Love Under Cover

Love Under Cover, by Jessica Brody.

So I caught the flu. I contracted the virus. The one that makes you start sentences with the word we and end them with the words isn't that right, honey? The one that makes you sick with anxiety when the phone doesn't ring exactly when it's supposed to. It's a disease that makes you dizzy, feverish, nauseated, clammy, and from time to time even delusional.

Yet once I had caught it, I never wanted to be cured. I only wanted to be with Jamie.

I liked this book a lot because although it is chick lit, the premise is unusual - the protagonist, Jennifer, is a "fidelity inspector," meaning that she tests husbands to see if they will cheat on their significant others. Usually the wife (or occasionally the husband, for his wife) will come to her and her agency and pay her a fee to do this. However, as she is now engaged to her fiance, Jamie, Jennifer has gotten out of the "game" and now only does desk work at the agency ... until one night, when getting back in is the only option.

Apparently this novel is a sequel to The Fidelity Inspector, which I am looking forward to reading next. The book can definitely be read as a "stand alone" novel, however, and that is what I originally took it as. The characters are smart and Brody's prose reads very quickly.

4.5 stars out of 5.

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Girl at Sea

Girl at Sea, by Maureen Johnson.

Just because she had been well behaved all this week didn't mean that she was any less interested in what was behind this trip - it was just that she had chosen not to act on it.

Being given a shiny key is a temptation. Keys open things. And from the moment it was around her neck, her senses were tingling.

Ever since reading the two books in the "Scarlett" series, I have been working my way through Maureen Johnson's books, and this one was very good. Clio is being "dragged" to Italy by her father to work on a ship for the summer, even though she just got a job at an art store in town. She's bummed that she has to leave, and she and her father aren't exactly close, but she soon meets Elsa and Aiden on the ship, and they become friends. Clio has an interesting "back story" as well, which is told to us in bits and pieces, starting with a successful board game that she and her father invented when she was twelve.

4 stars out of 5.

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Bird in Hand

Bird in Hand, by Christina Baker Kline.

Alison had been living for other people for so long that she culd barely identify what she wanted for herself anymore. She'd find herself paralyzed with indecision in the strangest places - the grocery store, for instance, where she roamed the aisles with a rising panic, even as she clutched a list in her hand: What would her kids eat? What would her husband want? She rarely asked herself what she wanted. It seems irrelevant.

Alison and Charlie have two children together and live a happy live in the New York suburbs - so she thinks. Ben and Claire, Alison's best friend, are married without children, but just as happy. What Alison and Ben don't know, however, is that Charlie and Claire have been having an affair for a few months; however, when Alison gets in a car accident which kills a child, Charlie has to "be there" for her, and the cracks in the facade that is their relationship begin to show more and more.

I thought this novel was interesting because it didn't have the normal "happy ending" that one expects nowadays. The Boston Globe said "She's the real deal. Kline dramatizes private life ... with a generous, knowing appreciation of human nature," and I'd have to agree. Alison and Claire have been best friends for 30+ years, and Charlie and Claire have loved each other for the entire time he's been married to Alison (Claire, in fact, introduced him to Alison), and it is only now, at the worst possible time, that they are acting on it.

3.5 out of 5 stars.

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Scarlett Fever

Scarlett Fever, by Maureen Johnson

"It's not always going to be like this," Scarlett said. "I've been useful to you, right?"

"Many times," Dakota said, leading her along. "Sometimes, we all get a little broken."

A little broken. Scarlett wondered about that. At what point do you get so broken that it's time to just get thrown away? She had a feeling she was going to find out.

This book was hilarious and I was surprised to find out that its actually a sequel - the first book, Suite Scarlett, is one that I have not yet read, but am now definitely planning on reading. The novel follows Scarlett as she is coping after the breakup of her and her "summer" boyfriend, Eric. She lives in a hotel in New York with her parents - but a falling-down hotel, not a fancy one - and her siblings Marlene, Lola, and Spencer. Spencer is a budding actor but has not been able to land a part recently, ever since the Day of the Sock (read it and you'll see what it is); Marlene is 11 and a cancer survivor; and Lola is eighteen and works instead of going to college. Scarlett works for a crazy agent who is constantly calling her on the phone to do things for her, and eventually she runs into Eric one day because he needs an agent, and she has to deal with her feelings all over again.

Maureen Johnson is a great writer - I've read a few of her other books, such as The Key to the Golden Firebird and 13 Little Blue Envelopes. Her prose is funny and smart, and the dialogue and narrative is definitely engaging. The book ended very abruptly, of which I was not a fan (and for which I am deducting a half-star!), but there will be a 3rd Scarlett book published sometime in the future.

3.5 stars out of 5.

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Remind Me Again Why I Need A Man

Remind Me Again Why I Need A Man, by Claudia Carroll.

"Sorry, but I happen to like getting drunk on a Saturday afternoon with my friends if I feel like it. I like smoking in bed. I like eating or not eating or living on take-outs, entirely depending on how I feel. The sad single is a marketing notion peddled to us by Hollywood, and it doesn't exist, and the sooner you realize that, the better. Living on your own is cool, and you know it."

This book was hilarious and is a must-read. Amelia Lockwood is 37 years old and still single, and she wants to find a husband; therefore, she enrolls in a night course called "How to Find a Husband over the Age of Thirty-Five," with interesting results. Her assignment each week for class is to re-visit each of her exes, see where they are now, and figure out the relationship didn't work out. She has four good friends, whom she calls the Lovely Girls (all are women, with the exception of her male gay friend), and they cheer her on throughout.

The book reminded me a lot of the movie "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past," except it was a lot funnier. The ending was kind of vague, however, and I had hoped for something more concrete.

4 stars out of 5.

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The Six Rules of Maybe

The Six Rules of Maybe, by Deb Caletti.

I made a silent promise to myself - I would come back when no one was here, and I would read those words. Maybe at that moment I knew what a thief must feel, a jewel thief. The way his heart would quicken with need and envy and want when he gazed down at the promise of diamonds and rubies. The way he knew he would soon hold them in his hands, pretending they were his even if they could never be.

I have read a few other Deb Caletti books and they were all great, including this one. Scarlet's older sister Juliet has returned home not only pregnant, but with a new husband as well. They decide to stay with Scarlet and her mother until the baby is born, but of course there are complications.

4 stars out of 5.

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House Rules

House Rules, by Jodi Picoult.

I was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome long before it became the mental health disorder du jour, overused by parents to describe their bratty kids so that people think they're supergeniuses instead of simply antisocial.

I am a big fan of Jodi Picoult's novels, which are generally great, and this one proved to be no exception. Picoult writes her novels in the first person, and each chapter is from a different person's point of view: Jacob, an autistic boy with Asperger's; his mother, Emma; "normal" brother, Theo; lawyer, Oliver; and police officer Rich. Jacob enjoys forensic science and both studying and creating crime scene, and when a girl whom he is close with dies, he is the number one suspect, and his Asperger's only makes him look even more suspicious.

Although the endings in Jodi Picoult's books are usually quite shocking, this one was only mildly so, although I must admit I didn't see the ending coming until I read it.

4.5 stars out of 5.

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