Summary: The bestselling author of Something Borrowed and Something Blue tells the story of what happens after the "I do"s. As a successful editor at a Manhattan publishing house, Claudia Parr counts herself fortunate to meet and marry Ben, a man who claims to be a nonbreeding career-firster like she is. The couple's early married years go smoothly, but then Ben's biological clock starts to tick. A baby's a deal breaker for Claudia, so she moves out and bunks with her college roommate Jess (a 35-year-old blonde goddess stuck in a series of dead-end relationships) while the wheels of divorce crank into action. Even after the divorce is finalized and Claudia embarks on a steamy love affair with her colleague Richard, she begins to doubt her decision when she suspects Ben has found a smart, young and beautiful woman willing to bear his children. Standard fare as far as chick lit goes, but there are strong subplots involving Claudia's sisters (one is coping with infertility, the other with a cheating spouse) and the childless-by-choice plot line produces above-average tension. - Publishers WeeklyReview: I've read Emily Giffin's other two books, Something Borrowed
and Something Blue
enjoyed both of them emensly so I'm not sure why this sat on my shelf for over a year (too many books, too little time?!) but I'm glad that I finally read it. I was engaged in the story within the first few pages and was immediately drawn to the main character, Claudia. I enjoyed how the story was told from her point of view and she didn't really hold any punches about how she felt. All of the characters in the book were very vivid and real to me except Ben. For some reason, even though he's an integral part of the story, he felt a bit cartoonish to me. I seriously doubt that's how Emily wanted him to come off but he at least did too me.
and Something Blue enjoyed both of them emensly so I'm not sure why this sat on my shelf for over a year (too many books, too little time?!) but I'm glad that I finally read it. I was engaged in the story within the first few pages and was immediately drawn to the main character, Claudia. I enjoyed how the story was told from her point of view and she didn't really hold any punches about how she felt. All of the characters in the book were very vivid and real to me except Ben. For some reason, even though he's an integral part of the story, he felt a bit cartoonish to me. I seriously doubt that's how Emily wanted him to come off but he at least did too me.I disagree with Publishers Weekly in the fact that this is standard Chick-Lit fare because of the subject matters that it deals with, some might call them social taboos and I don't think they've been addressed in any other "chick-lit" book that I've read before. While the ending was good and seemed to fit within the story, I am a bit disappointed that the author chose the route she did. While I enjoyed the point-of-view from Claudia, I do think it would have been equally as enriching to perhaps have thrown Ben's POV in during the course of the book too. Although in doing that you would have lost some of the twists thrown in at the end of the book.
I enjoyed all the supporting characters in this book. There were many different subplots going on but yet you didn't feel like there was too much going on that you couldn't follow it. Ms. Griffin did a very nice job of blending all the plots together.
I will continue to look for Ms. Griffin's work in the future, she's an excellent storyteller.
Final Take: 4/5
Summary: Stewart peers into the complicated heart of friendship in a moving second novel (after 2000's Body of a Girl). Ever since a cataclysmic falling out with her best friend, Sonia, after college, Cameron's closest companion has been Oliver, the 92-year-old historian she lives with and cares for in Oxford, Miss. Oliver's death leaves Cameron alone and adrift, until she discovers that he has given her one last task: she must track down her estranged best friend (whose letter announcing her engagement Cameron had so recently ignored) and deliver a mysterious present to her. Cameron's journey leads her back to the people, places and memories of their shared past, when they called themselves "Cameronia" and swore to be friends forever. It was a relationship more powerful than romantic love—yet romantic love (or sex, anyway) could still wreck it. Stewart lures the reader forward with two unanswered questions: What was the disaster that ended their friendship, and what will be revealed when Cameron and Sonia are together again and Oliver's package is finally opened? The book is heartfelt and its characters believable jigsaw puzzles of insecurities, talents and secrets, and if Cameron's carefully guarded anger makes her occasionally disagreeable, readers will nevertheless welcome her happy ending.
Summary: When a horrifying attack leaves one of the four members of the Women's Murder Club struggling for her life, the others fight to keep a madman behind bars before anyone else is hurt. And Lindsay Boxer and her new partner in the San Francisco police department run flat-out to stop a series of kidnappings that has electrified the city: children are being plucked off the streets together with their nannies-- but the kidnappers aren't demanding ransom. Amid uncertainty and rising panic, Lindsay juggles the possibility of a new love with an unsolvable investigation, and the knowledge that one member of the club could be on the brink of death. And just when everything appears momentarily under control, the case takes a terrifying turn, putting an entire city in lethal danger. Lindsay must make a choice she never dreamed she'd face--with no certainty that either outcome has more than a prayer of success.