New Pick! The Passage by Justin Cronin

I was SO excited to pick our next book!  There is so much pressure to pick the "right" book and one that the entire group can enjoy.  After a lot of research I decided to pick The Passage by Justin Cronin. 

“It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born.”

First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.
As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors. But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.
With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterful prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction.

The Passage Website

The Passage FREE iPhone App

The Carrie Diaries Meeting

Last night was our June meeting reviewing The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell.  We met at Free State Brewery in Lawrence.  Emily got to join us this month also, we are hoping she can be a "full-time" member of LBBC:)

We had LOTS of laughs last night, I had such a good time... and as always I really look forward to our meetings cause it's our excuse to get together with the girls!  We all felt the same way about the book... about 3 stars, nothing too exciting but was a quick and easy summer read.  Everyone is a Sex & the City fan so many of us were wanting more of a connection from Carrie's high school days to what we saw on the TV show and there was no connection until the last sentence of the book!  Erin thought the author could have made Carrie more into fashion because she rarely mentions it.  Also, her family is never mentioned or included in the TV show so it was a little strange to hear so much about them in the book.  We all agreed that her friend Lali (we all pronounced this name differently by the way!) was a total "B"!  I think many of us can recall friends like that from high school! 

Breana thought the author did a great job telling the High School story, we all agreed.  We remember feeling like that "one guy" was going to be THE ONE... & then he breaks your heart as he moves on to the next girl.  It feels like your world is ending... yada, yada yada.  It was sad that at the end she felt like she didn't really have any friends, but I think a lot of girls feel like their real friendships don't develop until after high school.

Overall we thought the book was OK, if you are looking for a quick & easy read then this is it.  Don't set your expectations too high {like many of us} because the TV show is still MUCH better!

Summer Reading Challenge on Amy's Blog

I posted a Summer Reading Challenge on my blog, if you are interested in it you can visit my blog here.  It's from the awesome blog Booking Mama!

June's Book is.... The Carrie Diaries!

The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell

Before Carrie Bradshaw hit the big time in the City, she was a regular girl growing up in the suburbs of Connecticut. How did she turn into one of the most-read social observers of our generation?

The Carrie Diaries opens up in Carrie's senior year of high school. She and her best friends -- Walt, Lali, Maggie, and the Mouse -- are inseparable, amid the sea of Jens, Jocks and Jets. And then Sebastian Kydd comes into the picture. Sebastian is a bad boy-older, intriguing, and unpredictable. Carrie falls into the relationship that she was always supposed to have in high school-until a friend's betrayal makes her question everything. With her high school days coming to a close, Carrie will realize it's finally time to go after everything she ever wanted.

Rabid fans of Sex and the City will love seeing Carrie Bradshaw evolve from a regular girl into a sharp, insightful writer. They'll learn about her family background -- how she found her writing voice, and the indelible impression her early friendships and relationships left on her. We'll see what brings Carrie to her beloved New York City, where the next Carrie Diaries book will take place.

May 2010....Law, that was a good book!

Last night we met at Erin's to discuss her pick, The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  We loved the book!  It gave us a lot to talk about.  I think we talked more about this book than we have any other book... kudos to Erin for picking such a good book!

The book was based in the 1960's in Jackson, Mississippi.  The world was a little different then compared to now obviously.  The way that blacks were treated was pretty appalling to all of us.  Erin said she cried a lot during the book {that could have something to do with the little one that is growing in her belly... She's 13 weeks pregnant!}

I think all of us were left feeling sad and with the question, if we were living in the 60's what would we have done?  Would we have done something like Skeeter?  Or treated the maids like they weren't "worthy" like Miss Hilly?  I don't think any of us are capable of being as mean as Miss Hilly, but I wonder if we'd of had maids? {assuming we were wealthy of course} 

Amy L. read the book while visiting her sister in Mississippi and said it made the book very real for her, being in the south.  She said that things are still a little segregated {in the small town she was in}.  There aren't a lot of interracial couples, and she felt like the minority actually because she was white.  Another interesting thought is that this book was dated only 40-50 years ago, that made it even more "real" instead of "fiction".  Many of our parents and grandparents remember the segregation.

I know I'm thankful for this book, it gave me a greater sense to appreciate what the African Americans have had to overcome and I felt so sorry that they were ever treated so horribly.

If you want a good book to stir up lots of discussion and step a little into the past, pick up The Help...you won't be disappointed!

{Do you like the 1960's photo edit?}

See you girls next month to talk about Amy L's pick!!!!  {Insert clapping & screaming here}

Baby-Sitters Club... did you read it?

I cannot believe what I heard today!  The Baby-Sitters Club is coming back! 

Schlastic announced they are reissuing the series with updated covers!  I LOVED the Baby-Sitters Club books in elementary school...I would anxiously await their delivery to my front door (I was signed up to automatically receive the books in the mail as soon as they were released...yes, I was obsessed!)  Most of the time I started & finished the book in the same day... I couldn't put them down!  I'm SO excited to see the new books & share them with the little girls in my life.  If you want to read the interview that Ann Martin did with Oprah you can see it here. She also has an article in the NY Times that you can read here.
I still have my entire collection & I just might have to buy the newly released books too!!! 

May's Pick!

Erin Larson picked The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Be prepared to meet three unforgettable women:

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.
Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.
Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town...

I'm excited to get reading it...now if only Barnes & Noble could deliver the book to my doorstep!