Review & Giveaway: "Not Ready For Mom Jeans" by Maureen Lipinski

It's summer, and in the summer I tend to choose books to read purely for pleasure, and for pleasure only. In the fall and winter my choices tend to be a little heavier, a little darker, but in the summer my books must be fun, fun, fun! I've had Not Ready For Mom Jeans on my shelf for a couple of months now. It was a win from the fabulous Melissa's over at Chick Lit Central (I love you guys and the way that you enable my chick lit habit!), and since I'm a youngish mom I can certainly relate not being ready for mom jeans. As much as I adore my kids (and I do!), sometimes I stop and think about the fact that I'm not even 30 but yet I have an 11 year old, a 6 year old, and a 4 year old. I'm not ready for those mom jeans! I want to be one of those hot mamas!

Clare Finnegan, event planner and popular blogger, is so not ready for mom jeans either. Baby Sara was conceived unexpectedly, and although Clare can't imagine what life would be like without her, she struggles with her desire to return to work. Does working mom= bad and stay at home mom= good? Back at work, Clare pulls off a fancy sweet sixteen party and a swanky golf event with her ex-boyfriend from college, but when she misses yet another of her baby daughter's milestones she allows herself to entertain an alternate solution. Can Clare stay at home with Sara and not lose a part of herself?

A young mom myself, I could completely relate with Clare and her struggles through the first year of parenting. Although I've made the decision to stay at home with my kids and work part-time while they're young, and Clare makes the decision to return to work full-time, I think that this is a question that most new mothers struggle with. How do we retain the essence of ourselves while giving ourselves completely to our children? Is there a balance possible? If so, how exactly does one find it? Clare struggles with these questions throughout the book in a realistic yet hilarious manner. Clare, as a character, is completely lovable and I think that readers will easily relate to her. She doesn't resent motherhood, she loves it in fact, but she can't quite figure out how the old Clare and the new Clare can co-exist harmoniously.

Hilarious and touching, light enough for summer reading yet containing enough substance to make the book enjoyable for a wide variety of readers, I can strongly recommend Not Ready for Mom Jeans to any mother or fan of women's fiction.

Rating: 5 stars out of 5
Challenges: 2011 100+ Reading Challenge, 2011 RYOB Challenge

Partway through the book I contacted the author through her website to let her know how much I was enjoying it (and I rarely do that, so that just tells you how much I really was enjoying it!). Maureen Lipinski generously offered two of my readers the chance to win both of her books, A Bump in the Road (detailing Clare's pregnancy) and Not Ready for Mom Jeans. Want to win? Here's how:

1. *Mandatory Entry* Let me know that you would like to win these books, and if you feel like it, please share one of your funniest mom moments! Please leave me your e-mail so that I can contact you if you win.

2. *Bonus Entry* Become a follower of this blog through Google Friend Connect and let me know that you now follow. Current followers are eligible for this bonus entry as well. No need for a separate comment, just add a +1 to your comment if you wish.

3. *Bonus Entry* Spread the word about this contest in some way. Blog about it, Tweet about it, Facebook it or add it to your website's sidebar, just leave me a link to what you did.

All entries (mandatory + bonuses) can be left in one comment if desired. This contest is open to residents in both the US and Canada. It runs until August 5, 2011 at midnight and winners will be contacted after this date by e-mail. Good luck!

Review: "The Promise of Happiness" by Erin Kaye

After choosing an unconventional way to conceive her child, Louise McNeill returns home with her 3-year-old son to where her parents and her two grown sisters live, hoping for their support as she starts over. Not quite over her divorce, Louise craves both healing and sanctuary.

Louise’s older sister Joanne has it all on the outside- three beautiful daughters and a husband who provides for them while Joanne works part-time. However as Louise spends more time with her sister she sees the cracks beneath the facade, and she sees that Joanne is less happy than she portrays on the outside. As Joanne’s “perfect” marriage crumbles before her eyes, it will be up to her sisters to help her keep her head high.

Louise’s younger sister, Sian, has a wonderful fiance, Andy, and a quest to save the world with one environmentally friendly action at a time. Sian makes no secret of the fact that she doesn’t desire to have any children because she would be contributing to the overpopulation of the world, but when Andy expresses his desire for a baby of his own, is Sian willing to give him up to stick with her beliefs? Or is there something more to Sian’s desire to remain childless than first appears?

As the three sisters struggle with their separate dilemmas they will be reminded of the bonds of family, and hopefully they can come together to create their own happy endings.

Erin Kaye transports her readers to the idyllic Irish town of Ballyfergus with The Promise of Happiness. I am a fan of all things Irish and I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to get in a little armchair travelling while the story of the McNeill sisters unfolded. The three sisters were at the heart of the story and I was able to relate to them all in some way, making the plot that much more enjoyable. I related to Joanne the most, as she navigated the waters of parenting three young children with attitudes and personalities all their own. Joanne was a tough nut to crack- at the beginning she comes off as being judgmental and not an incredibly sympathetic character, but as the plot continues we begin to see the pressures that Joanne is under and we start to understand why she feels the need to keep up the tough exterior at all times.

Well-written and with just enough dramatic suspense to keep the reader wanting more, The Promise of Happiness is an engrossing read perfect for sisters or for those who enjoy their women’s fiction with a helping of drama. Thank-you to HarperCollins UK for providing me with this review copy.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Challenges: 2011 100+ Reading Challenge

Review: "The Summer We Came to Life" by Deborah Cloyed

Every year Samantha Wheland and her three closest friends, Mina, Isabel, and Kendra vacation together. Along with their mix of parents they call themselves the "Vacation Club". Approaching their thirties now, their vacations have graduated from local beach houses to exotic destinations. This year the destination is the Honduras, but for the first time, their group is not complete. Mina lost her battle with cancer less than six months ago and nobody is feeling her absence quite like Samantha is. Her absence is like a hole in Sam's heart, and Sam desperately wants to reconnect with Mina, wherever she is.

Aided by a journal left behind by Mina, along with some theories that she and Sam took the time to research before her untimely death, Sam attempts to reach out to her best friend in the afterlife in the hope of connecting with her once again.

The Summer We Came to Life was well-written with a variety of interesting characters that came to life on the page. The destination was vividly described, making the reader feel as if they were there alongside the characters. Unfortunately, the book didn't work for me as a whole. I had a hard time connecting to the characters individually, perhaps because they were all so different from me that I had a hard time finding something in common with any of them. There was also a paranormal aspect to the book that just didn't work for me. I believe that if that particular aspect had been removed from the book it may have worked for me better as a whole, although it would have altered the story line considerably. I think that ultimately this just wasn't the book for me, although I'm sure that it would be enjoyed by many others.

The Summer We Came to Life is a book about love and loss and lifetime friendships. This would be an interesting read for someone who has experienced the loss of a loved one or for a reader who enjoys books about close friendships.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5
Challenges: 2011 100+ Reading Challenge

Review: "Things We Didn't Say" by Kristina Riggle

Casey fell in love with her fiance, Michael, fully aware of the fact that a marriage between them would make her the stepmother to his three children, Angel, a surly teenager, Dylan, the shy middle child, and Jewel, the innocent youngest child. Since Michael has full custody of the children Casey knows that she will be performing the parenting gig full-time, but that doesn’t mean that it will be easy.

After Angel discovers Casey’s journal, full of her private thoughts that she would never express beyond its pages, Angel begins to hate Casey with every fibre of her being. Angel also now knows one of Casey’s deepest secrets, one that she hasn’t even shared with Michael. When Dylan goes missing, and Casey needs to deal directly with the children’s flighty mother living in their home and wreaking havoc, Casey knows that the only way to deal with the currently unlivable situation in their home is to dig up long-buried secrets of her own and of others, and to begin to say the things that have remained unspoken for too long.

In The Things We Didn’t Say, Riggle brings together a cast of unique characters into one home and allows things to implode. Casey, our main character, is intensely private and still quite young, yet she has taken on the role of stepmother to three young children for the man that she loves. Michael, Casey’s fiance, is a perfectionist, never allowing for anything less than perfection in his life. Mallory, Michael’s ex-wife and the children’s mother is the wild card. Eccentric and damaged, she threatens to explode at a moment’s notice, leaving chaos in her wake. The children, Angel, Dylan, and Jewel are the casualties of the adult’s complicated dynamics, struggling for some sense of normalcy in their lives. These characters are part of what made this novel so compelling. Waiting to see how the adults would interact with each other, and what would happen when their secrets were revealed, made it impossible to put this well-written book down.

I also appreciated the ending. I love a good ending, and I love endings for various reasons. Usually my favourite endings are those where all of the characters end up living “happily ever after” in a way that was predictable from the beginning. Riggle chooses to end Things We Didn’t Say with a conclusion that is surprising, yet when I thought about it, I couldn’t see myself getting satisfaction from any alternate ending. In short, it was perfect.

Things We Didn’t Say is a thought-provoking look at modern families and modern love. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a book that will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page. Thank-you to TLC Book Tours for including me in this tour.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Challenges: 2011 100+ Reading Challenge

Review: "Click: An Online Love Story" by Lisa Becker

Renee is quickly approaching her 30th birthday and finds herself still single. With no romantic prospects on the horizon, and no desire to become a crazy cat lady, Renee finds herself agreeing to venture into the online dating world with her best male friend, the anal-retentive Mark. As she navigates the often murky waters of meeting that special someone in the vast reaches of cyberspace, she shares her adventures with Mark as well as her uptight friend Ashley and her over-sexed friend Shelley. Told entirely through e-mails, Renee's story is easy to enjoy and impossible to put down.

I've been out of the dating world for a long time, for more than ten years in fact, but back in the day online dating was just starting to become popular and I signed up for one of the more popular sites out there. I don't remember actually meeting someone in person as a result of that site (it wasn't long after I signed up that I met my now-husband) but I did have a few interesting online conversations with men that I met there. Since that time one person who is very close to me, and several more that I am acquainted with, have met their spouses online. It's becoming more and more common, and if you ask me, dating online make a ton of sense in this day and age. I was intrigued by the premise of Click, and couldn't wait to read it.

I got a lot more than I bargained for. Not only was Click a fun peek into the world of online dating, but it was absolutely hilarious. I read it in less than a day and I actually laughed out loud several times while I was reading it. My husband, who I was hanging out with at the time, kept asking me what in the world I was finding so funny. The decision to write it entirely in the form of e-mails was a wise one. Not only did it fit well with the online dating theme, but it made the story a fast and fun read.

I highly recommend Click to anyone who has ever ventured into the world of online dating, to anyone who has ever been curious about it, or to anyone looking for a light and funny summer read. Click will not disappoint. Thank-you to Chick Lit Plus Blog Tours for inviting me to participate in this tour.

Rating: 5 stars out of 5
Challenges: 2011 100+ Reading Challenge, 2011 E-Book Challenge