Gigi Just Finished: Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants A Book By: Jill Soloway Type of Book: Collection of Essays Is it HUGE? 272 pages    I LOVED this book!!! This should be mandatory reading for every Gorgeous and Sassy girl. And guy. Read it!!! Soloway, a writer for "Six Feet Under" is the woman I've been waiting to hear from: A feminist who likes beauty pageants. She is pro-women AND admits to liking sex with men. Why do these things rarely seem to go together? She proudly refers to herself as a "hoor." Finally! I thought my friends and I were the only feminist hos. She also started an imagined speech by Monica Lewinsky with "Of course I fucking blew the president!" And she wonders why the female orgasm isn't necessary for procreation, which, hello? I've been asking that for years. It should at least be necessary for "sex" to have occurred....but that's an article in itself. Anyway. Read this book. You will laugh and cheer. Shakira Just Finished: The Dive from Clausen’s Pier A Book By: Ann Packer Type of Book: Fiction Is it HUGE? 432 pages   I couldn’t put this one down. The main character, Carrie, goes through a long and emotional journey when her high school sweetheart breaks his neck and becomes paralyzed. The problem is that Carrie was thinking of leaving him before the accident. After the accident, she struggles with how to do the “right” thing. The thing I really liked about this book was that I HATED Carrie in parts of it. It’s always interesting to hate the main character. She turns out to be one gorgeous and sassy girl. Gigi Just Finished: How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship & Musical Theater A Book By: Mark Acito Type of Book: Fiction Is it HUGE? 288 pages    This book was Hi-larious!!! Set in 1983 in the Jersey burbs, this book contains everything it promises in the title. The main character Edward Zanni is a sexually confused teen-age drama queen, but he's so totally lovable that you're rooting for him to succeed. All of the high school pranks and adventures in this book made me a little nostalgic, which is really saying a lot. It's a great light-hearted read....like a fun combo of Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Fame. Pick it up for some hearty laughs.  Gigi Just Finished: Nora Jane: A Life in Stories A Book By: Ellen Gilchrist Type of Book: Fiction Is it HUGE? 448 pages   Ellen Gilchrist is my favorite author so I was thrilled to see that she collected all of the stories about one of her most interesting characters...as well as a new novella...into one volume. This book does not disappoint. Nora Jane, like many of Gilchrist's characters, is a smart and resilient woman with a rich and amazing life. She starts out as a poor kid in New Orleans, raised by a bitter, alcholic mother, who eventually finds her way to San Francisco after robbing a bar in a nun costume. That's just the beginning....then the stories really start to get good. I won't bore you with my adoration....except to say that when Killa Gorilla and I got the book, we jumped up and down and squealed so that LP thought we'd seen a ghost or a large spider. Although I am a huge book geek, not many authors would inspire that reaction. So. Let's just say that if you haven't tried Ellen Gilchrist's work, Nora Jane might be a good place to start. Shakira Just Finished: Brightness Falls A Book By: Jay McInerney Type of Book: Fiction Is it HUGE? 415 pages   Are you surprised this book saddened me? No? Is it some sort of emotionally masochistic thing that I'm doing to myself, choosing these books with depressing storylines? This one sounded like it would be fun-a high-powered couple, Corrine and Russell, working and living and loving in New York City in the 80s. However, neither of them is satisfied. Corrine has emotional problems; she endures a miscarriage and then her eating disorder returns. Russell is trying to take over a company, fails, and manages to fall into bed with another woman. When Corrine finds out that he's cheated, she leaves him. Russell then discovers Corrine cheated long ago with his best friend. Bummed out yet? Wait till you hear this. Said best friend dies of HIV. Excellent writing, a compelling story, but yes, sad. The romantic in me is crying. Shakira Just Finished: Walking Through Shadows A Book By: Bev Marshall Type of Book: Fiction Is it HUGE? 282 pages   Nope, not a happy story. A man gets executed for murder at the end of this one! But this book had me staying up late reading way past my bedtime. The author tells the story from five different characters' perspectives. The story is about a young girl named Sheila who is abused by her father and who tries to escape him by working on the dairy farm of one Lloyd Cotton. Lloyd is one of the characters that writes his own account of what happened throughout Sheila's tragic life. His daughter, his wife and Sheila's husband also are featured as first-person storytellers, along with a local reporter. The first half of the book is devoted to getting to know Sheila, and the second half explains how her murderer is discovered. Any book that keeps me reading through exhaustion is a good one. Gigi just finished: The Last Girls A Book By: Lee Smith Type of Book: Fiction Is it HUGE? 384 pages   Maybe this book wasn't one of my beloved Lifetime movies...but it totally could have been. It's about a group of women who reunite after over 30 years, due to the death of a friend, to recreate the path of a rafting trip they took in college down the Mississippi River. Only this time they go on one of those touristy steamboat trips...because they're old and why the hell should they have to do the rafting when they can party on a cruise? Anyway, the book goes back and forth between the present and past and shows how each of the women's lives had ups and downs, tragedies, dramas, successes, crazy affairs, bad breakups, etc. Good stuff! All of the women were pretty damn sassy...the only thing I didn't get was why the uptight rich one was cheating on her husband with a tubby florist. What?? Um, ok then... The book was fun....like a Lifetime movie...only portable!