockside

This was a sorta sequel to The Winter Lodge which I read earlier this year... actually, there was another book in between that one and this one that I'll have to get to soon. It's a "sorta sequel" because it deals with the same town and characters who are connected, but each book focuses on different people in the town. Like the Winter Lodge, this was a quick, good, but like all romance novels, predictable read. But, hey, what more can you ask for on a Sunday night?

Here's a review from B&N.com:

Wiggs returns to the town of Avalon, N.Y., and the shores of picturesque Willow Lake with the fourth installment of her popular Lakeshore Chronicles (after The Winter Lodge). Nina Romano, single mom and ex-mayor of Avalon, is just a bank loan away from realizing her lifelong dream: restoring the Inn at Willow Lake, a historic lodge once owned by the wealthy Bellamy family, and turning it into an elegant retreat. Then she finds that Greg Bellamy has beat her to the punch. Greg and Nina have been sparring since the night Greg decked the West Point cadet who had gotten her pregnant at age 15. Now, nearly 20 years later, Greg is the divorced dad of his own pregnant teen. Predictably, Greg is clueless when it comes to running a hotel, and the only person in town qualified to act as general manager-Nina-refuses to take the position. Wiggs's uncomplicated stories are rich with life lessons, nod-along moments and characters with whom readers can easily relate. Delightful and wise, Wiggs's latest shines.

64. The Saturday Wife

This one was so-so... I didn't love it, and at times I thought about putting it down but I had that "once I start it, I need to finish it" feeling and in the end I'm glad I did. There was a good moral to the story and it did provide an interesting perspective on what it means to be an Orthodox Jew.

Anyway... here's a description from B&N.com:

With more than half a million copies of her novels sold, Naomi Ragen has connected with the hearts of readers as well as reviewers who have met her work with unanimous praise. In The Saturday Wife, Ragen utilizes her fluid writing style--rich with charm and detail--to break new ground as she harnesses satire to expose a world filled with contradiction.Beautiful, blonde, materialistc Delilah Levy steps into a life she could have never imagined when in a moment of panic she decides to marry a sincere Rabbinical student. But the reality of becoming a paragon of virtue for a demanding and hypocritical congregation leads sexy Delilah into a vortex of shocking choices which spiral out of comtrol into a catastrophe which is as sadly believeable as it is wildly amusing.Told with immense warmth, fascinating insight, and wicked humor, The Saturday Wife depicts the pitched and often losing battle of all of us as we struggle to hold on to our faith and our values amid the often delicious temptations of the modern world.

63. Love, Suburban Style

This was a quick, cute read...

Here's the description from B&N:

Fed up with her moody teenage daughter, Meg Addams decides what they both need is a good dose of suburban wholesomeness. But when they leave Manhattan behind for Meg's humble blue-collar hometown, they find it crowded with wealthy strangers and upscale boutiques. Settling into a creaky fixer-upper, Meg finally spots a familiar face right next door--and it belongs to none other than Sam Rooney. The would-be love of Meg's high school life is now a single dad, her daughter's new soccer coach--and a neighborly ghost-buster whenever things go bump in the night. With three kids and an undeniable attraction between them, Meg and Sam are in for some heart-racing, wee-hour encounters that have nothing to do with spirits...but everything to do with hearts.

62. Fourth Comings

The latest in the Jessica Darling series and was a really good read. I liked it better then Charmed Thirds, I can't quite identify why, but I did. Again I feel like I can identify with Jessica's struggles to make choices. Rather then covering a year, or four years like the last one did this book chronicles a week in Jessica's life.

Here's the description from B&N.com:

At first it seems that she’s living the elusive New York City dream. She’s subletting an apartment with her best friend, Hope, working for a magazine that actually utilizes her psychology degree, and still deeply in love with Marcus Flutie, the charismatic addict-turned-Buddhist who first captivated her at sixteen.

Of course, reality is more complicated than dreamy clichés. She and Hope share bunk beds in the “Cupcake”—the girlie pastel bedroom normally occupied by twelve-year-old twins. Their Brooklyn neighborhood is better suited to “breeders,” and she and Hope split the rent with their promiscuous high school pal, Manda, and her “genderqueer boifriend.” Freelancing for an obscure journal can’t put a dent in Jessica’s student loans, so she’s eking out a living by babysitting her young niece and lamenting that she, unlike most of her friends, can’t postpone adulthood by going back to school.

Yet it’s the ever-changing relationship with Marcus that leaves her most unsettled. At the ripe age of twenty-three, he’s just starting his freshman year at Princeton University. Is she ready to give up her imperfect yet invigorating post-college life just because her on-again/off-again soul mate asks her to... marry him?

Jessica has one week to respond to Marcus’s perplexing marriage proposal. During this time, she gains surprising wisdom from unexpected sources, including a popular talk show shrink, a drag queen named Royalle G. Biv, and yes, even her parents. But the most shocking confession concerns two people she thought had nothing to hide: Hope andMarcus.

Will this knowledge inspire Jessica to give up a world of late-night literary soirees, art openings, and downtown drunken karaoke to move back to New Jersey and be with the one man who’s gripped her heart for years? Jessica ponders this and other life choices with her signature snark and hyper-intense insight, making it the most tumultuous and memorable week of her twenty-something life.

61. Guilty Feet

This was a re-read, one of my favorite cheesy red dress ink books.

Here's a review from B&N.com:

What would you do if your boyfriend told you that you were going to end up like your mother? You'd walk out on him...and that's just what Jo did to Dan. What if he didn't make any effort to get you back and, according to your upstairs neighbor, let your downstairs neighbor take your place? You'd be madder than a wet cat. What if, on top of all that, you lost your job? Wouldn't that be enough to make you wish you were someone else…and maybe just crazy enough to create a new email account so you could have an online flirtation with the lover you still wished was anything but ex? Well, Jo did that too…. That's when her life really went nuts. All her friends suddenly had unsuitable but great-in-bed new boyfriends. Her mother decided to try sexual experimentation. Then Jo's dad moved in. In times like this, anyone might find the safety valve of an Internet alter ego was the only thing keeping her going, even if that alternate identity was romancing her own unrepentant ex-boyfriend. At least on the Internet the only thing that can get dumped is data. British import Kelly Harte takes her chronicle of the life of this slightly overwhelmed London single into the electronic age with inventiveness, humor, passion…and absolutely no guilt at all.

60. Case Histories

Ok... so below is a description of this book, something that was not found anywhere on the copy I read. I bought this one at the discount bookstore for $4.98 with my only knowledge of it that it was a national best seller and had a ton of praise all over it. This meant I was a bit confused for about 1/3 of the book. I still enjoyed it, but I have to say knowing what you are about to know by reading the description would have helped a lot.

Here's the description from B&N:

A triumphant new novel from award-winner Kate Atkinson: a breathtaking story of families divided, love lost and found, and the mysteries of fate.

Case One: Olivia Land, youngest and most beloved of the Land girls, goes missing in the night and is never seen again. Thirty years later, two of her surviving sisters unearth a shocking clue to Olivia's disappearance among the clutter of their childhood home. . .

Case Two: Theo delights in his daughter Laura's wit, effortless beauty, and selfless love. But her first day as an associate in his law firm is also the day when Theo's world turns upside down. . .

Case Three: Michelle looks around one day and finds herself trapped in a hell of her own making. A very needy baby and a very demanding husband make her every waking moment a reminder that somewhere, somehow, she'd made a grave mistake and would spend the rest of her life paying for it--until a fit of rage creates a grisly, bloody escape.

As Private Detective Jackson Brodie investigates all three cases, startling connections and discoveries emerge. Inextricably caught up in his clients grief, joy, and desire, Jackson finds their unshakable need for resolution very much like his own