CLP Blog Tours: Meeting Miss Mollie

Today is my stop on the CLP Blog Tour for Di Jones' latest novel, Meeting Miss Mollie. I read Jones' debut novel, Transplanting Holly Oakwood, awhile back (check out my full review here if you missed it) and while I didn't loooove it, it entertained me and had me looking forward to this next book. Meeting Miss Mollie was cute and funny but I found it a little lacking.

Here's the synopsis:

She’s the Agony Aunt who has it all. Except for one small problem – her life is a disaster.
Annabelle is a hard nosed writer with a good marriage, a nice flat, a thriving career at Adorn magazine and a busy social life. She has only one ambition – to be the best known Agony Aunt in the UK.
When her world is turned upside down by her husband’s infidelity she strikes out on her own and goes flatting with a jet setting businessman. But things in her new house aren’t quite what they seem and her problems mount.
Through her ups and downs, Annabelle forges a relationship with the strangest of friends and discovers the best things in life are those she always avoided.

The thing that bugged me the most about this novel was that it was told from multiple perspectives. This is not normally a big deal for me but in the case of Meeting Miss Mollie, there were just too many characters. I can deal with three, at most. This one had the three main characters (including the dog, Mollie, which was actually quite cute), as well as Annabelle's boss, Christian's ex-fiancee, and Annabelle's dad (I feel like I'm missing one but I didn't write them down). It was a little much. Jones did do a good job of making sure most events were covered and there wasn't any duplication of scenes. However, I think the multiple perspectives thing lost a little something at the end because I have no idea what happened between the last scene and the epilogue (I think it was an epilogue...must start writing these things down...also, needing to check things like this is why paper books are better than ereaders). I don't want to give anything away but I needed way more links and connections than I was given. Instead of being happy for the ending, I was left scratching my head.

Enough negative talk. I did have fun reading this book. It was a fairly quick read, as I don't think it quite hit 200 pages, and it was easy to sink into over the course of a weekend afternoon. The story was cute and had a lot of elements that kept it from being too typical. The fact that Mollie got to narrate parts of the book and share her own thoughts was highly entertaining.

Finally, I have to say that I really like the covers for Jones' novels. They're bright and simple but really fitting for the story. 

Overall, Meeting Miss Mollie was a nice read but it won't be making any favourite lists for me. That being said, I will keep an eye out for Di Jones' next work. Third time's the charm?

Happy reading :)

Review: Chocolate for Breakfast

Imagine this: you have a book to read that quite a few people you know have been raving about. You're probably really looking forward to it, right? That was the case with me and Chocolate for Breakfast by Martha Reynolds. Taking a look at my Goodreads page, I could see that a handful of my friends had rated it at 4 or 5 stars. Excellent! I dove into the novel and...was disappointed. I wanted to like it but, unfortunately, it just didn't do much for me.

Here's the synopsis:

Young Bernie (Bernadette) Maguire is in for the journey of a lifetime when her junior year abroad takes her to Fribourg Switzerland. Ripe for love and adventure she is seduced by a handsome Swiss banker. She is horrified when she discovers she's pregnant. Protected and befriended by those who help to keep her secret for as long as possible, this moving rite-of-passage tale will warm the heart as a young woman struggles with an all-too-familiar dilemma. Yet after the unexpected death of her father, Bernie’s life takes some unexpected turns that will take decades to resolve.

One of the things that sort of threw me off was that the book takes place years ago (1978, maybe?). At first I wasn't sure why but once things got going and I realized where the story was headed, I knew that I would probably be put back in the present by the end of the book. It's not that I disliked the fact that it took place in the past. In all honesty, I have no idea why it threw me off.

Also, I have discovered this year that I really dislike books where the main character, usually a teen, gets pregnant. I understand that accidents happen and that's not as bad to read about, but in this case it was just a matter of Bernie being uninformed. I may have even called her stupid as I was reading the scene (not very nice of me, I know). This is a very personal opinion, I think, and everyone will not be as put off by it as I am.

Once Bernie realized she was pregnant, I was able to stop waiting for that to happen and try to enjoy the rest of the story. There were some nice parts to the book - she has a great best friend, Lisa, and I really liked reading the scenes that were just the two of them being typical college girls abroad. I was also happy that she had two adults to help her through a pretty rough time of her life. One was the program coordinator (I suppose that's what he was called) and the other was her doctor, who just happened to be dating said program coordinator. I desperately wished that things had turned out differently for Bernie and Timmy. I wasn't really a fan of how things ended up between them. Communication is key, people!

The final thing that sort of irked me about this book was the ending. The last section put us in present day and, for some unknown reason, into third person perspective. I have no idea why the viewpoint changed but it didn't help my already lacking connection with Bernie.

Overall, Chocolate for Breakfast just wasn't a winner for me. It seems like many others really enjoyed Martha Reynolds' novel (see the book's Goodreads page) so this could be purely a matter of personal taste. Have you read this one? What did you think?

*A copy of this novel was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.*

Touring My Bookshelves: Shelf #2

Time for another tour stop! About a month ago I showed you the large (and full) shelf that still resides at my mom's place. Today I'm showing you one of the large bookshelves I have at my own house. Someday I'll have enough space for all of my books in one place. Maybe in my next place!

This is my bookshelf in all of its glory. Complete with TV seasons on DVD, a few movies, and Tonks' cage beside it. Speaking of Tonks, the bookshelf now has her personal touches on it as she's nibbled the bottom right part of the shelf. Nothing like a few bunny chew marks on a bookshelf! I was OK with it (it's wood, it won't hurt her, and I'd rather her chew that than the trim on the wall) but the boyfriend was not as appreciative as he actually made this shelf back in high school. Ah well. We love the bunny too much to be too mad! In case you're curious, the TV shows include Gilmore Girls, Sex and the City, Bones, House, Glee, and The OC. The movies hanging out over there with the penguins, are my kiddy movies - Cinderella, The Baby-Sitters Club, Cars, Tangled, etc. - and Christmas movies - The Holiday, Love Actually, Polar Express, and so on.

These two shelves are full of books that I really want to read. I've had a lot of them for ages but just haven't had time to read them. This is why I started my Taking It Off...The Shelf feature. I can pretty much tell you when and where I bought each of these books, which were purchased with my staff discount when I still worked at the bookstore, and which were won, freebies, or gifted. I won't bore you with that though! The only books on these shelves that I've read are Beginner's Greek, The Night Circus, and Best Friends Forever. Yep, there are a lot I still need to read. There are so many that I can't wait to get to...both of Beth Kendrick's, These Girls, Juliet, The Next Best Thing, and The Meryl Streep Movie Club, just to name a few. The Devil Wears Prada will be finally read soon (I've only seen the movie) but I have Revenge Wears Prada on its way (a giftcard + just $15 for the hardcover + free shipping = a no-brainer!) Finally, Girls in White Dresses is my next Taking It Off pick. If you want to know some of the other titles (because the picture isn't that great, sorry) just leave a comment and I'll clear things up!

The top shelf in this picture is my random paperback shelf. These are ones that I obviously want to read, since I own them, but don't have high priority (sorry to the authors on this shelf!) The second shelf holds my non-fiction titles. Between the boyfriend and I, we own most of Malcolm Gladwell's titles (the only one we're missing is Blink) but I have yet to read any. I've been meaning to read Becoming Jane Austen since the movie came out ages ago and I really want to get to my won copy of Seen Reading. You'll also notice that this shelf features my Harry Potter books. The set was a combo birthday gift from myself and my mom a few years ago. I haven't actually read my copies yet but I had lent the first three to my former boss. I couldn't believe I was doing it, and it pained me greatly, but she had never read them and I thought that was a greater travesty than lending out my virgin books! My boyfriend got me that gorgeous The Tales of Beetle the Bard set you see there as a gift many years ago. The book is all fancy-fied and there are separate illustrations included. You can also kind of see that I have a wand there. That's Ginny's wand that I bought on my trip to Universal studios last year, because I'm super cool like that.

So there we have it! Tour stop number two has come to an end. I have one more big shelf to showcase as well as a couple of shelves of books that are still residing at my mom's. I've brought so many to her in the last few months that the picture my sister took for me awhile ago is no longer up to date. I'll be there at the end of the month so I'll update the pic and share them with you next month! I hope you enjoyed this little tour :)

Time for an Internship Update

I'm nearing the end of my internship at Project Bookmark Canada but I wanted to give an update before my final wrap up post. Truth be told, I started this post about two weeks ago but just didn't have the time to finish it. Now instead of six weeks left I have four...maybe. I'm not entirely sure when my last day is! So far, things have been really great. I've been doing a lot of reading and researching, with the odd admin days thrown in. I've got lots of pictures to share that will help tell the story of my internship so far, so let's begin!

So, this is a Bookmark! This is the one that's in my hometown of Midland (bonus points if you're from Canada and know where that is...points not applicable to family and friends) that had recently been graffitied (er, how exactly do you spell that?) The book the excerpt is from is The Queen of Unforgetting, a great read. My sister had given me the heads up that it had been tagged, I told Miranda, and she asked if I would be able to clean it the next time I visited my mom. No problem! We made a family event of it - my mom helped me clean it, my sister took the photos, and my stepdad supervised and pointed out spots we'd missed. As you can see we successfully cleaned it! Yay us!

The main part of my position right now is reading. Specifically, reading books set in Calgary (so if you know of any, let me know!) It's been really interesting and I'm enjoying the fact that I'm recognizing certain landmarks and roads as they come up in multiple novels. It's actually making me want to visit Calgary! My library card is getting quite the workout and so far I've only had one late book. Oops! It was bound to happen with the number of books I have checked out! What I've loved about this is the fact that I'm reading so much great Canadian literature. I went into this internship without much experience reading Can Lit but I've really enjoyed many of the books I've read so far. My favourite definitely has to be The Bone Cage by Angie Abdou. It's about a wrestler and a swimmer who are trying to make it to the Sydney Olympics and is such a good read.

One of the great things about this internship is that I get to work from home. It's a nice change from having to embark on a two hour commute, one way, every day to Toronto. I did have to venture into the big city for a meeting with the lovely Amy from Penguin but it was oh so worth it. I got to pick her brain about social media and then she brought me back to the office and threw some books at me. Not bad for a day of work!

I mentioned having to do some admin stuff. I've gone to Hamilton to work with Miranda at her home office a few times so far. The first couple days I went we organized and shipped off books and Kobos to winners from our recent Page Turner campaign. As you can see from the above pictures, there were a lot of books to mail out! I've also helped her with some bookkeeping stuff (and let me tell you...two bookish people trying to do accounting stuff is pretty funny) and receipting, which I'm used to with my background in nonprofits.

So there we have it. Once I finish my twelve weeks, I'll give you more of my thoughts on the overall experience. I still have no idea what I want to do with my life and I've come close to having a meltdown over the past week but I'll figure it out. Here's hoping I have some good news in my final intern wrap up post!

Review: She's the Boss

A couple of years ago I read Lisa Lim's debut novel Confessions of a Call Center Gal (the review can be found here) and enjoyed it. When Lisa asked me to review the sequel, She's the Boss, I immediately said yes. As I suspected I was constantly giggling and that really helped me enjoy the novel.

Here's the synopsis:

The Devil Wears Prada meets The Office. Twenty-something Karsynn is now a boss but she's not so much The Devil Wears Prada as she is The Angel Wears Payless. With a brighter career, things should be going better for Karsynn, right? Wrong. There's now a new director at the office--Carter Lockwood, and he's brought his reputation for wrecking havoc amongst the ladies. Karsynn prides herself in being the only one impervious to Carter's good looks. In fact, she takes great pleasure in blowing on the embers of Carter's hostility.
Karsynn thinks Carter is arrogant and obnoxious. Carter thinks Karsynn is an ignorant, sassy spitfire. But when they start working closely together, they discover that first impressions can be deceptive. Karsynn may be winning the battle against Carter, but will she lose the war? And more importantly, will she lose her heart?

One of the things that  kind of stuck out for me was that I thought the book actually needed more build up to the romance - it was sort of a surprise when Karsynn realized she liked Carter. (Romance actually seems like a bad word choice as neither Kars nor Carter are particularly romantic!) I know that seems silly because everyone always wishes there was more of a surprise factor when the heroine and hero get together. In this case I was just struggling to understand how their feelings changed. Does that make sense? By the end I could tell that they were going to work well together so that helped reconcile whatever odd feelings I had about the whole situation.

Like I said, this book was funny. Karsynn manages to get herself into some hilarious situations that were a lot of fun to read about. Unfortunately, I didn't make good notes while reading this book so I don't have any specifics. One part that sticks out, and I've actually referenced recently, is when Kars is told that her team needs to cut down on the swearing while working. Her response? To tell her team to replace curse words with a place on the map. Trust me, hilarity ensues.

I also just have to share this:

A snippet from my review of Confessions of a Call Centre Gal made it into this book! Whee!

If you like an offbeat sense of humour, pop culture references, and entertaining stories, give She's the Boss a read. (Though I'd suggest reading Confessions of a Call Center Gal first!) Lisa Lim delivers a great story with crazy characters that you'll find yourself wanting to party with.

Happy reading :)

Top Ten Tuesday: Travel Reads

Top Ten Tuesday is weekly meme created by the lovely folks at The Broke and the Bookish. They created it because they're "particularly fond of lists" and since I also enjoy lists, I've decided to participate in this fun feature.

This week's Top Ten Tuesday is full of books that feature travel in some way. I left out a couple of the obvious titles (Anna and the French Kiss and Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes) because I knew they'd be on several lists and I wanted to feature other titles that some people may not have heard about. I hope you'll find some new reads! Enjoy :)

Don't forget to check out their blog for a full list of everyone participating this week!

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - Ann Brashares
Greece tends to feature at least once in each book and there are other road trips and such usually featured.

A Scottish Ferry Tale/Scotland by Starlight - Nancy Volkers
Cassie decides to go on a trip to Scotland to visit her boyfriend but ends up getting dumped. She takes a ferry to an island and finds love there. 

The Dressmaker - Kate Alcott
Talk about a trip...this book starts off with the voyage on the Titanic. 

All at Sea - Heather Wardell and The Perfect Man - Sheila O'Flanagan
Both of these (excellent) books feature cruises.

Swimming at Night - Lucy Clarke
Katie finds out that her sister has died while traveling abroad in Bali. She decides to retrace her sister's steps to see what really happened. It's not a fun travel book but it's an excellent read.

Stuck on You - Heather Thurmeier
This book features a type of Amazing Race event based in New York. So much fun.

All Roads Lead to Austen - Amy Elizabeth Smith and Under the Tuscan Sun - Frances Mayes
These are two good travel memoirs. I liked the Austen one (which takes place in Latin America) because it worked in some research as well but I also liked seeing exactly what Mayes' life was like (since it's different than the movie!)

Arranged - Catherine McKenzie
Anne decides to take the plunge and goes on an all inclusive trip to Mexico...for an arranged marriage. This is one of my favourite books. 

Review: Sea Glass Island

I had been looking forward to the final novel in Sherryl Woods' Ocean Breeze trilogy because I had enjoyed the first two books so much. Sea Glass Island was a great wrap up to the series and I loved reading it.

Here's the synopsis:

With her two younger sisters heading for the altar, will Samantha Castle exchange old dreams for new ones? Lately she'd rather be on the North Carolina coast with family than in New York with agents and actors. Though she vows not to let her teenage crush on Ethan Cole influence her decision, it's hard to ignore her feelings for the local war hero.
Ethan lost more than his leg in Afghanistan. He lost his belief in love. Even being surrounded by couples intent on capturing happily-ever-after won't open this jaded doctor's heart. It's going to take a sexy, determined woman—one who won't take no for an answer.

I was really interested in seeing how Samantha's story would play out. Ethan was her teenage crush and up to this point, she hasn't had any interaction with him. I didn't find that odd though. They hadn't had any reason to cross paths, even though he was best friends with her younger sister's fiance. The only thing that seemed strange was that the meddling didn't start until now. Of course, that wouldn't make sense in terms of the trilogy so it's easy to overlook! Anyway, I had no idea how Samantha and Ethan would interact and I liked that. All too often there aren't any surprises in a final book in a series like this. I loved reading along and watching as Samantha and Ethan tried to ignore their growing attraction for each other.

This wasn't just a romance novel. Like the other two novels, there was some soul searching required on behalf of the main character. Each sister had to truly think about what she wanted in life, and in love, before she was able to be happy at the end of the novel. In Samantha's case, she had to decide if she wanted to give up her whole actress-in-New-York lifestyle. It was nice to have something else going on other than just the romance - even though this one was a really fun love story to read about!

There's not much else I can say about this series that I haven't already said in my reviews of Sand Castle Bay and Wind Chime Point (links lead to my reviews), though I do think Samantha was my favourite! I definitely recommend Sherryl Woods' Ocean Breeze Trilogy to anyone looking for a sweet and enjoyable romantic read this summer. All three books are now published so no need to wait for another to be released! Go check them out and enjoy.

Happy reading :)