Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Lan

I am going to make a very bold statement:  this, hands down, is my favorite YA series...boom.  I cannot adequately convey into words how much I love this series and in particular this last book.  Her writing is a beautiful combination of prose and poetry, without being stuffy and inaccessible.  There were so many paragraphs I wanted to highlight and memorize forever.  And the characters, all the characters, are so beautifully developed, I loved each of them so deeply that I have to remind myself that I don't actually know them (and don't even get me started on Zuzana and Mik...possibly my favorite literary couple of all time).  I listened to the audio book for this last installation, which was *wonderful*.  There were times while I was driving that tears were streaming down my face...sometimes sad tears and sometimes happy tears.  I am left with the best kind of literary hangover...one which leaves me just a little heartbroken that it is over.


Book Description via Amazon
An Amazon Best Young Adult Book of the Month, April 2014: Author Laini Taylor’s immense talent for storytelling is once again evident from the first beautifully crafted sentences of Dreams of Gods & Monsters, the third book in the Daughter of Smoke & Bone trilogy. For this final leg of the story, Taylor doesn’t wait around to get the action going--the book starts out with an army of white-robed angels appearing in broad daylight, seen by television crews, an awestruck public, and a young scientist named Eliza. Eliza, we come to realize, is also a new main character narrating from the fresh perspective of an outside observer. Twists and revelations pop up from beginning to end, along with facets of the earlier novels that thrilled me to see again. Dreams of Gods & Monsters continues Taylor’s nuanced treatment of light versus dark, good versus evil, friend versus foe, and is everything I could want in the last of book of an already beloved trilogy. --Seira Wilson

Read Bottom Up by Neel Shah

This is a super cute, super light, beach read.  Reading this made me happy that I met my husband and got married before the age of texts and facebook and instagram (phew).  I read it in literally 2 hours...definitely one to borrow from the library, not buy.

Book Description via Amazon

A charming novel about falling in love (or like) in the digital age—the never-before-seen full story.
Madeline and Elliot meet at a New York City restaurant opening. Flirtation—online—ensues. A romance, potentially eternal, possibly doomed, begins.
And, like most things in life today, their early exchanges are available to be scrutinized and interpreted by well-intentioned friends who are a mere click away.
Madeline and Elliot's relationship unfolds through a series of thrilling, confounding, and funny exchanges with each other, and, of course, with their best friends and dubious confidants (Emily and David). The result is a brand-new kind of modern romantic comedy, in format, in content, and even in creation—the authors exchanged e-mails in real time, blind to each other's side conversations. You will nod in appreciation and roll your eyes in recognition; you'll learn a thing or two about how the other half approaches a new relationship . . . and you will cheer for an unexpected ending that just might restore your faith in falling in love, twenty-first-century style.

A Hundred Summers by Beatriz Williams

This is the second book I have read by Beatriz Williams, and the second one I have LOVED!!!  This is equal parts mystery, historical fiction  and romance... and swoon worthy romance at that!  The history part I sadly knew nothing about, the Hurricane of 1938 which killed 600 people in the New England area ( read this: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-great-new-england-hurricane).  If you like historical fiction this is a great read.

From Booklist

Dashing football hero Nick Greenwald is catapulted into the rarified milieu of Park Avenue penthouses and Ivy League campuses in the uncertain days of the Great Depression when he falls in love with Lily Dane. The meeker (though more polished), moral, and beautiful best friend of Zeldaesque flapper Budgie Byrne, Lily is immediately smitten with Nick’s determination and strength, an attraction the manipulative Budgie doesn’t encourage, though she doesn’t necessarily discourage it, either. After all, Nick is Jewish, and Budgie is confident that Lily’s socially conservative family will never condone the match. They don’t, and Budgie profits from the rift, marrying Nick on the rebound, while Lily nurses her broken heart. Seven years later, the Greenwalds turn up at Seaview, Rhode Island, the perennial summer enclave for the Danes, Byrnes, and other WASP stalwarts, and their renewed presence in Lily’s life unleashes a storm of unexpected consequences. Williams’ sweeping saga of betrayal, sacrifice, and redemption trenchantly examines the often duplicitous nature of female friendships and family expectations. --Carol Haggas

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

Liane Moriarty is my absolute favorite, everything I have read by her I have loved and this is no exception!!!  Her books are so funny and so entertaining but they also have a very poignant side that make the reader feel all the feels.  There were so many times I was reading this book thinking what would it be like if *I* lost the last 10 years, or the better question, what would I be like...how have I changed, for good or bad???  I really hope they do decide to move forward with the movie because, if done right, it would be amazing.

Book Description via Amazon

Alice Love is twenty-nine, crazy about her husband, and pregnant with her first child.

So imagine Alice’s surprise when she comes to on the floor of a gym (a gym! She HATES the gym) and is whisked off to the hospital where she discovers the honeymoon is truly over — she’s getting divorced, she has three kids, and she’s actually 39 years old. Alice must reconstruct the events of a lost decade, and find out whether it’s possible to reconstruct her life at the same time. She has to figure out why her sister hardly talks to her, and how is it that she’s become one of those super skinny moms with really expensive clothes. Ultimately, Alice must discover whether forgetting is a blessing or a curse, and whether it’s possible to start over…

Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll

I have read a lot of reviews about this book, calling it the next "Gone Girl", I needed a quick read for the holiday weekend so I gave it a whirl.  The writing is really good, really sharp, and very dark.  The whole book is extremely dark, much like Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, only darker.  You have to be able to stomach reading about some really bad stuff to be able to get through the book, but it definitely keeps you going, very well paced.  For those who are looking for more of a thrilling beach read, this is for you.  And as an aside, this book is going to be another Reese Witherspoon project so there will be lots of buzz:  http://variety.com/2015/film/news/reese-witherspoon-luckiest-girl-alive-jessica-knoll-1201470181/

BOOK DESCRIPTION VIA AMAZON

HER PERFECT LIFE IS A PERFECT LIE.

As a teenager at the prestigious Bradley School, Ani FaNelli endured a shocking, public humiliation that left her desperate to reinvent herself. Now, with a glamorous job, expensive wardrobe, and handsome blue blood fiancé, she’s this close to living the perfect life she’s worked so hard to achieve.

But Ani has a secret.

There’s something else buried in her past that still haunts her, something private and painful that threatens to bubble to the surface and destroy everything.

With a singular voice and twists you won’t see coming, Luckiest Girl Alive explores the unbearable pressure that so many women feel to “have it all” and introduces a heroine whose sharp edges and cutthroat ambition have been protecting a scandalous truth, and a heart that's bigger than it first appears.

The question remains: will breaking her silence destroy all that she has worked for—or, will it at long last, set Ani free?

Love May Fail by Matthew Quick

What is not to love about this book???  Interesting, quirky characters; well paced writing;  and the setting is super cool...the majority of the action happens a block from my house...HA!!!  Add this to your beach bag for a fun summer read.

Book Description via Amazon

An aspiring feminist and underappreciated housewife embarks on an odyssey to find human decency and goodness—and her high school English teacher—in New York Times bestselling author Matthew Quick’s offbeat masterpiece, a quirky ode to love, fate, and hair metal.

Portia Kane is having a meltdown. After escaping her ritzy Florida life and her cheating pornographer husband, she finds herself back in South Jersey, a place that remains largely unchanged from the years of her unhappy youth. Lost and alone, looking to find the goodness in the world she believes still exists, Portia sets off to save herself by saving someone else—a beloved high school English teacher who has retired after a traumatic incident.

Will a sassy nun, an ex-heroin addict, a metal-head little boy, and her hoarder mother help or hurt her chances on this madcap quest to restore a good man’s reputation and find renewed hope in the human race? Love May Fail is a story of the great highs and lows of existence: the heartache and daring choices it takes to become the person you know (deep down) you are meant to be.

The Knockoff by Lucy Sykes and Jo Piazza

I am calling it now...best beach read of the summer!!!  I absolutely adored this book, and not just because the heroine is in her forties.  I related to so much of this...the iWorld we are living in can be overwhelming and intimidating and yes wonderful at times.  The idea that you can be irrelevant at 40 definitely hits home...I have up'd my social media game after reading this and changed my personal email from hotmail...who knew this made you look outdated???  If you liked The Devil Wears Prada, you will LOVE this.

Book Description via Amazon

An outrageously stylish, wickedly funny novel of fashion in the digital age, The Knockoff is the story of Imogen Tate, editor in chief of Glossy magazine, who finds her twentysomething former assistant Eve Morton plotting to knock Imogen off her pedestal, take over her job, and reduce the magazine, famous for its lavish 768-page September issue, into an app.
 
When Imogen returns to work at Glossy after six months away, she can barely recognize her own magazine. Eve, fresh out of Harvard Business School, has fired “the gray hairs,” put the managing editor in a supply closet, stopped using the landlines, and hired a bevy of manicured and questionably attired underlings who text and tweet their way through meetings. Imogen, darling of the fashion world, may have Alexander Wang and Diane von Furstenberg on speed dial, but she can’t tell Facebook from Foursquare and once got her iPhone stuck in Japanese for two days. Under Eve’s reign, Glossy is rapidly becoming a digital sweatshop—hackathons rage all night, girls who sleep get fired, and “fun” means mandatory, company-wide coordinated dances to Beyoncé. Wildly out of her depth, Imogen faces a choice—pack up her Smythson notebooks and quit, or channel her inner geek and take on Eve to save both the magazine and her career. A glittering, uproarious, sharply drawn story filled with thinly veiled fashion personalities, The Knockoff is an insider’s look at the ever-changing world of fashion and a fabulous romp for our Internet-addicted age.