Great website all around for avid readers to get a good perspective on what is good on the shelves out there.

I was really excited when I saw Emily Giffin coming out with a new book with such an interesting premise. Even though I didn’t much like Baby Proof for the same reason as Janine mentioned above, I still applaud the effort, and I’m willing to give Giffin another try, simply because I loved Something Borrowed and Something Blue. Something Borrowed in particular touched me and was just so inspiring (not to steal my best friend’s fiancee though haha). I cannot express how much I love that book in a few sentences, I’ll just go on and on, so I’ll just stop there. So thank you for recommending Love the One You’re With this month – looking forward to your review, Janine – and I hope to read it soon!

Mimi —

didn’t really get the class issue conflict you mention – I didn’t get the sense it was really a barrier to love or anything else here.

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SPOILERS for Love the One You’re With

I don’t know if I’d say it was a barrier to love but I think it was a big part of the reason Ellen was torn between Andy and Leo. She had sort of reinvented herself after her mother’s death by going away to college, and tried to get away from her lower-middle-class Pittsburgh roots.

First with her friend Margot and later with Margot’s brother Andy, she was able to create new relationships for herself that were attempts to make up for the loss of her mother, and in a way, I felt that she had married Andy partly because she wanted his healthy, happy family to replace her own wounded family.

I felt that Ellen’s sister, Suzanne, understood this instinctually and it was a big part of why Suzanne was always critical of Margot and her husband — that Suzanne wanted Ellen back in her own sphere, and for Suzanne, she had lost Ellen to some degree when Ellen went off to college and then New York with Margot and then Atlanta with Andy.

By the same token, Suzanne had always liked Leo and I think it was because she felt more comfortable with him. Leo wasn’t rich like Andy and Margot, his background was much more similar to Ellen’s and Suzanne’s original background.

As I was reading, I wondered how much of Ellen’s longing for Leo was based on those things that they had in common, like a less privileged background and a love of New York City (not to mention their compatible professions of photographer and journalist). I wondered if maybe Ellen hadn’t cheated herself by leaving her father and sister far behind to the degree that she had, and if her longing for Leo wasn’t also a kind of longing for home, for the class and background that she had come from.

While none of this was overt in Ellen’s thoughts I thought it was there in the subtext, and it made for a very rich exploration of issues that we don’t often see explored in the romance or chick lit genres. I was really fascinated by all of this and by the dynamics between the various characters in the book. Suzanne’s ultimate actions at the end of the book (I don’t want to give them away) were both surprising and satisfying to me.

Unlike you, I had a strong sense of Leo and Andy’s appeal to Ellen. With Leo, I think it has a lot to do with the things I said about — all that they had in common. And with Andy, I think it was that he came with a loving family (it was a big bonus that Margot was a part of it) offered security and stability which Leo never did, and was also a kind of anti-Leo — someone who would never give Ellen a moment’s heartache unless she herself hurt him first.

I did feel that I would have liked to see more of Ellen and Andy’s courtship the way Ellen and Leo’s courtship was shown. That was the big thing the book lacked for me, more of a sense of romance in Andy and Ellen’s marriage. That was the reason I gave it a B+ and not a keeper grade but I still felt it was a very intelligently written, interesting, and compulsively readable book.

I am finally, at last reading the first Kresley Cole I HUNGER FOR YOU, and loving it (I thought it was more vampire-y than it is, and I’m not a big vampire fan, though I can be persuaded), and I have this one on my TBR shelf, so it will probably get read soon.

Now I need to pick up the Susan Grant book, and the Caroline Linden. I’ve read most of Grant’s (I even judged one of her first books as a ms. before she sold it, and like to flatter myself that she took my advice and it helped her sell, even if that’s my own ego talking) and have enjoyed them, so, given your review, I’m sure I’ll like this one too. And I’ve enjoyed other Lindens and do like the “kinder, gentler” Regency, so this is one I’ll have to look for.

I just finished Edith Layton’s new book–a good read, but one that felt fast and light to me. I also read J. Quinn’s LOST DUKE OF WYNDHAM and haven’t quite yet figured out what I think about it…Same with Madeline Hunter’s SECRETS OF SURRENDER. I liked them, but not with the overwhelming reaction of Chase’s SCANDALOUS WAYS.

I’ll probably keep my eyes open for the Strohmeyer (tho if it’s trade size, probably won’t buy it, but maybe the library will have it), and maybe for the Giffin. I might pick up PITCH BLACK, but won’t be buying the Novak, much as I like and admire her. She writes books that are just too scary for me. (Yeah, I know, I write fantasy with demons and stuff, but still…) (I have a Colleen Thompson book I want to finish, but am having to work up my courage for it too…) Just how scary is PB???

I have Love the One You’re With on my TBR pile. I’m glad to hear it’s a good one.