33. Clean Slate

This was another re-read from several years back and it was pretty good timing for it. A 30 year old woman whose life goes through a big upheaval and she isn't sure what to do next but decides to take advantage of the clean slate she's been given... I like that message. :)

Here's the description from B&N:

A Clean Slate chronicles the days of Kelly McGraw, a Chicago woman who suddenly can't remember the last five months of her life, a time when she was dumped by her soon-to-be fiance and laid off by the company she thought would make her partner. Overwhelmed and confused but otherwise feeling wonderful, she begins to realize that she has a clean slate in life. She can do anything she wants, go anywhere she wants, be anything she wants. But what, exactly, does she want?

Follow Kelly on a journey that includes her search to discover what caused her memory loss, an internship with a bad-boy British photographer, a Caribbean photo shoot, her boyfriend's desire to come crawling back and, eventually, a brutal discovery that will cause her to reevaluate both her old and new lives.

32. Why Moms Are Weird

This was a reread that I didn't like quite as much the second time around. It had been long enough in between reads - and since my good memory doesn't extend to what I read - that I didn't really remember the storyline, just that I liked it a lot when I originally read it.

Maybe it was the whole being written in the first person thing again... anyway, here's the description from B&N:

From the acclaimed author of Why Girls are Weird comes a second hilarious and surprising novel about love and family and the weirdo inside us all.Belinda "Benny" Bernstein doesn't brag about her life in Los Angeles, but she is proud of her independence. She's got a job and a place to live, and she even goes out on dates now and again. But when Benny's mother and sister get into a car accident, she drops everything to fly across the country and help her injured, unemployed mom. The only problem? She wasn't exactly invited -- and back in Virginia she finds herself confronting every issue her family has avoided for years, including her mom's thriving sex life and her sister's wild nightlife.Benny sets about fixing everything she thinks is broken at home, including mounds of clutter and the personal lives of the women she loves. But she soon stumbles upon a stack of letters that may reveal her mother's darkest secret. Benny only begins to understand her mom when she finds herself in a similar dilemma -- torn between someone she can't have and someone she thinks she shouldn't have. If Benny doesn't sort things out before she's sucked into the family vortex of dysfunction, there's no telling when she'll be able to go home again . . . unless this is home, after all.

31. The Big Love

Ok... so I liked this one and really really didn't at the same time.

The overall story was good, there were some really funny parts and I felt like I could identify with the main character. And I loved the ending, well, the implied ending because really, the book just stopped. Which I don't love. Also, I'm not a fan of reading books written in the first person, which was what I really didn't like about this one.

Here's the description from B&N:

A fresh and hilarious debut novel about commitment, competition, and the occasional joys of unencumbered sex, for readers of Pride and Prejudice to The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing.

Sometimes being left in the lurch is the best thing that can happen to you. Alison Hopkins's live-in boyfriend, Tom, goes out in the middle of a dinner party to buy a jar of mustard, then calls her from a pay phone to tell her he won't be coming home. He's left her for his beautiful ex-girlfriend Kate Pearce, the kind of woman about whom men say rhapsodically, "She's like a drug." Alison had always feared that Tom's looks would land her in trouble--having a handsome boyfriend is like having a white couch, an invitation to disaster.

But if Tom isn't her Big Love, who is? Alison embraces her freedom, buys "hiking boots and lacy underwear," and sets out on a stroll down the midway of love. From an eye-opening fling with her new boss to an unexpected proposal from an old friend, Alison samples love's many varieties--all the while talking obsessively with her girlfriends, comparing stories, and working through a lifetime of conflicting beliefs about trust, faith, and commitment. In spite of (or perhaps because of) her neuroses, Alison finds a surprising kind of triumph--and an irrational faith that the Big Love may be nearer than it appears.

30. Past Secrets

I'll be short, sweet and to the point - I liked it. :)

Here's the description from B&N:

They all hide secrets that won't go away....From the outside, the welcoming, garden-adorned houses of Summer Street are the picture of Irish charm. But on the inside, unexpected and heartbreaking secrets swirl. At house number thirty-two, hardworking, single-mother Faye Reid conceals the truth about her marriage from her fiery daughter, Amber.

But Amber, a budding artist, also hides something from her all-too-trusting mother: a relationship with a rock star hopeful for whom she plans to throw away her future. And at number forty-eight, Maggie Maguire arrives at her childhood home to help her sick mother, a welcome distraction from the life she left behind and the startling secret she's hiding -- from herself.

And only become harder to keep...At thirty-four Summer Street, wise and kind Christie Devlin has the remarkable ability to see into the lives and hearts of others -- and may have the answers when her neighbors' carefully hidden secrets bubble to the surface. But when Christie's own past comes back to haunt her -- posing a threat to her picture-perfect marriage -- this time the answers aren't as clear.

29. Laced

I listened to this one on my iPod and it took over 6 hours... I probably could have read it in about 2. :)

I liked it though, I'm starting to like Carol Higgins Clarks' books better than her mother's actually...

Here's the description from B&N:

A haunted Irish castle, international jewel thieves,and a hotel fire -- New York Times bestselling authorCarol Higgins Clark has sent Regan and Jack Reillyon a honeymoon like no other!

Private Investigator Regan Reilly and her new husband, Jack, head of the NYPD Major Case Squad, are off to Ireland. But their very first night at romantic Hennessy Castle is interrupted by a fire alarm that distracts hotel employees from the theft of a valuable antique lace tablecloth out of the castle's memorabilia room. A taunting note is left for Jack by the culprits -- a notorious pair of jewel thieves whom he has been pursuing for over a year. Disguised as an elderly couple, they had checked out in the midst of the mayhem. Regan's cousin Gerard Reilly, a Galway resident, is eager to help with the hunt, but their search takes as many twists and turns as the winding country roads of the Emerald Isle.

With Carol Higgins Clark's unique talent for creating quirky characters, this is a classic caper that will keep you laughing, turning pages, and maybe even believing in ghosts.

28. Where Are You Now?

I have the same thoughts about this one as I have had about Mary Higgins Clark other ones in recent years... it's good, but I didn't like it as much as I used to. I think while her stories are always different they are constructed in the same way so even when you don't figure it out exactly, you still have an idea of what is going on and are never really surprised by the ending. Having said that, if you haven't been a long time reader of her books, I'd say give this one a shot.

Here's the description from B&N:

From America's Queen of Suspense comes a gripping tale of a young woman trying to unravel the mystery of a family tragedy -- a quest with terrifying repercussions.

It has been ten years since twenty-one-year-old Charles MacKenzie Jr. ("Mack") went missing. A Columbia University senior, about to graduate and already accepted at Duke University Law School, he walked out of his apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side without a word to his college roommates and has never been seen again. However, he does make one ritual phone call to his mother every year: on Mother's Day. Each time, he assures her he is fine, refuses to answer her frantic questions, then hangs up. Even the death of his father, a corporate lawyer, in the tragedy of 9/11 does not bring him home or break the pattern of his calls.

Mack's sister, Carolyn, is now twenty-six, a law school graduate, and has just finished her clerkship for a civil court judge in Manhattan. She has endured two family tragedies, yet she realizes that she will never be able to have closure and get on with her life until she finds her brother. She resolves to discover what happened to Mack and why he has found it necessary to hide from them. So this year when Mack makes his annual Mother's Day call, Carolyn interrupts to announce her intention to track him down, no matter what it takes. The next morning after Mass, her uncle, Monsignor Devon MacKenzie, receives a scrawled message left in the collection basket: "Uncle Devon, tell Carolyn she must not look for me."

Mack's cryptic warning does nothing to deter his sister from taking up the search, despite the angry reaction of her mother, Olivia, and the polite disapproval of ElliottWallace, Carolyn's honorary uncle, who is clearly in love with Olivia.

Carolyn's pursuit of the truth about Mack's disappearance swiftly plunges her into a world of unexpected danger and unanswered questions. What is the secret that Gus and Lil Kramer, the superintendents of the building in which Mack was living, have to hide? What do Mack's old roommates, the charismatic club owner Nick DeMarco and the cold and wealthy real estate tycoon Bruce Galbraith, know about Mack's disappearance? Is Nick connected to the disappearance of Leesey Andrews, who had last been seen in his trendy club? Can the police possibly believe that Mack is not only alive, but a serial killer, a shadowy predator of young women? Was Mack also guilty of the brutal murder of his drama teacher and the theft of his taped sessions with her?

Carolyn's passionate search for the truth about her brother -- and for her brother himself -- leads her into a deadly confrontation with someone close to her whose secret he cannot allow her to reveal.