Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Christmas Came Early!

Look what I got in the mail yesterday!!!


I know right?!?!  I'm freakin out, cause there's a number of new books coming out that I've had my eye on and this is one I was so despretely hoping I could read! 

Thank you Random House!

Description: In her forties – a widow, too young, too modern to accept the role – Becky Aikman struggled to make sense of her place in an altered world.  In this transcendent and infectiously wise memoir, she explores surprising new discoveries about how people experience grief and transcend loss and, following her own remarriage, forms a group with five other young widows to test these unconventional ideas.  Together, these friends summon the humor, resilience, and striving spirit essential for anyone overcoming adversity.

   Meet the Saturday Night Widows: ringleader Becky, an unsentimental journalist who lost her husband to cancer; Tara, a polished mother of two, whose husband died in the throes of alcoholism after she filed for divorce; Denise, a widow of just five months, now struggling to get by; Marcia, a hard-driving corporate lawyer; Dawn, an alluring self-made entrepreneur whose husband was killed in a sporting accident, leaving two small children behind; and Lesley, a housewife who returned home one day to find that her husband had committed suicide.

   The women meet once a month, and over the course of a year, they strike out on ever more far-flung adventures, learning to live past the worst thing they thought could happen.  They share emotional peaks and valleys – dating, parenting, moving, finding meaningful work, and reinventing themselves – while turning traditional thinking about loss and recovery upside down.  Through it all runs the story of Aikman's own journey through grief and her love affair with a man who tempts her to marry again.  In a transporting story of what friends can achieve when they hold each other up, Saturday Night Widows is a rare book that will make you laugh, think, and remind yourself that despite the utter unpredictability and occasional tragedy of life, it is also precious, fragile, and often more joyous than we recognize
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Saturday Night Widows releases on January 22, 2013!
Review to come soon!

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

I am on a roll with picking some fabulous books lately!  This one was our book club pick of December and I gobbled it up. Like gobbled.  My friend Julie and I were texting each other all evening - "what page are you on?" "Now what page are you on?"  "Are you finished yet?"  Even though the format of the way it was written was very different than what I'm used to, I finally found my rhythm and started flying through it.  The author writes where the narrator is Clay, and anything written in italics is what he's hearing narrated on a cassette tape by Hannah.  Sometimes two different things were going on at the same time and I had to really focus to keep the stories straight.  But. so. worth. it. 

This book has been around actually for 5 years and I had seen some other reviewers rave about how great it was.  I'm so glad it was chosen for book club and that I voted for it! 

Seriously, if you've ever been bullied as a child or even in high school, this book will speak to you as it did me.  There's a not lot from childhood that I'd like to remember (mainly because of school), and I don't think adults realize what happens to a kid's self-esteem when other children are constantly making fun, teasing or bullying them.  If Jason and I are blessed with a child or children and I hear of someone bullying them, you better believe I'm going to do something about it.

Read this book, it's amazing.

Description: Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a mysterious box with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers thirteen cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker, his classmate and crush who committed suicide two weeks earlier.

On tape, Hannah explains that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out how he made the list.

Through Hannah and Clay's dual narratives, debut author Jay Asher weaves an intricate and heartrending story of confusion and desperation that will deeply affect teen readers.

Rating: *****

Recommend: For sure.