I joined Goodreads a few years ago, way before I started blogging, so my profile is kind of a mess. I really want to clean it up so I can make better use of it. I thought what a better way to do that than to join the Down the TBR Hole meme started by Lia @Lost In a Story! I am going to do it once a month instead of weekly, and hopefully make my Goodreads a pleasant place to be again.
Here is how it works:
- Go to your goodreads to-read shelf.
- Order on ascending date added.
- Take the first 5 (or 10 if you’re feeling adventurous) books
- Read the synopses of the books
- Decide: keep it or should it go?
Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner
Rebecca Rothstein-Rabinowitz is a plump, sexy chef who has a wonderful husband, supportive friends, a restaurant that’s received citywide acclaim, a beautiful baby girl…and the mother-in-law from hell.
Kelly Day’s life looks picture-perfect. But behind the doors of her largely empty apartment, she’s struggling to balance work and motherhood and marriage, while entering Oliver’s every move (and movement) on a spreadsheet, and dealing with an unemployed husband who seems content to channel-surf for eight hours a day.
And Ayinde Towne is already on shaky ground, trying to live her life to the letter of a how-to guide called Baby Success, when her basketball superstar husband breaks her trust at the most vulnerable moment in her life, putting their marriage in peril — and their new family even more in the public eye.
Then there’s Lia Frederick, a Philadelphia native who has just come home, leaving Los Angeles behind, along with her glamorous Hollywood career, her husband, and a tragic secret, to start her life all over again.
With her trademark warmth and humor, Weiner tells the story of what happens after happily ever after…and how an eight-pound bundle of joy can shake up every woman’s sense of herself in the world around her.
From prenatal yoga to postbirth sex, from sisters and husbands to mothers and mothers-in-law, Little Earthquakes is a frank, funny, fiercely perceptive Diaper Genie-eye view of the comedies and tragedies of love and marriage.
My Thoughts: I’m sure I would probably like this book, but right now it’s just not capturing my attention. I have way too many books that I’m dying to read, that I most likely will never get around to it anyways. VERDICT: TOSS
P.S. I Love You by Cecelia Ahern
Holly couldn’t live without her husband Gerry, until the day she had to. They were 
thekind of young couple who could finish each other’s sentences. When Gerry succumbs to a terminal illness and dies, 30-year-old Holly is set adrift, unable to pick up the pieces. But with the help of a series of letters her husband left her before he died and a little nudging from an eccentric assortment of family and friends, she learns to laugh, overcome her fears, and discover a world she never knew existed.
The kind of enchanting novel with cross-generational appeal that comes along once in a great while, PS, I Love You is a captivating love letter to the world!
My Thoughts:This movie is one of my favorites, and when I saw it was based on a book I immediately added it to my list. Since I already know what happens, and I am happy with the movie, I don’t think this book is high on my priority list. VERDICT: TOSS
Bookends by Jane Green
Catherine Warner and Simon Nelson are best friends: total opposites, always together, and both unlucky in love. Cath is scatterbrained, messy, and–since she had her heart broken a few years back–emotionally closed off. Si is impossibly tidy, bitchy, and desperate for a man of his own. They live in London’s West Hampstead along with their lifelong friends, Josh and Lucy, who are happily married with a devil-spawn child and a terrifying Swedish nanny, Ingrid.
All’s well (sort of) until the sudden arrival of a college friend–the stunningly beautiful Portia, who’s known for breaking hearts. Though they’ve grown up and grown apart from Portia, the four friends welcome her back into the fold. But does Portia have a hidden agenda or is she merely looking to reconnect with old friends? Her reappearance soon unleashes a rollicking series of events that tests the foursome’s friendships to the limit and leaves them wondering if a happy ending is in store.
Fortunately, Cath has plenty to take her mind off Portia’s schemes–like her gutsy decision to leave her job in advertising to fulfill her dream of opening a bookstore. And then there’s James, the sexy real-estate agent who keeps dropping by even after the bookstore deal is done. With his irresistible smile and boyish charm could he be the one to melt Cath’s heart?
Told with Jane Green’s captivating wit and flare, Bookends is above all a story about friendship–its twists, turns and complications–and how it weathers the challenges of love, ambition, marriage, and, most of all, growing up. Warmhearted, sophisticated, and full of delicious surprises, Bookends is Green’s most dazzling novel yet.
My Thoughts: This sounds really fun, and while it will probably remain low on my list, I still think I am interested in it for now. VERDICT: KEEP
Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner
Addie Downs and Valerie Adler were eight when they first met and decided to be best 
friends forever. But, in the wake of tragedy and betrayal during their teenage years, everything changed. Val went on to fame and fortune. Addie stayed behind in their small Midwestern town. Destiny, however, had more in store for these two. And when, twenty-five years later, Val shows up at Addie’s front door with blood on her coat and terror on her face, it is the beginning of a wild adventure for two women joined by love and history who find strength together that they could not find alone.
My Thoughts: I went in thinking this was gonna be a for sure toss, but the summary interested me. I also am a sucker for a good friendship story. VERDICT: KEEP
Bergdorf Blondes by Plum Sykes
Plum Sykes beguiling debut welcomes readers to the glamorous world of Park Avenue Princesses, the girls who careen through Manhattan in search of the perfect Fake Bake (tan acquired from Portofino Tanning Salon), a ride on a PJ (private jet) with the ATM (rich boyfriend), and the ever-elusive fiance.
With invitations to high-profile baby showers and benefits, more Marc Jacobs clothes than is decent, and a department store heiress for a best friend, our heroine known only as Moi is living at the peak of New York society. But what is Moi to do when her engagement falls apart? Can she ever find happiness in a city filled with the distractions of Front Row Girls, dermatologists, premieres, and eyebrow waxes? Is it possible to find love in a town where her friends think that the secret to happiness is getting invited to the Van Cleef and Arpels private sample sale? And how is she going to deal with the endless phone calls from her mother in England demanding that she get married to the Earl next door?
With enormous wit and an insider’s eye, Sykes captures the nuances of the rich and spoiled in a heartwarming social satire, featuring a loveable “champagne bubble of a girl” who’s just looking for love (and maybe the perfect pair of Chloe jeans).
My Thoughts: I’m really on the fence with this one. I’m sure it would be entertaining, and I know when I added this book to my TBR it was my favorite kind of read, but I don’t read as much chick-lit as I used to… hmmm. VERDICT: TOSS (for now)
Well, we’re still in the depth of my 2011 chick-lit obsession, but we’re whittling it down slowly, but surely. Even the ones I kept will probably have low priority on the list, but they still sound good to me. What do you guys think about my choices this time? Let me know in the comments! ❤
Reading In The Wings 