122. Extreme Measures

This one was a little less suspenseful and intense then other Mitch Rapp books, but, with more thought provoking at the same time. I liked it a lot, it makes me want to re-read the ones I read earlier this year and I wanna talk about it so someone else needs to read it too! And soon.

Here's the description from B&N:

Counterterrorism operative Mitch Rapp and his colleague Mike Nash may have met their match. The CIA has detected and intercepted two terrorist cells, but a third is feared to be on the loose. Led by a dangerous mastermind obsessed with becoming the leader of al-Qaeda, this determined and terrifying group is about to descend on America.

Rapp needs the best on this assignment, and Nash, who has served his government honorably for sixteen years, is his choice. Together, they have never wavered in the fight against the jihadists and their culture of death. Both have fought the war on terrorism in secret without accolades or acknowledgment of their personal sacrifices. Both have been forced to lie to virtually every single person they care about, and both have soldiered on with the knowledge that their hard work and lethal tactics have saved thousands of lives. But the political winds have changed in America, and certain leaders on Capitol Hill are pushing to have men like Rapp and Nash put back on a short leash. And then one spring afternoon in Washington, DC, everything changes.

Using his insider knowledge of intelligence agencies and the military, Flynn once again delivers an all-too-real portrayal of a war that is waged every day by a handful of brave, devoted souls. Smart, fast-paced, and jaw-droppingly realistic, Extreme Measures is the political thriller of our time.

121. Killer Heels

Ok, so I totally should be doing homework but instead spent part of my afternoon reading a chicklit mystery. Such good fluff. :)

Here's a review from B&N.com:

Mix a splash of Carrie Bradshaw, a dash of Stephanie Plum and a wee bit of Kinsey Millhone and you have Molly Forrester, advice columnist ("You Can Tell Me") for Zeitgeist magazine by day and amateur sleuth by night. At the start of Anderson's debut comic crime novel, Forrester literally steps in it gooey blood, that is when she returns to the office late one night and stumbles over a dead coworker. Molly's spanking new Jimmy Choos are covered in blood and she's soon knee-deep in sex, lies and crime-scene tape. Thrown into the fray are a hottie cop named Kyle Edwards; Molly's two gal pals, lawyer Cassady Lynch and event planner Tricia Vincent; and soon-to-be ex-boyfriend Peter Mulcahey, who happens to be a reporter for a rival magazine. Can Molly solve the murder and segue into a serious writing career? Or is using the death of a coworker as a major career move utterly uncouth? ("I always knew I'd make my mark on the world. I just didn't expect it to be one of those chalk outlines they draw around dead bodies.") While Molly explores her options, there's a second murder, and financial irregularities pop up in Zeitgeist's accounting department. Ample laughs help propel a well-crafted plot.

120: Universal Coverage: The Elusive Quest for National Health Insurance

This was school reading. Pretty interesting, though quite similar to the Starr book I had to read earlier in the semester.

Here's the description from B&N:

In Universal Coverage, Rick Mayes examines the peculiar and persistent lack of universal health coverage in America, its economic and political origins dating back to the 1930s, and the current consequences of this significant problem.

119. My Husband's Sweethearts

For the majority of this book I didn't like it. I only kept reading because I was babysitting and it was all I had with me. But, in the end, I guess it turned out ok. Not great, but it did get better.

Here's a review from B&N:

Faced with the imminent death of her charming, cheating and estranged husband Artie, Lucy Shoreman decides to call the names in his little black book and invite the ladies to his Philadelphia home to say a final farewell. For her part, 30-ish Lucy, who's 18 years Artie's junior, can't decide whether she loves or hates the man, while her much-married mother insists he deserves forgiveness. As a broad spectrum of his ex-lovers arrives, including a surprised mother-and-daughter duo and a troubled young woman Lucy takes under her wing, Artie's previously undisclosed and estranged grown son, John, shows up and seems as wickedly appealing as Dad. Asher, a pen name of prolific author Julianna Baggott, takes the edge off her sharply drawn characters with a succession of familiar sentiments. But flashes of wit and a parade of memorable women keep pages turning as Lucy grows increasingly and endearingly confused about her feelings toward Artie, John and the rest. (Aug.)

118. Mother Warriors

This is Jenny McCarthy's follow up to Louder Than Words. She writes about what it was like to first go public with Evan's story and then includes interviews with other parents who have fought to do more for their kids with autism. It was a very interesting book and, like Louder Than Words, opened my eyes to the issue in a new way.

Here's the description from B&N:

Stories of hope and recovery from a nation of parents of autistic children, by the high-profile, bestselling author of Louder Than Words.

When Jenny McCarthy published Louder Than Words, the story of her successful efforts to save her son, Evan, from autism, the response was tremendous. It hit #3 on the New York Times bestseller list; and Jenny and Evan were featured on the covers of several magazines, including People. But what she hadn't anticipated was the overwhelming response from other parents of autistic children, who sought her out to share their stories.

No two autistic children heal in exactly the same way. And in her new book, Jenny expands her message to share recovery stories from parents across the country. Mother Warriors, shows how each parent fought to find her own child's perfect "remedy of interventions" and teaches parents how to navigate safely through the many autism therapies.

Along the way, Jenny shares her own journey as an autism advocate and mother as well as the progress of her son, Evan. Emotional and genuinely practical, Mother Warriors will inspire a generation of parents with hope.

117. The Lucky One

Nicholas Sparks' latest and I think my favorite... well, though I did like Dear John a lot too. This one also deals with the war in Iraq and its impact on people when they come home. It was a really good read, and not as sappy as some of his others.

Here's a review from B&N:

A photograph found by chance; a chain of events that lead inexorably to the woman it portrays: The Lucky One traces a path so ephemeral and artful that we would know that Nicholas Sparks had written even if his name did not appear on the title page. This story about a man whose scrape with death leads to his one true love will keep you up at night and then make you sleep more soundly. Inimitable storytelling.

116. Firefly Lane

I liked this one a lot. It was a great give and take story of best friends, told over 3 decades. Sometimes it was from one's perspective, sometimes from the others. At the end it gets sad. Really really sad. Just a forewarning I wish I had been given. Otherwise, it's a good read and I definitely recommend it.

Here's the description from B&N:

From the New York Times bestselling author of On Mystic Lake comes a powerful novel of love, loss, and the magic of friendship. . . .

In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the “coolest girl in the world” moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all---beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer's end they've become TullyandKate. Inseparable.

So begins Kristin Hannah's magnificent new novel. Spanning more than three decades and playing out across the ever-changing face of the Pacific Northwest, Firefly Lane is the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives.

From the beginning, Tully is desperate to prove her worth to the world. Abandoned by her mother at an early age, she longs to be loved unconditionally. In the glittering, big-hair era of the eighties, she looks to men to fill the void in her soul. But in the buttoned-down nineties, it is television news that captivates her. She will follow her own blind ambition to New York and around the globe, finding fame and success . . . and loneliness.

Kate knows early on that her life will be nothing special. Throughout college, she pretends to be driven by a need for success, but all she reallywants is to fall in love and have children and live an ordinary life. In her own quiet way, Kate is as driven as Tully. What she doesn't know is how being a wife and mother will change her . . . how she'll lose sight of who she once was, and what she once wanted. And how much she'll envy her famous best friend. . . .

For thirty years, Tully and Kate buoy each other through life, weathering the storms of friendship---jealousy, anger, hurt, resentment. They think they've survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart . . . and puts their courage and friendship to the ultimate test.

Firefly Lane is for anyone who ever drank Boone's Farm apple wine while listening to Abba or Fleetwood Mac. More than a coming-of-age novel, it's the story of a generation of women who were both blessed and cursed by choices. It's about promises and secrets and betrayals. And ultimately, about the one person who really, truly knows you---and knows what has the power to hurt you . . . and heal you. Firefly Lane is a story you'll never forget . . . one you'll want to pass on to your best friend.

115. Getting Rid of Bradley

This one was kinda cute, chick lit/mystery combo.

Here's the description from B&N:

High school physics teacher Lucy Savage is finally getting rid of Bradley—and his hideous green recliner. In fact, her front lawn is littered with her cheating ex-husband's belongings. Because despite standing her up in divorce court, Bradley is out of her life for good. Or so she thinks.

When her sister takes her to lunch to celebrate Lucy's single status, all their talk of a no-good louse named Bradley catches the attention of a cop—who wants to arrest the very same Bradley for embezzlement. And Officer Zach Warren figures the lovely Lucy can lead him straight to his target.

When someone shoots at Lucy and then blows up her car, Zach insists she needs twenty-four-hour protection. What does he think her three dogs and attack cat are for? Still, he insists on moving right in to Lucy's house.…

Now there's danger lurking outside and in her own kitchen, bathroom— and bedroom. Or maybe Zach, who looks like a bad boy with that shaggy dark hair and black leather jacket, is really one of the good guys, and just what Lucy needs.

114. Savannah Breeze

cute chick lit fluff. :)

Southern belle BeBe Loudermilk loses all her worldly possessions thanks to a brief but disastrous relationship with the gorgeous Reddy, an "investment counselor" who turns out to be a con man. All that's left is a ramshackle 1950s motor court on Tybee Island.

Breeze Inn is a place where the very classy BeBe wouldn't normally be caught dead, but, with no alternative, she moves into the manager's unit, vowing to make magic out of mud. The work is grueling, especially dealing with the cantankerous caretaker, a fishing captain named Harry. With the help of Harry and BeBe's junking friend Weezie, she soon has the motel spiffed up and attracting paying guests.

Then there's a sighting of Reddy in Fort Lauderdale, and BeBe decides to go after him. She puts together a posse and heads south. The plan is to carry out a sting that may be just a little bit outside the law but that with any luck at all will retrieve BeBe's fortune and put the dastardly Reddy in jail where he belongs.

113. Just One Look

I think this was my least favorite of Harlan Coben's books, which is kinda sad cause it's my last. Like the others something dramatic from the past came back to greatly impact the present. But really, the dramatic thing from the past didn't seem all that dramatic to me. I just wasn't as drawn in my this storyline as I have been by the others. I did however enjoy that many minor characters or places keep showing up in all of the books.

Anyway, here's the description from B&N:

When Grace Lawson picks up a newly developed set of family photographs, there is a picture that doesn't belong-a photo from at least 20 years ago with a man in it who looks strikingly like her husband, Jack. And though Jack denies it, he disappears that night, taking the photo with him. Now, to save her family from a fierce, silent killer who will stop at nothing to get the photo, Grace must confront the dark corners of her own tragic past.

112. Little Bitty Lies

I'm on a bit of a Mary Kay Andrews kick. It's cute, light fluff which is a nice balance to all of the heavy school reading I'm also doing.

Here's the description from B&N:

In a suburban Atlanta neighborhood where divorce is as rampant as kudzu, Mary Bliss McGowan doesn't notice that her own marriage is in trouble until the summer night she finds a note from her husband, telling her he's gone—and taken the family fortune with him.

Stunned and humiliated, a desperate Mary Bliss, left behind with her seventeen-year-old daughter, Erin, and a mountain of debt, decides to salvage what's left of her life by telling one little bitty lie.

At first, Mary Bliss simply tells friends and family that Parker is out of town on a consulting job. Then the lies start to snowball, until Parker turns up dead. Or does he?

Mary Bliss's formerly staid existence careens into overdrive as she copes with an oversexed teenager, a mother-in-law with Ethel Merman delusions, and the sudden but delicious shock of finding herself pursued by two men: the next-door neighbor who's looking for a suitable second wife, and a dangerously attractive ex-cop who's looking for the truth about Parker McGowan.
Little Bitty Lies is a comic Southern novel about all the important things in life: marriage and divorce, mothers and daughters, friendship and betrayal, small-town secrets, and one woman's lifelong quest for home—and the perfect recipe for chicken salad.

111. The Divorce Party

This was pretty interesting. A short book, but not necessarily a quick read. I liked it.

Here's the description from B&N:

On their 35th anniversary, Gwyn Huntington and her husband Thomas have invited friends and family to their Montauk home. Instead of celebrating their decades-long love, they are toasting their divorce. This also marks the weekend that their son brings home his fiancée, Maggie Mackenzie, for the first time. Maggie thought she was joining a perfect family, but she is about to reckon with some uncomfortable truths about the man she wants to marry. A multi-generational story about what it means to share a life with someone, The Divorce Party brings us two immensely appealing women: Gwyn who is stumbling upon the end of her marriage, and Maggie, her future-daughter-in-law, who is trying to navigate the beginning of hers. With emotional candor and surprising humor, these two women find themselves trying to answer the same questions: Can you ever really know someone? When should you fight for the person you love most, and when should you begin to let him go?

110. Secrets of a Shoe Addict

My one complaint about this book was it seemed like a sequel in how they kept referring to things from the past but wasn't. Just figured out that it was. So, I'd say read the first one first like I should have done. Cause it is cute chick lit. Oh, and is set in the DC suburbs so plenty of local references that I always enjoy!

Here's a review from B&N:

Harbison's witty, fast-paced follow-up to last year's Shoe Addicts Anonymous chronicles the foibles of four women brought together by-in this case-not shoes but debt. During a fateful trip to Las Vegas as chaperones of a school band trip, Loreen Murphy accidentally hires a male prostitute on the PTA credit card; pastor's-wife-with-a-past Abbey Walsh gets blackmailed by an ex-con ex-boyfriend; and usually restrained PTA president Tiffany Dreyer purchases thousands of dollars worth of clothes that she can't return. Enter the zaftig Sandra Vanderslice, who, before she started her shoe-importing business, made a living as a phone sex operator. She suggests her sister, Tiffany, hop on that gravy train to pay down her credit card bills. Loreen and Abbey join up, and soon the ladies are raking in dough and trying to hide their new source of income from husbands, kids and their snoopy nemesis, the cartoonishly judgmental Deb Leventer, who wants to take over the PTA. Harbison's writing is zingy and funny, and her light touch allows her to get away with the ridiculous situations in this nutty beach read.

109. No Second Chance

Another really good suspense thriller from Harlan Coben. While the basic themes are the same in each of his books - something from the past comes back in a horrible way to haunt the present - the twists and turns these books take just can't be predicted. As the review says, you don't really fully understand it all until the very end. I definitely recommend reading Coben's books!

Here's a review from B&N:

Harlan Coben returns to the arena of obsession, conspiracy, and violence that make his novels (Tell No One, Gone for Good) such edge-of-your-seat thrillers. Once again, his plot begins with an explosive scene of suburban outrage that leads a sympathetic, everyman hero into ever deeper trials and terrors: Marc Seidman's life becomes a nightmare when he's shot in the chest in the kitchen of his own home. Awakening from a coma almost two weeks later, he discovers that his wife has been murdered and his infant daughter is missing. It takes so long for a ransom note -- which warns that there will be "no second chance" -- to arrive, Marc and the police are uncertain about the kidnappers true intentions. Those intentions do not become clear to anyone -- including the reader -- until the very last pages of the book, after a constantly surprising series of plot twists carries the narrative through another year and a half in Marc's desperate quest to find his daughter. Coben hasn't only given us a masterwork of suspense, he's also written one of the most complex and elaborate novels of his career -- a book so compelling, ingenious, and disturbing you'll want to finish it in one sitting.

108. Tell No One

Back to the Harlan Coben kick. This was his first non-Myron Bolitar book and a good, suspenseful read. Again, a twisting and turning plot that leaves you guessing til the very end!

If you like suspense, Coben is a must read.

Here's the description from B&N:

For Dr. David Beck, the loss was shattering. And every day for the past eight years, he has relived the horror of what happened. The gleaming lake. The pale moonlight. The piercing screams. The night his wife was taken. The last night he saw her alive. Everyone tells him it’s time to move on, to forget the past once and for all. But for David Beck, there can be no closure. A message has appeared on his computer, a phrase only he and his dead wife know. Suddenly Beck is taunted with the impossible–that somewhere, somehow, Elizabeth is alive. Beck has been warned to tell no one. And he doesn’t. Instead, he runs from the people he trusts the most, plunging headlong into a search for the shadowy figure whose messages hold out a desperate hope. But already Beck is being hunted down. He’s headed straight into the heart of a dark and deadly secret–and someone intends to stop him before he gets there.

107. Savannah Blues

Cute chick lit - great for a beach read!

Here's the description from B&N:

Landing a catch like Talmadge Evans III got Eloise "Weezie" Foley a big house in Savannah's historic district. Divorcing him got her booted into the carriage house in the backyard. Tal, meanwhile, lives with his girlfriend, elegant Caroline DeSantos, in the mansion Weezie lovingly restored. For Weezie, letting her dog piddle on Caroline's prize camellias isn't payback enough.

Now Weezie, and antiques "picker," is trying to make a killing at a big estate sale while dealing with loopy relatives, a hunky ex-boyfriend who's the hottest chef in town, and the Tal-Caroline "situation." Dirty deals are simmering all around her, just as Weezie discovers how very delicious love can be—the second time around.

106. It's Not You It's Me

This was a reread... a cute, Red Dress Ink book that caught my eye on my bookshelf the other day.

Here's the description from B&N:

She's heard all the lines. Now it's time for the truth!

Charlie has to keep pinching herself to believe she's leaving Australia for a trip to Europe — a generous gift from her family, who know how tough her life has been lately. But the last person Charlie expects to bump into on the plane is Jasper Ash, international celebrity, rock-star sex-god — and Charlie's former best friend, flatmate and . . .almost-lover!

It's been three years since Charlie impulsively jumped into bed with Jas, then a struggling student. But their nearly-one-night stand had just been warming up when Jas began the male "backing off" ritual, practically sprinting out the door with the classic excuse, "It's not you, it's me." Yeah, right. Everyone knows what that means: It is you! Not pretty enough, not successful enough — just not enough.

Charlie has dealt with it — and a whole lot more — but the unanswered questions still niggle. Acting on impulse once again, she invites Jas to join her own European tour! And as they share hotel rooms, play at being tourists and dodge Jas's determined groupies, it becomes clear they're both at a crossroads in life. Before they can move on, they finally have to deal with the unfinished business between them — starting with a serious conversation about that night.

105. Don't Your Forget About Me

This one was sorta cute... and fairly annoying at the same time. I both liked and really really didn't like the main character by the end of the story. I did like the conclusion and the underlying message about how we don't always see the past accurately. Anyway, I'd say read it and let me know what you think. Oh, and I love the cover art!!

Here's the description from B&N:

At thirty-eight, Lillian Curtis is content with her life. She enjoys her routine as a producer for a talk show in New York City starring showbiz veteran Vi (“short for vibrant”) Barbour, a spirited senior. Lillian’s relationship with her husband is pleasant if no longer exciting. Most nights she is more than happy to come home to her apartment and crawl into her pajamas. Then she’s hit with a piece of shocking news: Her husband wants a divorce.

Blindsided, Lillian takes a leave of absence and moves back to her parents’ home in suburban New Jersey. Nestled in her childhood bedroom, where Duran Duran and Squeeze posters still cover the walls, she finds high school memories a healing salve to her troubles. She hurtles backward into her teen years, driving too fast, digging up mix tapes, and tentatively reconciling with Dawn, a childhood friend she once betrayed. Punctuating her stroll down memory lane is an invitation to the Bethel Memorial High School class of 1988 twenty-year reunion. It just might be Lillian’s chance to reconnect with her long-lost boyfriend, Christian Somers, who is expected to attend. Will it be just like heaven?

Lillian discovers, as we all must, the pitfalls of glorifying the glory days, the mortification of failing as a thirtysomething adult, and the impossibility of fully recapturing the past. Don’t You Forget About Me is for anyone who looks back and wonders:What if?

104. Just Breathe

A really nice break from the suspense and school reading of late, this was good old fashion fiction. A nice family drama with interesting characters and a somewhat unique storyline. I liked it and would recommend it.

Here's the B&N description:

Chicago cartoonist Sarah Moon tackles life's real issues with a healthy dose of sharp wit in her syndicated comic strip Just Breathe. As Sarah's cartoon alter ego, Shirl, undergoes artificial insemination, her situation begins to mirror Sarah's own difficult attempts to conceive. However, Sarah's dreams of the future did not include her husband's infidelity: snag number two in Sarah's so-called perfect life.

With Chicago—and her marriage—in the rearview mirror, she flees to the small Northern California coastal town where she grew up, a place she couldn't wait to leave. Now she finds herself revisiting the past—an emotionally distant father and the unanswered questions left by her mother's death. As she comes to terms with her lost marriage, Sarah encounters a man she never expected to meet again: Will Bonner, the high school heartthrob she'd skewered mercilessly in her old comics. Now a local firefighter, he's been through some changes himself.

But just as her heart is about to reawaken, Sarah discovers she is pregnant. With her ex's twins.It's hardly the most traditional of new beginnings, but who says life and love are predictable… or perfect? The winds of change have led Sarah here. Now all she can do is just close her eyes… and breathe.

103. The Health Care Revolution: From Medical Monopoly to Market Competition

While not exactly a quick and easy read, this was a pretty interesting look at how the health care system has shifted from being controlled by physicians to being controlled by the market. I bought it this summer to read by choice but it ended up being required reading for a class (my professor wrote it). I'm actually glad I didn't just read it on my own because discussing it in class was helpful in understanding it all.

Anyway, here's the B&N description:

America's market-based health care system, unique among the nations of the world, is in large part the product of an obscure, yet profound, revolution that overthrew the medical monopoly in the late 1970s. In this lucid, balanced account, Carl F. Ameringer tells how this revolution came into being when the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress prompted the antitrust agencies of the federal government--the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department--to change the rules of the health care system. Ameringer lays out the key events that led up to this regime change; explores its broader social, political, and economic contexts; examines the views of both its proponents and opponents; and considers its current trajectory.