National Chick Lit Month

Wow. I can't believe it's been almost a month since I posted last!

I've been working on this entry for a few days in my mind, but finally tonight, it's time to just get it all out there.

I told everyone who would listen about May being National Chick Lit Month. I spent almost the entire month reading. I read so much I barely even cooked!

I know many of my readers are women and I wanted to share with you some of the better books I read (and some unknowns that were fantastic!)

The Bro-Magnet was a fascinating tale of a guy's guy who couldn't find a girl. I won't ruin the ending, but he gets the girl.

My Big Fake Irish Life, written by Caitlin McKenna, was one of the last I read in my month of Chick Lit (which actually started around Easter, but who's counting?). This tale of a struggling actress trying to find her footing in L.A. was funny and the underlying themes of recreating oneself is widely appealing.  Linda (or Meghan as she renames herself) is a witty character who struggles between her American Life and her acted "Irish" life.  As a character, she's easily likeable and creates a web which is heart-breaking.

I feel obligated to write about the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. I technically read this "mommy porn" book before national chick lit month began, but for weeks, I couldn't get the characters out of my head. I wanted to know more about Ana and Christian. I wanted to know why they acted or thought they way they did. One of the "extras" in the electronic version of the final book was the first few chapters of the first book written from Christian's perspective. Even having read this entire series in about four days, I'd happily read all three books again from Christian's perspective.

I read both Kissed in Paris and Sleeping with Paris this month. While these books are technically a series, the character in each book is new. There are cameos of the previous book's leading character.  Truly a fascinating way to create a series of books.

The Pastor's Wife was quite possibly my favorite book I read during National Chick Lit Month. This book was well-written with a theme of acceptance and growth and was free on amazon.com (I read all my books on my Kindle fire, or my iphone's kindle app.) As a member of a tight-knit congregation at church, I felt for the main character in her struggles to fit in with a group who didn't understand her or who she was.  This is a must read!

I started reading Kyra Davis' Sophie Katz mysteries when I was pregnant with A.  I couldn't put them down when I was pregnant and when I found she'd recently released a new novel, I couldn't put it down either. I have the rest of this series in paperback, but this on the Kindle. It's the kind of book I can read a hundred times and find something new each time. I have and do recommend this entire series to anyone looking for a character to love and hate at the same time. Her inability to listen when people say "stop" really lies with me as I have very similar tendencies.

In the six weeks after I started reading the Shades of Grey series, I read 26 books, all chick lit.  I have another 10 I've purchased (or downloaded for free) that I haven't gotten to, but I had some books on the backburner in May I'm working through before I go back to Chick Lit.

I have about a million things I could write about right now, but since I spent the last month reading, I have a backlog of blog entries I need to write. Until then, keep the pages turning!