Confessions of a Shopaholic

Sometimes I need a book that is like an old friend. Something I am familiar and comfortable with, something that I know, something that makes me happy. Sometimes in life it just gets to be overwhelming thinking about starting new book and having to invest yourself in it, and in those moments I have books that I can fall back on, old favorites, that I have read so many times, yet I know I will love them just as much this time as I did the first time.

Confessions of a Shopaholic series is one of those for me. I have read them all at least 10 times, and I love them. Becky Bloomwood is one of my most favorite charachters in a book, ever. She is someone I can relate too, she is crazy, she makes me laugh, she frustrates me. She would totally be someone I would be friends with. So, about 10 days ago when I just wasn't feeling up to starting a new book, I needed something I knew and loved, I picked up the first book, Confessions of a Shopahlic, and ended up reading all 6 in the series.  I highly recommend these books, they are the best! I only have to warn that the author is british and therefore uses the "F" word frequently, and some other bad language.  that is the ONLY thing about these books that bothers me, I know I shouldn't try justifying it, but...I just love these books too much. 

Since I don't want to write every intro to all 6 books, here is a link to amazon so you can read them yourself. And I highly recommend all of Sophie Kinsellas other books, they are all fabulous!!

http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Dreamworld-Shopaholic-Book-ebook/dp/B000FBFN0Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1393457602&sr=1-1&keywords=confessions+of+a+shopaholic

Here are her books in order:

Confessions of a Shopaholic

Shopaholic takes Manhattan

Shopaholic ties the Knot

Shopaholic and Sister

Shopaholic and Baby

Mini Shopaholic

( and hopefully the next one will come out soon! Its been 4 years)

Her other books:

Undomestic Goddess

Remember Me?

Twenties Girl

I've got your number

Wedding Night

Can you keep a Secret?

Thin Wire

A mothers journey through her daughters heroin addiction.

by: Christine Lewry

Thin Wire is an honest and intimate account of heroin addiction told by both mother and daughter. Amber is introduced to drugs and becomes addicted without her mother's knowledge. She meets a dealer who feeds her habit. Whilst living together, they are raided by the police. Bailed to her mother's address with a £200-a-day addiction, Amber doesn't think her family will accept her back when they discover the truth. When she's charged by the police with dealing class A drugs and accepting stolen goods, she fears she'll go to prison. Trying to feed her habit alone, Amber meets a fellow addict who offers to introduce her to prostitution. The prospect terrifies her, but will her mother help her?
An unflinching story that looks at drug addiction from two sides. The book's concluding section offers two sets of personal guidelines; one for addicts, the other for parents or partners of addicts, while the in-depth, harrowing real life story vividly illustrates the difficulties of overcoming addiction. In a society where 50% of teenagers experiment with drugs, Amber is every mother's child. She could be yours.

My Review:

 Wow, this was a hard book to read. True story written by mother and daughters point of view. Heroin addiction is awful, the daughters description of her addiction and how she thought of nothing else was very sobering. The mom kind of made me mad, she wasn't a very good mom in her daughters early life. But, she did step up to the plate when she found out about her daughters addiction and did everything she could to help. It seems almost impossible for anyone to get over a heroin addiction. From reading this book, I felt that the most way people end their addiction is through death. The daughter (Amber) literally will do almost anything to get heroin, it has over taken her life in every way.  It was sad to read, hard to think about. Something I would never wish on any person.  Neither of them are professional writers, so it is just raw and truthful, exactly what happened. I can't say I enjoyed it, it was too sad, but it was for sure very eye opening.

4 out of 5 rating.

Sisterhood Everlasting

On the cusp of turning thirty, Tibby, Lena, Carmen, and Bridget are now living separate lives, out on their own. Yet despite having jobs and men that they love, each knows that something is missing: the closeness that once sustained them. Carmen is a successful actress in New York, engaged to be married, but misses her friends. Lena finds solace in her art, teaching in Rhode Island, but still thinks of Kostos and the road she didn’t take. Bridget lives with her longtime boyfriend, Eric, in San Francisco, and though a part of her wants to settle down, a bigger part can’t seem to shed her old restlessness. Then Tibby reaches out to bridge the distance, sending the others plane tickets for a reunion that they all breathlessly await. And indeed, it will change their lives forever—but in ways that none of them could ever have expected.

My Review:

I love the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, so when this came out I wanted to read it. But then I kind of forgot about it, til I found it on the sale rack. So of course I bought it. From the start of this book it was not what I wanted! I couldn't believe the direction she took their story. 4 best friends from birth, of course growing up and starting their own lives would take a toll on their closeness, but you always knew that somehow they would work it out. They are all so different. While the author does have a tendency to run on and on, oh my gosh I would skip paragraphs, I still love her characters. The end of this book gave me what I wanted, kind of, in a way. I thought about my closest friends and how they impact my life. This book was happy and sad and all of the in-between. It is a pretty adult book, language, a little bit of sex. But I highly recommend reading ALL of the Sisterhood books, and of course this one also to complete the story.

4 out of 5 rating.

The first phone call from Heaven

One morning in the small town of Coldwater, Michigan, the phone starts ringing. The voices say they are calling from heaven . Is it the greatest miracle ever? Or some cruel hoax? As news of these strange calls spreads, outsiders flock to Coldwater to be a part of it.

At the same time, a disgraced pilot named Sully Harding returns to Coldwater from prison to discover his hometown gripped by "miracle fever". Even his young son carries a toy phone, hoping to hear from his mother in heaven.

As the calls increase, and proof of an afterlife begins to surface, the town-and the world-transforms. Only Sully, convinced there is nothing beyond this sad life, digs into the phenomenon, determined to disprove it for his child and his own broken heart.

My Review:

What a very interesting book. It begins right off with people getting phone calls from people who have died, usually someone close to them, but in one case from someone this person had no wish to hear from. I started thinking, who would I want to call me from Heaven?? It seems like people are always looking for proof of an afterlife, and then I thought to myself, I already KNOW there is life after death. I know people I loved who have died are just waiting on the other side, and that they are closer to us then we realize sometimes. I realized that I wouldn't need a phone call from heaven to help me to believe. I already know. But of course, there will always be people who want PROOF, hard evidence. It was interesting how these phone calls affected the people who were receiving them, but also people from all over the world. I think everyone wants to be a part of a miracle, when we don't realize that sometimes miracles are right in front of us. It was a good read from beginning to end, and a conclusion that you just never would figure out. This book really made me think.

4 out of 5 rating.

A Shade of Vampire

On the evening of Sofia Claremont's 17th birthday, she is sucked into a nightmare from which she cannot wake. 
A quiet evening walk along a beach brings her face to face with a dangerous pale creature that craves much more than her blood. 

She is kidnapped to an island where the sun is eternally forbidden to shine. 
An island uncharted by any map and ruled by the most powerful vampire coven on the planet. She wakes here as a slave, a captive in chains. 

Sofia's life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn when she is the one selected out of hundreds of girls to join the harem of Derek Novak, the dark royal Prince. 

Despite his addiction to power and obsessive thirst for her blood, Sofia soon realizes that the safest place on the island is within his quarters, and she must do all within her power to win him over if she is to survive even one more night.

Will she succeed? ...or is she destined to the same fate that all other girls have met at the hands of the Novaks?

My Review:

So, another vampire book, that wants to be better than twilight, that will NEVER be better than Twilight(in my opinion). The above caption makes it sound so thrilling, but really, it wasn't that thrilling. Yes, there is some total cheesy love stuff in the book that I liked. Theres a good vampire and a bad vampire brother and some murder and everything that should make the book awesome, but it was just too shallow for me. I like a lot more depth in a book. Especially one that has 3 more books in the series. I paid .99 for this book, and I wouldn't pay more than that. And I don't want to read the next one enough to pay 3.99 for it. So, if the next one comes out for .99 I would probably buy it. A fast, easy read.

3 out of 5 rating.

Summerland

On a warm June evening, the students of Nantucket High gather for the traditional graduation bonfire on the beach. But the celebration ends in tragedy after a horrible car crash leaves the driver, Penny Alistair, dead, and her twin brother, Hobby, in a coma. Penny's boyfriend Jake, and her friend Demeter are unhurt but haunted by the events of that night, and by the questions that linger about what happened in the car, and what happened in the dunes before Penny took the wheel.

For Zoe, the twins mother, the unthinkable awaits:life without her daughter, and an agonizing recovery for the son who had been a star athlete with infinite prospects. Free spirited Zoe has been as much friend as mother to her children, but now she has to face devastating truths about them, and about her own role in all that happened.

As summer unfolds, Zoe and the other parents must ask whether their efforts to protect their children from lifes realities have only left them more vulnerable. The key to understanding the accident lies in what Penny learned that evening on the beach-but will it also destroy the survivors fragile peace?

My Review:

I have read another book by this author, which is why I picked up this one because I really liked the other one. And this one just sounded so dramatic and mysterious! Well, it wasn't nearly either of those things as I thought it would be. This book tells stories from a lot of different people  and what they are going through, because of the accident. Of course, losing a child part always gets to me, and the pain and suffering that it causes. I liked all the characters, though the story wasn't nearly as interesting as I was hoping it would be. The author is a little wordy, and I would skip paragraphs of her going on and on about nothing really. It took me over a week to finish this book, not one I wanted to gobble up in one sitting. The ending was also a little anti-clamatic for how much they keep you waiting to find out what happens. Also, very rated PG-13. Use of the "F" word and other swear words and a lot of very grown up topics.  

My rating: 3 out of 5