Fifteen Minutes of Shame by Lisa Daily

This month for my real-life book club, we read Fifteen Minutes of Shame by Lisa Daily. I chose the book for us because it's a fun summer read so I was hoping more people would read it, and also because the publisher sent swag bags for everyone in my book club. Nothing like bribery to get me to read a book. The book wasn't free though. I checked it out from the library.

For those of you who haven't heard of Lisa Daily, she's a dating specialist and the founder of the Dreamgirl Academy, in which she teaches women to be their best selves so they can be better catches and find better men. She wrote the nonfiction dating guide book Stop Getting Dumped! which eventually became a bestseller. Fifteen Minutes of Shame is her first novel.

The book opens with Darby spotting her husband at a gas station down the street even though he's supposed to be on a business trip in Atlanta. From there we follow Darby through all of the freak-out modes any woman would go through if they find out they've been lied to about something that has sure signs of an affair. In the end her freak out appears to have been a big mistake. Everything seems to be in order, so she heads off on her previously-scheduled book tour...only to find out on the Today show that her husband has filed for divorce. Dating expert Darby Vaughn has just been broken up with on national television. In essence, the terribly public divorce ruins her carreer (albeit momentarily) and she is left depending on her girlfriends to help her figure out what went wrong as she navigates through the sea of divorce and strives to get custody of her stepchildren.

All in all, I really liked this book. It was a fun easy read and I loved that it didn't make "finding a man" the main point of the story. Most chick lit books irritate me because the women in them all seem to think they have no life, no matter how successful and powerful they are, if they don't have a man. In this book, we see Darby take the humiliation of a nationally televised breakup and work her way out of it within weeks. She shows strength of character and realizes that maybe all the advice she's been giving over the years (never take back a cheater, etc.) aren't quite as easy to follow when it's your own relationship on the line. The one part of the book that I didn't really buy into was her wanting to get the kids back because she loved them so much. There were a lot of touching moments with the kids in the beginning, but once they are gone with their dad and his ex-wife it seems like they're just thrown in haphazardly.

So, overall, I'd recommend this book. It's a great beach read and doesn't take too much concentration. And it had the added benefit of not making me feel completely vapid and empty after I read it.

Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella

I finally got around to reading Sophie Kinsella's newest book, Remember Me? It's not that I didn't want to read it, but that I knew it would only take me a few hours and I have a huge stack (17 and counting) of books from the library that I need to finish before their due dates. I was planning on saving this for my upcoming plane ride to Utah, but decided to read it last week when I was getting burnt out on all this nonfiction I've been reading lately (reviews to come).

In Remember Me? Alex Smart finds herself in the hospital with a concussion and begins trying to piece together how she got there. All she can remember from the night before is that she had been out drinking with the girls on a rainy night and she slipped and fell on the wet pavement. But when she goes to look in the mirror, she sees that she's somehow lost a good amount of weight and her teeth are amazingly straight and shiny. And why does she have a Louis Vuitton bag next to her nightstand? She can't afford that!

When people begin to visit her, she doesn't recognize them and they look older than she expects. Finally someone tells her that it's 2007 not 2004. The slip and fall incident happened three years ago. But she doesn't remember the last three years, which includes her meeting her now-husband. The tale that ensues is hilarious as always and not nearly as cliche as I had previously thought.

Sophie Kinsella has a way of telling stories that makes me fall in love with her characters and manages to put me in their shoes (even though I know I'll never be able to afford the lifestyle of many of her characters). However, having read all of Kinsella's books, I'm beginning to see a pattern. She spends the first 2/3 of the book making us fall in love with the main character and all of her witty mishaps. We also watch as they nearly destroy their lives, then in the last few chapters the main character thinks of something brilliant that saves her crumbling career, or that of her husband or friends. As I was reading this book I realized it had become formulaic and it made me sad because I do so love Sophie Kinsella. I still recommend this book because it's a fun and easy read, but if you've read all of Kinsella's other work be aware that you'll be reading it saying to yourself, "OK, now what's she going to think of to save everyone's job? Because I know that's coming next."

If you've never read Kinsella, I highly suggest Can you keep a secret? and Confessions of a shopaholic.

Sophie Kinsella's New Book Out Today!

I have been waiting for this day ever since about September, when I heard Sophie Kinsella was coming out with a new book. Granted, the story line is a bit played out when it comes to romantic comedies - the story of a girl who loses her memory and realizes her forgotten life isn't worth remembering - but I'm sure Kinsella has added her usual humor to make this another best seller for her. Even though the book is out today, I have to wait a couple more weeks to buy it because it's not available in Europe yet.

Although I'm not usually a huge fan of Chick Lit - in fact, Kinsella is the only Chick Lit author I've read and liked - I've found a book blog that focuses only on girly books. So, if this is a genre that interests you, or if you want something girly without it being a steamy romance novel, check out the Candy Covered Books blog.