This Is Where We Live

This Is Where We Live is the second novel of Janelle Brown. It is the tale of a struggling filmmaker, Claudia, and her marriage to Jeremy Munger, a struggling musician. A couple in their thirties who are also new homeowners, the Mungers deal with the financial burden of their home and the shortcomings of their luck in the ways of talent in different ways. While Brown has a funny and insightful writing style, the novel ultimately falls flat.

The Cinderella Society

Jess Parker is the new kid and her sophomore year stunk. She was treated as an outsider and Lexy Steele was (and still is) determined to make her life a nightmare in order to get back at Jess for taking Lexy's cheerleading spot. Meanwhile, Jess is looking forward to spending the summer before her junior year hiding from Lexy, working, volunteering and going to cheer camp. Maybe just maybe, the other cheerleaders will finally accept her. However, her summer plans change when she receives an invitation to attend a meeting for a secret sisterhood, The Cinderella Society.

The Butcher and the Vegetarian: One Woman's Romp through a World of Men, Meat, and Moral Crisis

Food writer Tara Austen Weaver was raised in a vegetarian home since her birth. As an adult, she unexpectedly gets diagnosed with thyroid disease. What’s she to do? Fast for forty days? No. Go macrobiotic? Nope, not that either. Instead, Weaver must eat meat—by doctor’s order. So she turns to a carnivorous diet. What unfolds is part chick lit-cookbook and part treatise on farm animal rights. Weaver’s introduction to the world of animal flesh brings her into contact with many meat-industry types. Some she casts in an ethical light. These include kind butchers and organic cattle ranchers.

Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes

While the memoir fad is nothing new, Elizabeth Bard’s new book confirms the emergence of a memoir subgenre to contend with: the memoir with recipes. In May 2009, the New York Times proclaimed these books as the brainchild of the “money-making imagination of the publishing industry.” Certainly, a spate of globe-spanning titles have followed, many born from blogs. However, the story of the American in Paris has long been a favored literary subject. It has sparked writers’ imaginations from Henry James to Anais Nin to Elaine Dundy to David Sedaris.

Prospect Park West

Brooklyn’s famously high-end and yuppie Park Slope neighborhood is nearly a character itself in Amy Sohn’s Prospect Park West. The book follows the lives of four women living in the neighborhood. There is Melora Leigh, a troubled actress, who joins the neighborhood co-op for good PR. Her time there ties her to Karen Shapiro, an overly protective mother and social climber desperate for a new apartment in the best school district.

The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder

_"This world is made up of stories—every person's story, those that are hidden, and those that are outright and clear. This is the story of one named for a flower." _ The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder is the story of a young girl's experience growing up in 1950s Louisiana.

The Makedown

The Makedown is marketed as a witty take on a makeover in reverse. However, this part of the storyline actually occurs in the last fourth of the novel.

Love in a Headscarf: Muslim Woman Seeks the One

Okay, I’ll admit it. When I first heard the title, my immediate reaction was to roll my eyes. “Not again!” I thought.

Please Excuse My Daughter

This is one of the worst books I have read so far in my life. Its author, Julie Klam, is a definitive “poor little rich girl.” After a strange childhood spent shopping and sunbathing in New York with her wealthy relatives, our protagonist was left with few life skills and low test scores. Her mother often pulled her out of school just to shop at upscale department stores; hence, the origin of the book’s title, Please Excuse My Daughter.