I've been doing a lot of reading and not a lot of reviewing, so it's time to play some catch up! Here goes:
I finally finished Inside the Mind of the Shopper by Herb Sorensen. Unfortunately, part 2 of the book was not any more interesting than part 1 of the book. Unless your job is to design grocery store layouts (other types of retail stores are not really addressed) you will likely find this book a snoozefest. My personal favorite part is that all of the charts that are clearly meant to be in color, are printed in black and white. Useless.
Next, The Husband Trap by Tracy Anne Warren. The premise is completely unrealistic, the characters are stereotypical, you can see the ending coming from the first sentence but I LOVED it. Loved, loved, loved it! Enormously entertaining and great light reading. Best for those who love trashy romance novels.
Next up, PopCo by Scarlett Thomas. This is a fairly light read about Alice Butler, a 29 year old woman who works for a toy company designing secret code and spy games for kids. Which is fitting, because she wears a necklace given to her by her father, containing a secret code which leads to some treasure, and she spends a good part of the book trying to decipher it. This sounds much sillier than the book really is... Actually I thought 95% of it was extremely engaging and well written. Unfortunately, Thomas completely blows the ending. Recommended (but please note lack of the word highly...)
And last but not least, Women of the Silk by Gail Tsukiyama. This is a beautiful story about Pei, a Chinese girl whose family can no longer support her and when a fortune teller tells the family he does not see marriage in her future, the family sends her to work in the silk factory. There she becomes good friends with the other girls and the story is about their relationships as they grow older and must face more difficult life decisions.
I got a little bit hung up on the details in some parts of the book, but still felt that it was very good.
PHEW! Enough for now. I'll be back to review Cutting for Stone later this week which I finished Monday.
Currently reading Room by Emma Donoghue. I seriously cannot put it down it's so amazing. Pending the last 25% of the book, this might be a top five for the year pick.
