When in Doubt, Add Butter by Beth Harbison

When in Doubt, Add Butter
by Beth Harbison

Gemma Craig has spent her career as a private chef taking care of other people. From Lex, the fussy department store owner straight out of a movie from the thirties; to grossly overweight Willa, who must radically change her eating habits or die; to the strange Oleksei family, with a constant parade of mysterious people coming and going; to the hideously demanding A ngela who is “allergic to everything” and foists her tastes on her hapless family; to the man Gemma thinks of only as “Mr. Tuesday” because they’ve never met. Everyone relies on Gemma, even while she goes home alone each night and feasts on cereal and quick meals. But when life takes an unexpected turn on a road Gemma always thought was straight and narrow, she must face her past and learn to move on in ways she never imagined.

My Rating: 4 of 5 "Really Liked It"

I LOVED this book! I almost NEVER read romances but this one was just absolutely perfect in every way and I enjoyed it so much. Gosh, I feel like such a gooey little girl with rose-colored glasses and too much sugar in her veins but it was just so good!

It's so refreshing to read a book written by someone who honest to god knows how to write and tell a good story. If you're looking for a read that you can trust to have a happy ending and will fulfill all your expectations, this is the book for you. It's enough to get anyone out of a downer mood, for sure.

The wonderful descriptions of all the food made me really hungry, haha. And I felt like the characters were all people that I recognized from my own life. The story takes place around DC, too, which is just far enough away from where I am currently for me to be pleased with getting lost in it, but close enough to feel like I was reading a happy story of someone who actually lives nearby.

The only reason I didn't give 5 of 5 is because, honestly, this book has no real substance hahaha.

Go read this book! You'll like it!

This is How by Augusten Burroughs

This is How
By Augusten Burroughs

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Running With Scissors comes a groundbreaking book that explores how to survive the "un-survivable" and will challenge your notion of self-help books.

To say that Augusten Burroughs has lived an unusual life is an understatement. From having no formal education past third grade and being raised by his mother’s psychiatrist in the seventies to enjoying one of the most successful advertising careers of the eighties to experiencing a spectacular downfall and rehab stint in the nineties to having a number one bestselling writing career in the new millennium, Burroughs has faced humiliation, transformation and everything in between. This Is How is his no-holds-barred book of advice on topics as varied as:

• How to feel like crap
• How to ride an elevator
• How to be thin
• How to be fat
• How to find love
• How to feel sorry for yourself
• How to get the job
• How to end your life
• How to remain unhealed
• How to finish your drink
• How to regret as little as possible
• And much more

Told with Burroughs's unique voice, black humor, and in-your-face advice, This is How is Running With Scissors—with recipes.

My Rating: 4 of 5 "Really Liked It"

This is, without a doubt, the most candid self-help book I have ever read. It covers a vast range of subjects, from how to deal with optimist do-gooders when you're down, all the way to mourning the death of a child. And the ironic part-? All of these situations, the book teaches, can be handled with a single, powerful, simple tool:

Absolute honesty with yourself.

"This Is How" spends 230 pages repeating the same honesty mantra in so many different ways, that it's a profound experience when it finally clicks. So many different examples are used that, at some point in the book, you're garunteed to find something that speaks to you, and when you do, the point hits home.

Everyone has issues. Some people more than others. And it seems to me that no matter how light or extreme your life difficulties are, this book will definitely help give a second perspective on your situation.

I read this book in a day and a half- exceptionally long for only 200 pages of text. But the words invoke a lot of thought, a lot of conversation, and offers something that lasts beyond the turn of the last page.

YESSS Three books arrived!!!

Yes! Three books arrived on the same day today! These are the first of the First Reads from Goodreads that I've finally got!

Today I received:

• When in Doubt, Add Butter by Beth Harbison
• Stolen Prey by John Sandford
• This is How: Help for the Self- Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude, and MORE for for Young and Old Alike by Augusten Burroughs

 Haha, I don't know how much on that last list I suffer from, but I love to read self-help books~

Anyway, it's quite obvious what I'll be doing over the weekend! I've got to finish up The Three Musketeers first, and then it's on to First Reads!

Black Oil, Red Blood by Diane Castle

Black Oil, Red Blood
By Diane Castle

The thing about cancer is it’s hard to prove somebody gave it to you on purpose—but Chloe Taylor can prove it. In fact, she proves it for a living. She sues oil refineries that would rather save a buck than comply with safety regulations designed to do important things like, you know, keep people alive. 

Rating: 2 of 5 "It Was Okay"

I'm sorry to say that I struggled to get through this book. I'm going to give it two stars for "it was okay" because really that's what I'd have to say about it. It was okay.

The characters were overwhelmingly cardboard (with the exception of Nash, who actually seemed to have some complexity) and the plot was so-so. I feel like the story was an excuse for the author to lecture me about Big Oil. Characters randomly broke out into long-winded speeches and rattled off statistics as if they were reading it right off of wikipedia. The dialogue throughout these long stretches of texture-less expository chunks was brittle and constructed at best.

The action scenes were pretty okay, until the point that they inevitably reached a level of absurdity even I was taken out of the book. I'm all for camp, really, but if the main character noticed Nash's "chiseled torso" one more time at the very wrong time I was going to flip my desk. That, and the results of said action scenes were unsatisfactory. Chloe spent too much time being tossed from one action wave to the next without discovering any information on her own. She might as well not have been the main character of this book.

At any rate, there were several redeeming qualities that kept me going throughout. Miles, Chloe's gay paralegal, was entertaining comedic relief (even though the obviousness of his role in the story did irritate me by the time I hit the half-way point.) And normally I don't like the use of pets in books but I found myself oddly pleased by Lucy's simple pleasure in car rides and usefulness as a midnight look-out.

My roommate read this book at the same time I did, and she found much more enjoyment in it than I did. However, she didn't read the whole book, just popped in and out and read over my shoulder for the scenes that made me laugh. I'm not sure what that says for the book beyond saying it has potential that wasn't properly exploited.

Then again, maybe this isn't my kind of story? Unsure. I'll go compare notes with other readers and see if I'm just the odd-man out on this one.