Thursday, August 4, 2011

How To Love An American Man

By Kristine Gasbarre

I love it when there's a trailer for the book I want to review!  It explains it so much better than I can.





My Thoughts:  This was such a loving tribute to the author's grandparents, which I could totally relate to, as I also adored my grandfather and thought he was just the most perfect man and my grandmother was the epitome of grace and style.  I've been married for 25 years to my high school sweetheart, so I didn't really need the advice on how to find and love an American man, but it was a sweet story.  At times, it read like a novel, so it really kept my interest, where some memoirs are just so I, me, my that I lose interest. 

My daughter and I were lucky enough to meet Kristine at BEA this year and my only problem with this book was that after meeting her, I was surprised that someone so beautiful, intelligent and charming, was having trouble finding her true love!!!  We first talked to her at the Bloggers cocktail party one night, where a fellow blogger we had never met, grabbed us, screaming something along the lines of  "Look, I got me an author!"  Kristine proceeded to introduce herself and describe her book to us, which my daughter realized she was already signed up for on a book tour.  Very cool!  The next day, we ran into her a Speed Dating Author Event, where she was seated at our table with another author and they were both supposed to describe their book and answer questions.  Unfortunately in the middle of Kristine's presentation, this EXTREMELY rude publicist interrupted her and said,'"You know, this is supposed to be 'author who shall remain nameless' table."  After we all picked our jaws up off the floor, because she was so freakin' rude, Kristine very graciously apologized and said she was almost done.   Truly classy, because I probably would not have so polite. 

Anyways, this is a really lovely book from an awesome author! 

Monday, August 1, 2011

Stay

By Allie Larkin


I am feeling kind of lazy, so instead of describing this book, I'll just post it's trailer!!

Now, the original idea was to try to get the cover dog, Argo, who is Allie Larkin's actual dog, in the trailer. I prefer this one, but they chose not to use it.


I am going to state at the outset of this review, that I was not in any way influenced by the fact that Allie Larkin is absolutely adorable and came to our Book Club meeting and brought us wine, while writing my review.  Even if she did not come (which was awesome) and was a total doll (which she was!), I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY loved this book.

First off, any book that features an animal as a prominent character is a winner in my book.  I have a dog that I am so in love with it's scary, even though he does not respond to commands in Slovakian (or in English for that matter!),so I could totally connect with the main character, Van, deciding to get a dog to restart her life and finally have someone to count on, when the unrequited love of her life, Peter, marries her best friend Janey.

This book was funny at times, made me cry at times and was just overall a fantastic read.  I basically read it in one sitting while out in the sun, because I wanted to see how it ended.  And then I was sad it was over.  Allie did tell us at our Book Club meeting (WHICH SHE CAME TO!!!), that she is not done with Van yet and might possibly come back to her in a future book.  YAY!!!

I am totally looking forward to Allie's next book, which is in the works.  In the meantime, she has an essay in an anthology book, coming out in September I think, called "I'm Not the Biggest Bitch in This Relationship",
which is a collection of essays about the authors' dogs.  Sounds hilarious!

I would highly recommend this to anyone, regardless of what genre you usually read, as it was just so enjoyable!!  Loved it!!!