The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold

I've just finished reading this book. This is a dark tale that begins with the narrator of the story, Helen Knightly, killing her mother. There are many deaths in this book --- her mother's murder, her father's suicide, and a neighbour's child who was the victim of a hit and run incident which happened in front of the Knightly's home. In addition to the deaths, it seems like Helen and her parents were suffering from mental illnesses.

A Place Called Here by Cecelia Ahern

Sandy Shortt is anything but sandy or short. She has spent most of her life being obsessed about finding missing things. Where did the missing sock go when it's no longer in the washing machine?

Are we all defined to the things that we own?

Birthday Girls by Annabel Giles

Six women (with six birthdays) who are all connected to each other though they may not all be aware of how their lives are related.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

As always, I refuse to watch the movie without first reading the book. I enjoyed reading this book.

Thanks for the Memories by Cecelia Ahern

This story explores the possibility of knowing someone when you receive something of theirs. Could it possibly connect two strangers who don't know anything about each other?

Donating blood was the last thing on Justin Hitchcock's to-do list but he was persuaded into doing it by a female doctor during a blood drive week on the campus where he was a guest lecturing.

A month later, Joyce Conway suffers a miscarriage and receives a blood transfusion in hospital. After she leaves hospital, she somehow knows things now that she didn't know before. She can suddenly rattle off facts about architecture which previously were unknown to her. She sees images of people in her mind and she doesn't know who they are, but yet, some part of her, knows them, loves them...

Is this mysterious connection only something that Joyce experiences or does Justin have similar experiences too? What is this mysterious connection that they share?

If Today Be Sweet by Thrity Umrigar

Tehmina's husband has just passed away and she is now in the US visiting her son and his family. She has now to decide whether to return to India where everything is familiar or to start anew in the US.

  

Crimson China by Betsy Tobin

A story about an illegal immigrant from China and a woman who was about to commit suicide when she saved the immigrant from drowning and how their lives are intertwined.

Bookends by Jane Green

I love Jane Green's novels.

This one's about a girl, her best friend (a boy) and once upon a time close friend who suddenly makes an appearance in their lives after many years.

The Bone Setter's Daughter by Amy Tan

Ruth, an American born Chinese, fears that she is losing her mother, LuLing, to dementia. Ever since she was young, Ruth's mother seemed to believe that she had the ability to communicate with the spirit world and with Precious Auntie's spirit.

LuLing was raised by a nursemaid, Precious Auntie, who was mute and burnt. LuLing's mother did not show much love towards her and seemed to prefer her younger sister Goa Ling. Precious Auntie, however, was devoted to caring for LuLing.

LuLing later learns, after Precious Auntie's death, that she is actually Precious Auntie's daughter and that the woman who she thought was her mother all along was actually her father's sister.

Luling is sent away to a Christian orphanage after Precious Auntie's death and later becomes a teacher. She and her sister, Goa Ling, later immigrate to the US and marry brothers.

This story is about Ruth's learning of her mother's past and gaining an understanding into her mother's behaviour.

Shopaholic Ties the Knot by Sophie Kinsella

In the fourth book of the Shopaholic series, Becky marries Luke but the wedding preparations aren't smooth sailing as two people get busy planning for their wedding --- her mom and Luke's mom and there's a small problem --- both weddings are planned for the same day but on different sides of the planet (one in England and the other in New York)! 

Shopaholic Takes Manhattan by Sophie Kinsella

This is the third book in the Shopaholic series. In this book, Becky Bloomwood moves to the Big Apple with her boyfriend Luke Brandon and continues having her shopaholic misadventures in New York.

Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella

This is the second of a the Shopaholic series of books that I've been meaning to read but never really got around to purchasing before this (too pricey to pay at regular prices for the whole range). Thank goodness, I found four of the books in this series at the latest Big Bad Wolf Warehouse sale at a fraction of the original price!

Becky Bloomwood is a finance journalist with financial problems! As always, Sophie Kinsella's books are humourous.

The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks

What are the odds that you find a picture on the ground one day, pick it up, and then you experience a string of good luck even in situations when good luck is pretty slim (such as in a war)?

Yup, another Nicholas Sparks novel. In this one, a US Marine finds a picture of a young woman half buried in the dirt towards the end of one of his early morning runs in Iraq. He takes the picture back to base and puts it on the message board thinking that it belonged to someone there. But when the photo still went unclaimed despite being on the message board for many days, he takes the photo down and puts it in his wallet. Soon after, he experiences streaks of good luck --- he wins poker games and survives combat that kills his close friends.

When he goes back home, he sets out to look for the woman in the picture --- his lucky charm. When he does meet her, he finds himself attracted to her and falls for her while not telling her how he came to be in her life. Was it destiny that made him look for her?

This novel has been made into a movie which is due to be released in April 2012. As always, I prefer to read the novel first before watching the movie as I somehow feel that movies lack the details presented in the book. Besides, when you watch a movie, you're watching someone else's (the director's) interpretation of the novel and most times, this may not be the same interpretation that you will make when you read the novel yourself.

The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks

This story is about Ronnie, a troubled teenage girl whose parents are divorced goes to spend the summer with her father. Her father, a former concert pianist is now living in a house on the beach. While there, she falls in love with William, an unlikely match for her, who changes her. This is a story about first love as well as love between parents and children.

Me and Mr Darcy by Alexandra Potter

Mr Darcy, of Pride and Prejudice, the ideal man... but does he really exist? Well, Emily Albright has had meetings with Mr Darcy himself while she was on tour to England with the Jane Austen Book Club (which, by the way, is made up of little old ladies and an old man! Just as there is the perfect man, there is also the anti-Mr Darcy in this book whose name is Spike Hargreaves. A nice humourous read. 

The Gift by Cecilia Ahern

This book is told in a story about Lou, a successful man who is constantly busy climbing the corporate ladder at the expense of his family and loved ones. One morning, he buys Gabe, a homeless man who sits outside his office building, a coffee and thus begins the friendship between the two men. When the mail room in his office is underhanded, Lou takes Gabe on to help out in the mail room. As time goes by, Gabe presents Lou with choices, one of which is being able to be at two places at one time by just taking a pill.

This book is about cherishing those around you and spending with them the most valuable asset (more valuable than money, gold, oil, etc) that all of us have been granted with --- time. The gift of spending time with your loved ones is the one valuable gift that you can give others. This book reminds us that most of us are just way too busy doing our own thing and thinking about ourselves that we simply fail to spend enough time with our loved ones. I know that I'm certainly one of them and I needed to read this book!   

Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer

This is the last book in the Twilight Saga and it also took the longest time for me to read. Don't know why but I didn't find this book as exciting as the previous three. It felt like it took me forever to finish reading this book.

In this book, Bella marries Edward as a human, but later transforms into a vampire. As it turns out, as a vampire, she possesses special powers. Edward and Bella have a child, Renee, who later is imprinted by Jacob, a werewolf...so, the werewolf who was so in love with Bella at one point, is now so in love with her daughter... go figure!

Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer

I read this book like moons and moons ago. I can't believe that I haven't blogged about this book before --- hmmm.... I must have missed blogging it in the midst of all the reading that I've been doing.

I found this book along with two others (New Moon and Breaking Dawn) in the series at the Bookcross zone in 1-Utama. I couldn't believe my luck when I saw all three books there as these books were on my wish list. In fact, I found even the first book, Twilight, at the Bookcross zone as well.

This is the third book in the Twilight Saga series... and it is the continuation of the love triangle between Bella, Jacob and Edward. Fancy being a human and having a werewolf fancy you, and being in love with a vampire!

Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich

I read this book months ago (so, okay, this is a long overdue blog post!).

This is another one in the Stephanie Plum, a bounty hunter, series of adventures. True to Janet Evanovich's style of writing, this book is a fun read (with hunks in it too!!! Ah, Stephanie Plum's a lucky gal! ).

A Patchwork Planet by Anne Tyler

This is another one of my many bookcrossing finds. The book begins and ends with the same line, "I am a man you can trust". The story is about Barnaby Gaitlin, an average and ordinary man. He is sort of the family black sheep with a successful dad and older brother who are both doing financially well.

Barnaby works in a company owned by Mrs. Virginia Dibble called Rent-a-Back that helps the elderly or disabled move things around their homes and other sorts of chores that they need help with. When Barnaby was younger, he used to break into houses with his friends but once they were in the homes, he was more interested in looking at the photo albums and personal belongings of the people who lived there rather than steal. On one of these occasions, he was caught and his father had to pay $8700 for the things that he had stolen. This $8700 has always been a point of contention not with his dad, but with his mom who would bring it up ever so often.

Tired of having to put up with his mom's constant reminder of the $8700 that they wasted on him, Barnaby decides to pay her back. He starts to save money by asking for extra hours at work. On one day, one of his clients who happens to be his girlfriend's elderly aunt lost the cash that she was saving in the flour bin and accused Barnaby of theft. His girlfriend Sophia decides to replace the money back without the aunt's or Barnaby's knowledge as she wanted to "clear" his name. To Barnaby this only indicated to him that Sophia too thought that he was guilty of having taken the money from the bread bin. The aunt later finds her money and remembers that it was she who had changed the place where she hid the money earlier on.

Sophia then keeps reminding Barnaby that she had used her own savings to replace the "stolen" money and that she has no money to buy what she wants. Tired, Barnaby then goes to Mrs Glynn's house with his colleague, Martine, and takes the money from the bread bin and returns it to Sophia in an envelope with a note that says,"Sophia, you never did realize. I am a man you can trust".

There are a lot of real life observations in A Patchwork Planet. Society is so quick to judge you by your past and will always remind you of your past even though you have moved on and have changed your ways. Status is also very important to many people in life. In this book, Barnaby's mother seem to love Barnaby's best friend, Len, better than she does him. She doesn't let Barnaby cut his own birthday cake before Len arrives. Again, you are not really loved if you aren't as successful as your siblings. Such is the case between Barnaby and his brother whom his mother seem to prefer since he is successful.