Can You Get Hooked on Lip Balm?
thebeautybrains.com
Yes, yes you can. But the the lip balm question is only one of hundreds in this fascinating little book. Full of delightfully refreshing skepticism, various beauty products and myths are put through the rigors of scientific inquiry. Not surprisingly, most claims by the beauty industry are either false or worded in a skewed manner. However, there is plenty to be relieved over. Many products and ingredients have myths attached to them that are complete falsehoods. Dig in and find out if expensive shampoo is really better, what is in perfume and if your moisturizer will really get rid of wrinkles.
Following Polly
Karen Bergreen
A perfect blend of mystery, chick-lit, tension and snark. Bergreen’s heroine (of sorts) Alice acts like a real person. She holds grudges, creates fantasies and often does nonsensical and stupid things. But they all make their own wacky, forgivable sense. Out of work and looking to occupy herself, Alice happens to catch sight of a former classmate. Now rich and famous, Polly is everything Alice is not. With nothing better to do, Alice starts following Polly…all the way to the end. Amusing and engrossing. I hope Bergreen has some more titles in the works.
There’s a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell
Laurie Notaro
In her first non-fiction novel, Laurie Notaro writes with her same funny, off-kilter and slightly neurotic voice she has recorded her life with in her fabulous autobiographical short stories. Although a bit slow to get off the ground, once she hits her stride the story takes off on its own strange little path. Notaro’s heroine Maye has just moved from Phoenix to a small town in Oregon and is desperate for just one friend like her – desperate to enter the town sewer pipe queen pageant. Notaro gives a very accurate description of a small college town, full of tree-huggers, left-over flower children ...
Anybody Out There?
Marian Keyes
The latest installment in the Walsh family soap-opera is a doozy. Anna, the youngest Walsh girl (the spacy-new age one) gets her act together with the help of her brother-in-law Garv and moves to New York to work in marketing. The story picks up with Anna back in Ireland -recovering with a torn kneecap and a cut up face. Slowly the story reveals where the injuries come from, what the picture is that shows up in her mailbox, where her mysterious man Aidan has gone and why the strange woman keeps encouraging her dog to poop on the Walsh’s yard. All of Keyes’s books are excellent and engulfing. This is by far the biggest tear-jerker, but also funny and...
Dairy Queen
Catherine Murdock
I have no idea how I came across this title, but there it was in my hold pile. I can’t say I often peruse “young adult” chick lit., but this turned out to be an excellent book. DJ, a Wisconsin farm girl, has a busy, messy, broken family. Her father injured his hip and is now the house-husband; her mother is both a teacher and principal with more of a life at school than home; her younger brother is expected to great things in sports and has continual practices; and her older brothers have left over a family rift. This leaves DJ to run the entire farm single-handedly. Throw into the mix a spoiled football star wanna-be her uncle asks...