Review: The Bride Wore Size 12 by Meg Cabot

The Bride Wore Size 12
Author:  Meg Cabot
Published:  September 2013
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Edition:  ARC
Genre:  General fiction, Chick lit
Source:  A complimentary copy was provided by the publisher and TLC Book Tours which in no way influenced this blogger's opinion nor this review.

Heather Wells is used to having her cake and eating it too, but this time her cake just might be cooked. Her wedding cake, that is.

With her upcoming nuptials to PI Cooper Cartwright only weeks away, Heather’s already stressed. And when a pretty junior turns up dead, Heather’s sure things can’t get worse—until every student in the dorm where she works is a possible suspect, and Heather’s long-lost mother shows up.

Heather has no time for a tearful mother and bride reunion. She has a wedding to pull off and a murder to solve. Instead of wedding bells, she might be hearing wedding bullets, but she’s determined to bring the bad guys to justice if it’s the last thing she does . . . and this time, it just might be.

My Thoughts:

It's a mystery.  No, it's chick lit.  Perhaps it's general fiction?   The Bride Wore Size 12 could fall into any of these categories but the best thing is all three categories make up this new novel by Meg Cabot.  This was my introduction to Meg Cabot as a writer and I have to say I will be coming back for more.  Cabot's writing is fluid and beckoning with a good dose of humour and before I knew it I was 2/3 of the way through this 400+ page paperback.

It's my first time meeting Heather Wells and her handsome PI fiancé Cooper Cartwright but Heather's character is so well developed that I felt I really knew her before I had finished the novel.  She is what I call a "dynamo."  She's been through a lot, including betrayal by her agent and her mother, but she has spunk and she's not afraid to follow her instincts, nor to tell someone like it is.  In some ways Heather reminds me of a friend of mine; intelligent, fun, feisty and loyal.  Excellent attributes not only in a friend but in her line of work as a residence assistance manager at a local college they are necessary.  After the previous school term, Heather is determined that no student will die on her watch but she seems to find trouble regardless, as does her fiancé Cooper but in a very different way.  They are quite the matched pair and the sparks fly away from home as well as in.

The Bride Wore Size 12 contains a mystery that turns out to be more of a secret but in revealing it, Heather also discovers a murderer among them, one whose selfish motives killed a fellow student, seriously injured another and became a potential threat to the student body as well as administration.  Heather finds it's not always popular to do the right thing but the underlying messages are good solid advice for anyone and The Bride Wore Size 12 proves that a YA author can write in other genres and do it well.  I'm impressed!

Meet the author:

Meg Cabot was born in Bloomington, Indiana. In addition to her adult contemporary fiction she is the author of the bestselling young adult fiction series, The Princess Diaries. She lives in Key West, FL with her husband.

Find out more about Meg at her website, follow her blog, and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

Review: About a Girl by Lindsey Kelk

About a Girl

Author:  Lindsey Kelk

Published:  July 2013

Publisher:  Harper

Paperback:  416 pages

978-0007497980

Source:  ebook 

Author's website:  http://lindseykelk.com/books

I’d lost my job. I’d lost the love of my life. My mum wasn’t talking to me. My best friend was epically pissed off. And my flatmate probably had a hit out on me by now. I never meant for things to get so out of hand…

Tess Brookes has always been a Girl with a Plan. But when her carefully constructed Plan goes belly up, she’s forced to reconsider.

After accidently answering her flatmate Vanessa’s phone, she decides that since being Tess isn’t going so well, why shouldn’t she try out being Vanessa? With nothing left to lose, she accepts Vanessa’s photography assignment to Hawaii – she used to be an amateur snapper, how hard can it be? Right?

But Tess is soon in big trouble – she isn’t a photographer, she isn’t Vanessa, and the gorgeous journalist on the shoot with her, who is making it very clear he’d like to get into her pants, is an egotistical monster.

Far from home and in someone else’s shoes, Tess must decide whether to fight on through, or ‘fess up and run…

My Thoughts:

Tess Brookes has a dream job, two best friends (one of whom she is secretly in love with - Charlie), and life is going well.  Oh, and she has the worst roommate ever!

Then the worst week of her life happens and Tess makes a rash decision to pretend to be her roommate, take a photography job in Hawaii, and disappear from her life in London....a life that has been turned upside down.  In Hawaii she may find herself...she certainly finds a super hot guy....

I can't imagine doing what Tess did.  Tess used to be stable, even predictable but taking on Vanessa's persona gives her a bit of freedom to be someone else and to see another aspect of life.  She's fun and beautiful but not so sure she is either.  She is real and Nick likes all of that. But oh what a web Tess has woven for herself.  You can't help liking her though.  She is so down to earth, and lively, and she's taking chances some of us would only dream about.  Totally out of character, but then she's not Tess in Hawaii.  She can redefine herself....if she wants to.

If you like chick lit like Confessions of a Shopaholic but with a bit more language and certainly more love life, then you will have fun reading About a Girl.

The next in the series "What a Girl Wants" is expected out next summer.  (2014)

Coming Up For Air by Patti Callahan Henry - book review

Coming Up For Air

Author:  Patti Callahan Henry
Published: August 16, 2011
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Pages: 272
ISBN-10: 0312610394

ISBN-13: 978-0312610395

Genre:  Fiction (chick lit)

Source:  a copy was provided for this review which in no way influenced my opinion of this novel.
Available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and local bookstores.

Synopsis and trailer as previously mentioned on this blog may be viewed by clicking on this link.


My Review:

An interesting quote dons the back cover of Coming Up for Air:  "Love.  Maybe there should be a hundred words for that one word.  It seems too complex a thing to write in four letters.  We have it; we don't have it.  We need it; we lose it.  We win it; we want it.  We weep for it; we let it go."

That is Ellie's life, really, and it mirrors her mother's own life with remarkable accuracy.  They both loved young.  Lost their loves, but never really lost the love.  Married another.  Her mother closed off her heart.  And this is where they differ.  Ellie saw this in her mother and she didn't want to live the same way, with a closed heart.  Ellie wanted to love, to be loved, to feel love and feel loved.  In her marriage, she recognized it wasn't like that.  She was unsure of her husband's love;  he manipulated through emotions, his words mean, then soft.  Opposites.  Ellie felt herself closing up.  Until the day her dead mother's journal was discovered, then Ellie saw the woman her mother once was.  So vivacious and caring.  Her activities that she had kept secret during the 60's came to light and Ellie discovered her mother's secret love, a name unknown, but there he was.  "This is the year He will love me."  Ellie's mother participated alongside this man, actively fighting the cause of desegregation.  But his name was never made known.  The more Ellie came to know her mother, through this journal, the more she understood herself and the more she desired  to know what it was she really wanted in her life.

Ellie needed to escape the bone-crushing thing that her marriage had become.  Her trip to the seaside cottage of her mother's best friend, is the beginning of understanding of both her mother and herself.  She finds the parallels in life at the sea side with her own life.  When she joins in a "Jubilee", we see how Coming Up For Air, came to be.  How this singular phrase summarizes the feelings in Ellie's own life.

When the conditions are right, the wind just so, the water temperature right, the moon a crescent, a Jubilee can occur.  It is when oxygen is depleted in the water depths and the shrimp, the fish, and the crustaceans fight for the surface, coming up to the shore for air.

"Each creature was in total disregard for the others.  They, each and every one, were fighting for oxygen and attempting to leave their life-giving bay to do so."

 "All they're trying to do is come up for air."

  "All of them - the shrimp, the flounder, the crabs -- they're all coming up for air.  Somehow, for reasons that take a scientist to explain, the oxygen level at the bottom drops too low and everything rushes to the surface." (page 83, Coming Up For Air)

Patti Callahan Henry writes an emotionally charged novel of love, secrets, loss and finding of oneself in her novel, Coming Up For Air.  With finesse, she captures the mood, the memories, making the characters come alive within the pages, encapsulating you in their stories.  I really enjoyed this novel.  Coming Up For Air is a lovely summer's read for the beach, easy to pick up and difficult to put down.  Much like the memory of a gentle breeze as it blows in off the ocean, a single breath of which carries a myriad of scents and sensations, Coming Up For Air lingers fondly in your mind and in your heart.

Some Favourite Quotes: 

“There are nights when the places and spaces in a life shift, disassemble, and then reassemble in the sliver of time between moments, between seconds. There are people who enter or reenter a life, who touch you or laugh with you in the middle of a jubilee, in the midst of nature's sacrifice, so that your life couldn't be the same even if you wanted it to be so.”

• “Sometimes a voice can change a heartbeat.”
• “And sometimes to forget the bad parts we have to forget the good parts.”

• “Crossroads. We all have them, and they are so often seen only in hindsight.”

  
  

Distractions From the Cares of the World - In Other Words "Fluff" Reading

Booking Through Thursday is a weekly bookish meme hosted here.  This week's question is as follows,

"You’ve just had a long, hard, exhausting day, 

and all you want to do is curl up with something light, fun, easy, fluffy, distracting, and entertaining.

What book do you pick up?"

When I am exhausted mentally or physically I love to pick up a cozy mystery.  While I enjoy the odd light chick lit such as the Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella, I also love curling up with a cozy mystery at the end of a long day.  I find them both entertaining and enjoyable while offering a welcome diversion from day to day conundrums.  One of my favourite types is a culinary mystery. Last year I came across Nancy Fairbanks' books, one of which I reviewed, Crime Brulee, which was a fabulous and lighter read featuring food writer, Carolyn Blue, who unwittingly discovers a dangerous mind when she looks into the mysterious disappearance of a close friend and finds herself in danger in New Orleans.  Complete with several authentic recipes of the area.  Loved it!  Another in a similar vein, Sticks and Scones by Diane Mott Davidson, sits at my bedside waiting for just the right moment to be devoured!

I recently discovered Lillian Jackson Braun and with delight read and reviewed two of her fabulous books, The Cat Who Moved a Mountain and The Cat Who Turned On and Off. They are light reads with a touch of humour, generated mostly by the star Siamese cats in the books.  They are not too serious and present a rather refreshing presentation of a who-done-it featuring a journalist and his two mischievous Siamese cats.

Those are just a few examples of how I like to relax and unwind while not partaking of a heavy read.  What do you like to read to distract you from the cares of the world?  Do you prefer a light mystery or chick lit or manga or humour?  A little humour goes a long way.  I heard Tina Fey's memoir, Bossypants, especially the audio book, is fabulous and hilarious, though at times crude.  Perhaps it would be a good "read" at the end of a yucky day.  Suggestions, anyone?