Sugar And Snow

It's been COLD out here!  Normally I prefer the cold to heat, but it's getting downright ridiculous.  Instead of whining, I've decided to embrace winter and read a winter book (that's not true, I'm still whining, but at least I had a good book to read while freezing my hinney off).  The book is The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen and it was the perfect winter treat.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Josey Cirrini is a woman in her late 20's who is devoted to assisting her aged and frigid mother.  Josey is the daughter of Margaret and the late Marco Cirrini, a southern belle and her entrepreneur husband.  Marco has been gone for a while, leaving Josey to care for her aging mother who has convinced Josey she is meant for nothing more then her current duties.  To combat this monotonous life, Josie keeps sweets and books hidden in the back of her closet for comfort.  She also very much enjoys winter, finding comfort in the snow and cold.  Her simple and predictable life is interrupted on afternoon by the appearance of one Miss Della Lee Baker in her closet.  This woman is a local waitress with a past and for some unknown reason has decided to take up residence in Josey's closet.
While there, Della Lee imparts much street wisdom unto the sheltered Josey, including on how to dress like a grown up, wear make-up and just live a life in general.  Della Lee sends Josey to a very specific sandwich shop for a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich (which sounds soooo yummy right now!) from Chloe Finley.  Chloe is a special girl herself, she has a boyfriend Jake (who she has just kicked out for cheating on her) and the weird gift of having apt books just randomly appear when she needs them (my dream come true!).  Chole's ex-boyfriend Jake is friends with the mailman Adam, on whom Josey has had a crush on for years.  Josey and Chloe end up hitting it off and help each other out through various going ons.  Della Lee finally reveals to Chloe that she is actually her half-sister, and that Chloe is as well (even though she does not know it).  It turns out that Marco was a lady's man and had women pretty much at will (which seems to be par for the course for rich, powerful men).  The result was at least two children and when Margaret found out, she got pregnant out of spite, as she and Marco had agreed to not have children.  This explains a lot of the coldness Josey's mother feels towards her, as she was never really wanted in the first place.  Josey finally accepts this and she and Adam finally hook up and decide to travel the world.  Chloe and Jake decide to make another go at it after Chloe discovers that she can live with out him and it would be her decision to take him back and not one of desperation.  Josey goes to her closet to let Della Lee know what is going on, when she discovers that Della Lee has actually been dead ( a suicide) and it is her ghost that has been passing along the sisterly advice.  Josey decides to accept this and goes on to live her own, full life, away from her mother and the tiny town that she was suffocating in, returning only when Chloe needs her to be the maid of honor at her wedding.

I really liked this book a lot.  It reminded me of what I loved about this authors first book Garden Spells.   This book had a subtle magic woven through out a very serviceable tale.  Let's start with the characters.  Josey was a great main character, she was pretty, but not stunning, normal shaped, not thing and willowy, she was living an expected life, but had yearnings of something more, in other words she is most people I have ever met.  This is great because I would guess that the vast majority of readers could identify very closely with her right away, I mean who doesn't have some sort of secret stash of hidden treats of some sort?  I liked her story arc and that the author gave a background and reasoning for Josey being who she is and then a fairly realistic arc to who she became.  Chloe was fun, I liked her book magic and her determination to find herself apart from her true love, but be able to be adult enough to not use that to ditch him permanently...if that makes any sense at all.  Margaret had her own arc, which included its fair share of heart ache and angst and while explained why she was the way she was, never made it an excuse for her treatment of her only daughter.  The boys Adam and Jake got their pages in as well, and while not as fully fleshed out, at least made them distinguishable from each other.  Della Lee was my favorite though, she was in equal parts tough, sad, sassy, and defeated, she was the voice of everybody else, the embodiment of the sheer weight of feelings that we all experience and sometimes have a hard time processing...plus she wore a tiara

through a good portion of the book :-).  The magic and setting was perfect for a snowy afternoon.  It is set in a little ski resort in North Carolina and while it has it's share of Southern charm, it was not the typical languid, warm setting I am used to associating with the south, it was a great change of pace.  The magic like I said before was subtle, but pervasive, with every person having their own unique bit of it.  It is never explained, just accepted and it adds just the right flair to get the reader immersed in this world. In keeping with the sweets theme (which was wonderfully carried through the whole book in very clever ways) each chapter was named after a treat and their was plenty of treats eaten along the way...don't read this without a snack at hand. I found the story of Marco and Margaret to be very sad...in a good way if that makes any sense.  The dysfunction, the hurt, the secrets all led not only to their unhappiness, but to the screwing up of their kid, who did nothing to deserve it.  There were a few flaws as every book has.  I wasn't totally on board with the reason for Jake cheating on Chloe...it just didn't ring true for his character.  Also I wanted something a bit more substantial for Adam's secret, other then he fell down a mountain and got hurt...again, kind of not in the character that was laid out of for us. Josey's weight was seen as a negative more often then I wanted it to be...but I guess that's just reality for you.  Overall I felt the book to be a good winters read, it was able to immerse me in the story, and was written in a way that I did not feel the need to have every bit of it explained to me.  It is the type of book I like to describe as a story, a moment in time that is told to the reader and then left as is.  I give it 7 out of 10 vials of peppermint oil and would recommend it to anybody who needs to escape the cold without to much effort.
What is your hidden stash treat?  Could you read a winter theme book in any other season?  Do I use () and ...way to much?

Bond Girl

One of the best things about my friends is that they are all little book freaks like me...well not quite like me, I'm my own special brand of freaky, but still way into books.  The best thing about having book buddies is getting reccomendations and book swaps that happen with fabulous frequency.  One of those books was the start of a series called One For the Money by Janet Evanovich.  It was not a type of book I usually pick up, but she said I would enjoy it and I'm glad I listened to her.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Stephanie Plum is a recently divorced, recently unemployed 30 year old Jersey resident.  She is in desperate need of money, having sold almost all of her possesions (or in the case of her car had them repossessed) just to keep the lights on.  Her overbearing mother suggests that she check with her cousin Vinny to see if he needs any filing done.  Filing is not what Vinnie needs, he needs somebody to track down and bring in people who have missed their trial date.  If she can manage this she gets a percentage of the returned bail money as her fee.  The biggest fish for Stephanie to catch is Joe Morelli, a cop accused of murder...and a guy who has gotten into Stephanie's pants on occasion.  Stephanie being brand new to all of this is coached by Ranger, a pro who takes the poor girl under his wing and trains her the best he can.  With this minimal training and some new supplies Stephanie sets off to catch her fugitive.  One of the tips leads to Benito Ramirez, a proffesional fighter with

violence against women issues.  He takes Stephanie's rejection personally and starts to stalk her.  As the case progresses Stephanie finds herself in situations that she never imagined possible and learns as she goes.  She befriends two hookers named Lula and Jackie who end up giving her information on women linked to Ramirez dissapering.  One of these woman was one linked to the Morelli case.  At some point Stephanie "requisitions" Morelli's car, causing him grief, and being saved by him on occasion.  Eventually Morelli tells Stephanie that he will work with her to clear his name and in return she can turn him in after they get proof of innocence so she can still get her money.  Chaos, intrigue, and blowing up cars ensues. Eventually they think they have everything figured out and Stephanie turns Morelli in.  Unfortunatly when she gets back to her apartment, Ramirez's manager is waiting to kill her, as she knows to much about everything.  She is saved at the last second and all the bad guys go to jail.  Morelli is released, and mostly forgives her for all the grief she understandably caused him and Stephanie decides that she likes the life of a bond girl...at least for now.

I orginally brought this book with me on my road trip to counter balance a couple of books I knew were gonna be heavy...the problem is I could not put this book down to start those.  Lucky for me it is a series so I have more to look foward too.  I think what I liked best about this book is how well put together it was.  The main character had a believable back story, a good motivation to go into this unusual job, she had no super skills, or amazing beauty, or unusual smarts, her only real defining factor was her desperation, and her incredible ability to wrench the good side out of a bad situation. She is not good at her new job and requires a lot of help and training to become even adequate.  By the end of the book, she knows she still has a ton to learn before she can consider herself even a decent bond girl.  The various other characters made perfect sense in their enviroment, right down to the appliance salesman/blind date.  The settings were done in a way that I feel like I could probably navigate my way around this town with little trouble, but the descriptions never dragged on.   I also liked how the author dealt with her women characters.  I know I have been having issuses with a couple of books lately, escpecially ones by women authors, so it was refreshing to see some of these issues dealt with so well.  Stephanie is a belivable woman.  She is of an age of most readers who will pick this book up, she has been through some realistic stuff, and she is dealing with a lot of the same issues the readers are probably dealing with.  The character is not hopless though, she works her way through things with a desperate wit that is both relatable and entertaining.  I liked that while the

character was not a super knock out beauty, she was aware of her attractiveness and owned it. She also awknowledged and owned her own sexuality in a non-destructive way which was awesome.  The other issue I thought was well done was the violence towards women angle.  I have been reading a lot of books where it is condoned, or glossed over, or forgiven, or turns the woman into either a gibbering dehumanzied victim, or a wild, uncontrollable, revenge seeking bitch.  In this book the violence was not glossed over, it was borderline unconfortable in its realism.  The character of Ramirez (the main perpatrator of said violence) was constantly getting off the hook because of his celeberty status and the fact that he mostly beat up women who seem to not matter to society, hookers, poor women, women who did not have the resources to make a proper fuss.  I personally felt that the author did a fantastic job of showing how often this happens in society, and then made sure her woman beater got jailed.  She did all of this while still keeping a fairly light hearted, entertaining narrative that made you keep turning the page.  The few critiques I have relate to the fact that this book was published in 1994 and several plot points depend on the lack of cell phones and internet or Stephanie being a little dumber then need be, but hey that is getting super nit picky.  Needless to say I really liked this book and hope the rest of the series lives up to the first one.  I give this book 8 out of 10 junky cars.
What book(s) have you read and loved on a reccomendation?  How does when a book was written affect it's future readability?  Did my feelings on how women are portrayed in books come out clearly?  Did you see the movie?

Garden Spells

Read a genre-defying book on my road trip last weekend and I really enjoyed it.  The book is called Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen.  It was a fairly quick book, I got through it in one sitting, it was one of those books you keep turning the page without realizing it.  This story is very interesting to me because it is one of those books that can not be lumped into any one genre.  It is set in the present in the fictional town of Bascom North Carolina, a genteel semi-southern town, the story deals with everyday problems such as love, loss, personal history, trying to find a job, trying to fit in, all of the fun chic-lit stuff you would expect from a fictional book aimed at that target audience. Then there is the fantasy aspect of it, the town if full of magic, but it is a really subtle magic.  There are no spells being recited, no dancing naked under a full moon, no fairies or elves...but there is a magic apple tree that tells the future.
Essentially the story is about a small town where all of the named families (that is what I call families who have been in the area for a while that you instantly recognize by there family name e.g. Kennedy) have a special "talent" that borders on magical.  The Clark women are all amazing at the art of seduction and sex ( the saying is if you marry a Clark woman you will always be happy).  There is a family where the men always marry older women as they are born an old soul in a young mans body.  Then there are the Waverly's this family has perhaps the most overt of talents.  Everybody in the family seems to posses some very specfic bit of magic and this book tells the story of three generations of Waverly girls

  The story focuses on two sisters Claire and Sydney Waverly who were abandoned by their mother at a young age to live in Bascom with their grandmother before dying in a car accident a few years later.  This leads to two very different paths for the girls.  Claire clings to her very ordered way of life, living alone in the big house left to her by her grandmother and running her catering business mainly using plants and flowers from her magic garden.  This is no ordinary catering company as Claire has the ability to use the plants and flowers in her cooking to bring about certain feelings and moods.  Sydney on the other hand felt stifled and stigmatized by her families "lower" standing in this class driven town and ran away to emulate her mother whom she idolized.  Sydney leads a wild life for several years until her daughter Bay is born, leading her to stay in an abusive relationship.  Life gets turned on its head when the girls aunt Evanelle stops by to bring two sets of sheets and strawberry Pop-Tarts to Claire's house.  Evanelle's talent is to give people things, usually random everyday objects that turn out to have a very important use later. Turns out the sheets are for Sydney and her daughter Bay (who just happens to love strawberry Pop-Tarts) who had finally left her abusive boyfriend to come home and live
       with her sister.  The story continues to introduce you to several townspeople and some of the towns history both ancient and more recent.  The sisters have to learn to love and trust one another again, and learn to let other people be part of their lives.  The story ends with a bit of tension then with a happily ever for now, which is always nice.
I found this book to be very sweet and very interesting.  I liked the writing style that the author used, it was very story telling like (I don't know how else to describe it) with bits of history or trivia thrown in where appropriate.  I like how she did not feel the need to explain all of the magic and talents, she just left it as this is how it is in this town, which to me made it feel very natural.  I have heard this story compared (favorably and unfavorably) to Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman, which I can see, but to be honest I liked this one a tad bit better.  Overall a great, quick read that does not require to much effort from the reader.  Perfect for a light summer porch read with a big glass of ice tea. I give it 4 out of 5 chocolate chip cookies

What do you like to read on the porch?  Which genre would you place a book like this into?  Who wants to make me some honeysuckle wine so I can see in the dark?

I Like Your Dress

The other day I picked up a book I normally wouldn't even look at, I'm not sure why I did, but I'm glad 'cause it was a fun little read.  The book is called A Vintage Affair by Isabel Wolff. 

It is about a woman Phoebe Swift who after a bad break up and the loss of her best friend moves to the London area to open her own vintage clothing shop. Along the way she meets several new friends including the elegant French woman Therese Bell who sells some of her clothes to the shop.  There are two different story lines throughout the book, the main one about Phoebe adjusting to her new life and the secondary one which is a concurrent flashback with parallels stories of the two women Phoebe and Therese (wow that sounded like a sentence from a college creative writing class heehee) The secondary story line about how both women lost a friend, Therese to the concentration camps, and Phoebe to a bad combination of circumstances.  They both carry around guilt, thinking that they in some way are at fault, in the end they help each other see that they are not to blame and are able to move on, in fact they find out that Therese friend actually survived and had a family of her own.  While this story line is the reason both women are where they are, to me it was a little tacked on/melodramatic feeling.  It is touted as a big mystery, but it is pretty easy to figure out the basic stories and the big reveals are much less shocking then they are set up to be.  On the other hand I really enjoyed the main story, it flowed fairly naturally, had some believable tension and touched on several parts of Phoebe's recent life, you really understood why she is the way she is. 

I need this dress!

My favorite part though is the store!  Ms. Wolff must really like vintage clothes because she really did her research.  The clothes are described in amazing detail, and the stories and histories behind a lot of them are really cool. She gives you a pretty good visual of the store ( I totally want to shop there!) and the customer interactions are priceless.  The sub-story with the cupcake dresses is one of my favorites. I was glad that so much of the story actually did take place in, around and for the shop so you really could get into it.  The author also did a good job of incorporating all the fashion into the story in a very natural way so it wasn't just a list of clothes.   All in all I really enjoyed this book, it's perfect for at the beach or curled up in your fluffy robe. Even if your not into chic lit (which I usually am not) the flavor and originality make it worth checking out. It made me want to go vintage clothes shopping!

Let me know what you think!