{review} Tempting the Billionaire by Jessica Lemmon

Tempting the Billionaire by Jessica Lemmon

ebook, 260 pages

Published January 8th 2013 by Forever Yours

Find it here on GoodReads

BUSINESS OR PLEASURE?

Crickitt Day needs a job . . . any job. After her husband walks out on her, she’s determined to re-build her life and establish a new career. When swoon-worthy billionaire Shane August hires her as his assistant, she jumps at the chance to prove herself. Despite her growing attraction to her boss, she vows to keep things strictly professional. No flirting. No kissing. Definitely no falling in love...

Shane August is all business, all the time. He’s a self-made man who’s poured his heart and soul into his company, and he’d never allow himself to get involved with an employee. Then he hires sweet, sexy Crickitt—and he can’t keep his mind or his hands off her. But no matter how much he wants Crickitt, Shane fears that painful secrets from his past will always come between them. With fate working against them, can these two lonely hearts learn that sometimes mixing business with pleasure is the perfect merger?

I took a last minute trip to Florida this Winter.  Between naps by the pool, dinner on the beach, and arguments with an insane condo association that called my dogs "big & scary" (riiiiiight) while judging me by my 10 year old (and squeaky) car, I read a lot.

See how behind in reviews I am?  I'm talking about something that happened in January.  I should get some kind of reward for even being able to remember where I was last week, let alone what I read in January.

Tempting the Billionaire by Jessica Lemmon was one of the first books on my list.  I curled up on the lounger by the pool, gave the condo association president the finger (no really, why didn't they like me?), whipped out my reader, and promptly fell asleep.

It may just be a coincidence.  Maybe it was the sun.  Or the booze.  Or the energy of defending my dogs, and myself.  Whatever the case, this book was a let down.  I just kept thinking I was reading an ever so slightly different version of Shades, which wasn't impressing me.   Given the onslaught of major marketing for books of this genre, maybe I'm just tired of reading the same story with different characters.  

With that being said, I would probably give the author another shot - maybe it was just a coincidence.  Her author bio was hilarious, and the writing itself was great, but I just couldn't .. connect, y'know?   It was like the guy I dated ten years ago that was perfect on paper for me (ambitious, nice, thoughtful, funny, slightly odd), but who actually bored me to tears when we were together.

Shortly after, I met my ex-husband, who didn't realize that if he slept with enough women on the side, one of them was bound to tell someone I knew.  Or me.  

Just like my judgement in men, you may not be able to trust my judgement in books.  Especially this one.  

{review} Chanel Bonfire by Wendy Lawless

Chanel Bonfire by Wendy Lawless

Hardcover, 304 pages

Published January 8th 2013 by Gallery Books

Find it here on Goodreads

A stunning memoir about an actress's unconventional, heartbreaking childhood with an unstable alcoholic and suicidal mother — a real-life Holly Golightly turned Mommie Dearest — and the unusual strength that allowed her to rise above it all.

By the time Wendy Lawless turned seventeen, she'd known for quite some time that she didn't have a normal mother. But that didn't stop her from wanting one.

Georgann Rea didn't bake cookies or go to PTA meetings; she wore a mink coat and always had a lit Dunhill plugged into her cigarette holder. She had slept with too many men, and some women, and she didn't like dogs or children. Georgann had the ice queen beauty of a Hitchcock heroine and the cold heart to match.

In this evocative, darkly humorous memoir, Wendy deftly charts the highs and lows of growing up with her younger sister in the shadow of an unstable, fabulously neglectful mother. Georgann, a real-life Holly Golightly who constantly reinvents herself as she trades up from trailer-park to penthouse, suffers multiple nervous breakdowns and suicide attempts, while Wendy tries to hide the cracks in their fractured family from the rest of the world.

Chanel Bonfire depicts a childhood blazed through the refined aeries of The Dakota and the swinging townhouses of London, while the girls' beautiful but damned mother desperately searches for glamour and fulfillment. Ultimately, they must choose between living their own lives and being their mother's warden.

Wow.  

When I was a teenager, I was more than just a pain in the ass.  It was more than just the usual teenage girl drama - I was a royal bitch.  I thought my parents were insane.  I thought I was insane.  To be honest and fair, we all were.  I had issues they didn't know how to deal with, or even diagnose for a long time.  And surprisingly, my parents were also human and also had issues that THEY didn't know how to deal with.  So we all lived together, ignoring issues and fighting insanely, alternating between tears and hugs like it was a normal thing.

Now, I consider my parents some of my best friends.  If you had told me when I was 14 that I would ever consider my mom my best friend, I probably would have laughed hysterically in my matching wolf sweater and sweat pants.  

This story is NOTHING like that.  

I was ecstatic when NetGalley approved me for this book, as I have a morbid fascination with any stories involving less than stellar childhoods.  Makes me feel less alone, y'know?

Chanel Bonfire does not in any way read like a memoir.  It feels more like your best friend telling you a story, interrupting her constantly to scream "THEN WHAT HAPPENED?" as you sit wide eyed and alert, waiting impatiently to hear what craziness occurs next.

I found myself constantly walking the line of feeling sorry for the insanity Wendy lived with for so long, and never wanting her to stop telling more of her mother's crazy moments.  She tells this story so lyrically that it's more than easy to forget this is above all, a true story.  

After finishing this book, I had a big urge to tell my no-longer-as-crazy parents that I loved them.  Unfortunately, that urge occurred just as my visiting mother and father had a very Constanza-like moment in my tiny apartment, yelling from different rooms about where my new coffee maker should go, and no one heard me say "Um, on the shelf maybe?  And by the way, I love you guys.  "

{Review} Room by Emma Donoghue

Room by Emma Donoghue

Find it on GoodReads

Published by Little, Brown and Company

ISBN13: 9780316098335

To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough...not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.  Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, ROOM is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.



Like pretty much everything in my life, I've had this on my list of things to do for a long time.  It's not that I procrastinate, really, it's just that I ... get distracted.  Or choose to have a nap.   But mostly, I get distracted.    I can;t even tell you what I googled right now instead of writing this post.  Seriously.  

I had read some pretty mixed reviews about this book, so I wasn't sure what to expect.  The premise of the entire story being written from the POV of a child, and a very closed in child at that, seemed like it might get a little tiring.  

It didn't.  I didn't find it endearing in any way, but I did find Jack's POV is what sets this book apart from many others.  His voice is really what keeps the momentum going in this story, turning it from a slightly unenthusiastic plot to one that leaves us consistently wondering "what now"?

A slightly easy read for a book of it's type, and not for the faint of heart.  Many others have told me they couldn't/wouldn't read this book because of the nature of it, but since I'm excessively morbid, I found it a tame telling of  a horribly tragic situation.

{review} Outpost by Adam Baker

Outpost

Adam Baker

Published 2011 by Hodder & Stoughton

Because I'm such a cynical bitch that would prefer the solitude of a cabin in the woods to having to deal with most people in the general population of the world, an aspect of this book really appealed to me.  Namely, the setting.  A remote oil rig in the middle of the Arctic?  My therapist will have a field day with this, but that sounds like freakin' heaven to me.  Throw in an apocalypse factor, and there's no place I'd rather spend my final days.

Or my life in general.

I had one problem with this book .. well, two, actually.  One - it was less "zombie apocalypse" and more "ET is causing shit, and for reasons we'll never know" apocalypse.  Call me weird (I've been called much, much worse), but I find zombies much more believable, and enjoyable, than ET.

The second issue - I couldn't put in to words what I was feeling about this book, other than wishing I lived on aforementioned remote oil rig and not next to the neighbours that hate me.

So I did what every spoiled brat would do -  I had my dad do the review for me.  Enjoy!

I finally finished Outpost, and what a sad little book it is.

Not sad because it's the end of civilization, that's sad too, of
course, but sad because as an apocolyptic sci-fi adventure, it had
SUCH potential.

It's sort of like Michael Crichton meets Stephen King, unfortunately,
they were both having an off day.

The tale involves a group of people marooned on an enormous isolated
arctic drilling rig when reports come in that the world is being
overrun by a bizarre plague, one where metal elements of unknown
origin take over their bodies and stick out of their skin like
porcupine quills.

These don't do anything for the thought processes either, of course,
so they turn into defacto flesh eating metal infused zombies. (How
come the monsters are never vegetarians? Just wondering.)

There was so much potential to turn this story into an end of
civilaztion morality play, or an alien revenge adventure,
unfortunately the author missed every opportunity.

And after wading through 400 pages to find out what happened here, I
never did.  It's like the author said "Oh, I have to go cut the grass
now, I guess the book's done."

The basic rules of journalism, or any form of storytelling, are "who -
what - when - where - why"

Well we have the who, when, and where.  Now we need the author to come
back and give us the what and why.

I won't hold my breath waiting.

What a waste of a good story.  If Michael Crichton or Stephen King had
written this it'd be a major motion picture this summer.