While I'm Falling by Laura Moriarty

A coming-of-age story about a college student whose parents are going through a divorce.

It's a pretty average book and story, but for some reason, I was really into it. I spent one whole morning reading it - what a luxury! I think I really liked that the main character grows and moves from being a pre-med student to studying something she really loves and that fits her. I love it when people do that. She becomes more of herself throughout the book, which is what coming-of-age stories are always about and which is why I love them.

Acceptance by David Marcus

The subtitle of this book is: A Legendary Guidance Counselor Helps Seven Kids Find the Right College - and Find Themselves.

The book follows a year in the life of this guidance counselor who is more interested in helping high school seniors find the college that will be the right fit for them rather than the college with the most prestigious name.

I liked this book. It was readable and the counselor has a lot of heart. It's a different take on the whole college admissions process which seems much more competitive and stressful than when I applied to colleges 10+ years ago.

Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage by Elizabeth Gilbert

This is by the author of Eat, Pray, Love which I had mixed feelings about. At the end of Eat, Pray, Love, the author, Elizabeth, starts dating a man. They are committed to each other but do not marry though because both of them had gone through messy divorces. However, Felipe, the boyfriend, gets stopped by the Department of Homeland Security and it's recommended that Elizabeth and Felipe get married so that they can settle in the US.

The couple spends about a year traveling around southeast Asia waiting for all of the immigration paperwork to go through so that they can both return to the US and get married. Meanwhile, Elizabeth has time to sort through all of her mixed feelings about the institution of marriage. And this is what the book is about.

I liked this book better than Eat, Pray, Love. Maybe it's because marriage has been on my mind lately. Or maybe it's because I found the author to be much more likeable than in Eat, Pray, Love. Either way, I enjoyed the book and the writing.

Open House by Elizabeth Berg

Usually I avoid all books with the "Oprah's Book Club" seal on them. But I picked this one up at a book sale and for 20 cents, I threw it into my bag.

It's about a woman whose husband leaves her and how she deals with the divorce and how she finds herself again.

An average read, but especially good for an afternoon when you curl up in bed. Which is what I did.

The book I had was a Large-Print edition which made it so easy to read. I didn't even use my reading glasses. Now I am entertaining the idea of reading more Large Print books. I know my sister reads them because they are less checked out at the library and therefore, much cleaner. I think she's on to something.

Acceptance by Susan Coll

This is a book about the competive process of applying to college, but it's fiction. The main characters include AP Harry, a couple of his classmates, and the dean of admissions at Yates College, a university that, because of a mistake, ranks as #50 in US News and World Report's Best Colleges and is suddenly bombarded with tons of applications from highly qualified students.

This book is funny and puts some perspective on the whole process of applying to college. I think it would be a good read for parents and their high school kids. I enjoyed reading it because it was pretty amusing. I found the ending to be a bit weak and unsatisfying though.

Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer

I read Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air about the Mt. Everest disaster back in the early 2000s. I loved it! Then my sister read it, and she loved it too. Since then, every so often throughout the whole decade, we've talked about Everest. In fact, we just talked about it a couple of weeks ago.

I've read every Krakauer book. I wasn't much of a fan of his last one, Under the Banner of Heaven, but I was still excited to read this one, his latest.


This one is about Pat Tillman who played football for the Cardinals. After 9/11, Tillman walked away from his $3.6 million contract to enlist in the Army. He served in Iraq and then in Afghanistan where he was killed by friendly fire. The fact that it was friendly fire was subsequently covered up by the Army and the White House. This book tells the story of Tillman's life, death, and the cover-up by the Army.

The only word that describes how this book left me feeling is: conflicted.

It's worth reading - I got a bit stuck in some of the descriptions of the military, and it goes a bit into the history of Afghanistan and what's going on. Everything that is going on there is complicated...another reason why I was left feeling conflicted.

A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg

This is written by the creator of the blog called Orangette. She started the blog and then got a book deal out of it. She also met her husband because he sent her a note after reading her blog.

This is how the book is put together: an essay about some aspect of the author's life (growing up, how she dropped out of graduate school, how she met her husband) followed by a recipe that is associated with that story.

This book is beautiful. The writing is lovely. The recipes are surprisingly accessible. I've baked the French-Style Yogurt Cake with Lemon several times now and it's been met with rave reviews.

The only slightly annoying part is that once Wizenberg starts writing about her then-boyfriend (now husband), it is very clear that they are in the Wow stage of their relationship and that everything is perfect.

Other than that, I really really liked this book. So much that I bought ten copies to give to friends.