Life on the Refrigerator Door - Alice Kuipers

You will probably read this book in one sitting. You will probably cry. At least you get a warning, which is more than I had.


The story is written solely through letters left between 15-year-old Claire and her mother as they struggle with their lives. Claire is an average teenager dabbling in boys, taking tests and babysitting for extra money to help her single mother. Her mom, who I gathered was a labor and delivery nurse (doctor?), struggles to run the household while supporting Claire in her projects. And then she's dealt a blow - breast cancer. You know where it goes from here. I could tell exactly where the story was going and couldn't turn the pages fast enough. I read the last page 40 minutes after I'd started the book and tears fell. You've been warned.


What a lovely story about a mother and daughter. Makes me appreciate mine more. (Are you reading mom? I love you). A must-read, even though it's obviously sad.

Sunday Salon - March 15

10:22 am

It was a great week of reading for me. I finished The Smart One and the Pretty One by Claire LaZebnik (here's my review), Life on the Refrigerator Door by Alice Kuipers (review coming soon), I am over 100 pages into Jenny McCarthy's Mother Warriors, and I purchased Jodi Picoult's newest, Handle With Care.

Although I'm not finished with Mother Warriors, I already know it's going to be a hard review to write. For those unaware, the book is the second of Jenny's relating to her 5-year-old son Evan's diagnosis and treatment of autism. Jenny believes that there is most definitely a link between vaccines and autism. Long before I had read her first book, I had a suspicion there was a link as well. This is a very controversial subject, and I already have so many thoughts swirling in my head about this book. I imagine it will take me a couple days to gather my thoughts into a coherent post, but please stay tuned.

I hope everyone has a great Sunday and that it's filled with reading!

The Smart One and the Pretty One - Claire LaZebnik

From the back:

Smart, successful Ava Nickerson is closing in on thirty and has barely had a date since law school. When a family crisis brings her prodigal little sister Lauren back to Los Angeles, Lauren stumbles across a forgotten document - a contract their parents had jokingly drawn up years ago betrothing Ava to their friends' son.

Frustrated and embarrassed by Ava's constant lectures about financial responsibility(all because she's in a little debt. Okay, a lot of debt), Lauren decides to do some sisterly interfering of her own and tracks down her sister's childhood fiance. When she finds him, the highly innapropriate, twice-divorced, but incredibly charming Russell Markowitz is all too happy to reenter the Nickerson sisters' lives. And always-accountable Ava will soon realize just how binding a contract can be...

The story was a little far-fetched I thought - whose parents draw up a contract for their eldest daughter to marry someone?! It sounds so medieval. And Ava! Oh, Ava. I didn't know one girl could be so clueless at love and fashion and be sooo stubborn! But I did love how she used her legal knowledge to trap her sister into becoming more financially responsible (actually sounds like something I might do...) but it ended up backfiring because Lauren went ahead and used their parents' contract to hunt down Ava's childhood friend. Of course, being the chick-lit that it was, everyone came out happy in the end.

This book reminded me a lot of my relationship with my own sister. She is more like Lauren and I am more like Ava, and no one in our family would disagree with this statement. I think I was drawn to the story simply because of the relationship between the girls.

Vanishing Acts - Jodi Picoult

Picoult so rarely disappoints. I absolutely love her storytelling from multiple viewpoints. This book follows Delia, her father Andrew, her financee Eric, her friend Fitz and her mother Elise as Delia's sketchy childhood is unraveled, sending her from the only life she knew in New Hampshire to Arizona, where she spent the childhood she can't remember much about.

Delia doesn't remember her life in Arizona, because as it turns out, her father "kidnapped" her when she was 4 and moved her from Arizona to New Hampshire because her mother was an alcoholic. He changed both their identities and they made a new life together - the only life Delia has ever known. When her father is arrested for the kidnapping, Delia's world is turned upside down as everyone treks across the country for her father's trial. It is in Arizona where Delia realizes Eric is not who she thought he was, she meets her mother for the first time, and realizes what her father did to protect her. As always, the legal part enthralled me and I couldn't turn the pages fast enough.

Much is made of the concept of memory in this book, and the fact that Delia cannot remember things she thinks she should remember about her childhood. Throughout the book I just kep thinking to myself, she's just burying what she remembers so she doesn't have to face the music. Although I don't condone what she did near the end of the book, I can understand why the book ended the way it did. The most appealing thing to me was the way Delia looked at her own daughter and her own relationship differently after learning about her mother and father's relationship.

I definitely recommend this book, especially for Picoult lovers.

Sunday Salon - March 8

March 8 - 10:44 am

Welcome Sunday. Welcome Spring. It's been one long week, and I'm so happy it's Sunday and that spring is here (in Florida at least). I think I've worked more hours this week than any other week in my life, but I've still managed to read some.

I finished Jodi Picoult's Vanishing Acts last Sunday, and started on The Smart One and The Pretty One by Claire LaZebnik. I'm about half way through and anticipate finishing it tonight or tomorrow. I've yet to post my thoughts on Vanishing Acts because some aspects of the book are still swirling around in my head, but I hope to post that review in the next couple days.

Today will be one of catching up on things. There's laundry to be done, food to be bought, things to pick up, and a book to read! Happy Sunday fellow saloners!

Justice Deferred - Len Williams

Publisher's Weekly review from amazon.com:

Revenge becomes a dish best served with plenty of legal scheming in Williams's fast-paced debut novel, as an escaped ex-con goes to amazing lengths to nail the two cops who use Alabama's third-strike rule to engineer an unjust life sentence. Billy Ray Billings is a Mobile native with a rough family background who drifts into a life of petty crime. His initial success leads to a brief period on easy street, but a short prison stint serves as a temporary deterrent. Then he gets back in with the wrong crowd, and when the police bust him again and fraudulently tack on another charge after the arrest, he finds himself facing life in prison. Billy Ray is rescued in prison by an inmate named Leonard who steers him into a clandestine education program, and as he builds his academic r‚sum‚, the ambitious Billy Ray uses the prison chaplain to engineer an unlikely escape. He moves to Jackson, Miss., and becomes Harry Brown, going to work for a dry cleaner and then earning a law degree while writing court-oriented profiles for the local paper. Life seems complete and satisfying when he starts a relationship with a local woman, but he can't resist the opportunity to seek out an old crooked colleague and devise an incredibly complex, clever plan to take down the two cops who framed him. Williams gets bogged down a bit in the details of the trial that follows, and his prose can be sloppy, but the combination of dialogue -driven scenes and surprising plot twists is downright addictive. It's rare for a first-time author to master two genres, but this novel works as both prison fiction and legal thriller.

This was a very good legal thriller, that's for sure. I have always been interested in the law and this book certainly shows loopholes. I am definitely for criminals paying their debt to society, but it is amazing sometimes what police can do to cheat the system. Including of course, abusing the three-strike law by tacking on additional charges after the fact, instead of lumping them together to make a stronger case. It was amazing to me to read about Billy Ray's escape from prison and how people outside the bars were able to help him. I don't know much about jails, but it seems too easy for criminals to connect with the outside world. I was also a little baffled that Billy Ray was able to continue his education and work with a priest without anyone catching wind of what he was up to. I also could have done without all the trial details in the final portion of the book.

Overall, a thrilling read, and I recommend this to anyone wanting to read about justice in action, or anyone who enjoys reading about the law.