What's on my bookshelf?

My book group just finished up with Little Bee by Chris Cleave. This book should come with a prescription for antidepressants or, at the very least, a hotline to call and get counseled out of the funk the book will surely put you into. A reviewer with the Amazon Vine program said it better than I could: "This is one of those books that's likely to be deeply divisive -- either you're going to be swept up by and find it a gripping story of human connection, or you're going to find it to be a rather mawkish clunkily written expression of first-world angst." I found it to be a rather mawkish clunkily written expression of first-world angst. Side note: love the use of "clunky" as an adverb. Little Bee was not quite in the "will be hurled across the room repeatedly" category (The Shack, this means you) but it was firmly in the "oh puh-leeze" category.

Next I decided to read something a little lighter, keeping in mind that wet cement is lighter than Little Bee. So I returned to one of my favorite young adult series that began with Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty and continued with Triple Shot Bettys in Love. These books are hilarious, sweet, and mocha-jones-inducing! Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty was based on Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, and Triple Shot Bettys in Love borrows from Cyrano de Bergerac. A highlight of the second book is an eyebrow-plucking-gone-awry scene that actually had me crying with laughter. Highly recommended!