Star Book Review: Confessions of a Call Center Gal by Lisa Lim

I was very excited to read the new release and debut from Lisa Lim, Confessions of a Call Center Gal. Having worked on a community phone line for a corporation with a large customer base for the past 5 year, I could relate to the setting of the novel and the job of the main character.

Madison (Maddy) Lee is just out of college and living in Pocatello, Idaho. With the economy in shambles and everyone fighting for jobs, she and her best friend Karsynn (Kars) have had no luck finding a job. When an advertisement comes out for phone service work at Lightning Speed Calling Center, the two girls jump at the opportunity and both are hired.

The working conditions at the Lightning Speed Call Center in Idaho are trying, to say the least. First, Maddy and Kars must undergo a month long training program in order to become qualified to assist customers calling in about everything from billing questions to Internet connection problems. At the training, they meet Mika, a gorgeous Russian about their same age, who becomes Maddy’s major crush. Unfortunately, Mika is already tied to the gorgeous Bulgarian, Ingeborg, who is just too nice to hate and they, too, quickly become friends. After the four friends complete training, they have a little graduation ceremony and are ready to begin work.

Work at the Lightning Speed Call Center is definitely not your typical office job. The callers seem to be a breed all their own. One such character calls in to seek assistance with his Internet service and instead of directly asking for help, he spells everything out – literally. Other callers are so irate by the time they get through to Maddy that they are not even willing to go through the mandated verification process and a manager must get involved. Other callers are more chipper, more upbeat and in general, nice to deal with, but they are almost completely computer illiterate, making for a challenging exchange. All in all, Maddy must learn to deal with a difficult boss, frustrated customers and of course, the normal day-to-day, life stuff, relationship issues, and family drama.

Confessions of a Call Center Gal was a fun chick lit book that I would categorize as part of a subgenre of “working girl” books, as it mainly focused on Maddy’s job  and the rest of the story, characters, relationships and events revolved around it. Aside from her job, however, prevalent themes include friendship, love and growing up. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who has worked in any customer service field before. I think you’ll really get a kick out of some of the incidents and humor. Also, I’d recommend it to anyone not in the customer service industry because I think they will get a taste for how it is on the other side of the phone.   

3 STARS

**Thank you so much to Lisa Lim who provided me with a review e-copy of Confessions of a Call Center Gal. I really appreciated the opportunity and hope to read more books by her in the future. For more information on Lisa Lim, her books, love of Anthropologie or just find out what else she’s been up to, visit her blog, http://confessionsofacallcentergal.blogspot.com/, where you will find all things loved by her, from fashion to food, fiction and more!**

Star Book Review and Contest: The Map of True Places by Brunonia Barry

The Map of True Places by Brunonia Barry takes readers and listeners on a psychological journey through the eyes of Zee. Zee was born and raised on the North Shore of Massachusetts, frequenting the towns of Salem and Marblehead. Zee is the product of the estranged marriage between her Parkinsonian-afflicted father, Finch, and her late mother, Maureen, who suffered from bipolar disorder. As you might imagine, Zee’s parents, especially the death of Maureen, have greatly affected Zee’s sense of self her entire life. Although she’s a well-respected psychological counselor in Boston today, Zee, at one time, had given in to her inner rebel and had an obsessive passion for stealing boats. She was very good at it, careful to always cover up her tracks, but like all things in life, her bad behavior eventually caught up with her and it was time for Zee to face the music, so to speak. In The Map of True Places, we find Zee at yet another crossroads in her life, dealing with the death of a client and the progressive illness of her father, and once again, Zee must grapple with a hard reality and learn to grow from her experiences.

          I would not consider The Map of True Places to be a traditional chick lit novel, but with its overarching theme of self-growth, I would classify it as women’s fiction. Like many novels of this genre, we meet our heroine at a place in her life where she is essentially backed into a corner or hitting rock bottom, as some might call it. Zee is faced with several difficult dilemmas that upon first glance seem to be rooted in various dramas involving her family, love relationships, and career. However, upon more careful inspection (and a lot of introspection), Zee realizes that she must do a lot of soul-searching before she can even begin to contemplate any of her outward problems. Zee embarks on a journey of self-exploration, learning that you can nerve be too old to grow.

          I enjoyed the set up of Zee’s character and the back and forth between the past and present during the opening prologue and first two parts of the novel. For me, it became harder to pay attention to the audio during Zee’s scenes with her father, Finch and his partner, Melville; but I must say the intertwining characters and intersecting storylines was very intriguing and worth your full attention during the entirety of the audio. As a psychology graduate student I especially loved the sneak peak I was given into the world of counseling as well as the deeper exploration of characters. I think this novel also hit so close to home with me because I am from Massachusetts and could picture the places Zee visited.

The Map of True Places takes risks that other novels do not, approaching the often taboo and difficult subjects of bipolar disorder, homosexuality and suicide. Brunonia Barry proves her talent as an artist of words, crafting articulate chapters and dividing the book into several sections. She is also the bestselling author of The Lace Reader. This was my first listen to narrator, Alyssa Bresnahan, who succeeds in creating a lovable heroine in Zee and fulfilling her duties as a variety of other, memorable friends and family.

3 STARS

For more information on Brunonia Barry, check out her web site at http://www.brunoniabarry.com/.

She also hosts two sites specifically for her bestselling novel, the Lace Reader, a story about a woman who can foretell the future in patterns of lace, and The Map of True Places. Visit http://www.lacereader.com/ and http://themapoftrueplaces.com/ for the book trailers, information on where to buy and more.

If you want to learn about the writing process and how Brunonia Barry was able to accomplish writing such a complex and popular novel, please check out the guest post she did at Lip Gloss and Literature back in April:

To WIN your very OWN COPY of THE MAP OF TRUE PLACES BY BRUNONIA BARRY, simply enter below.

You need not be a follower or re-publish this contest. Comment and be sure to include an email address where I might be able to reach you should you be the winner of one (1) paperback copy of The Map of True Places by Brunonia Barry.

Open to US/CANADA RESIDENTS ONLY. This contest will be active today through next Wednesday, May 25. The winner will be chosen at random via Random.org and announced the next day. A big thank you to Anna at FSB Media for providing a copy of The Map of True Places to the winner at Lip Gloss and Literature. Comment today to enter!! GOOD LUCK!!

Star Audio Book Review - Big Girl by Danielle Steel; Read by Kathleen McInerney

          Victoria Dawson looks nothing like her parents. She is blonde, with blue eyes, plump and even has a bulbous nose. She looks like Queen Victoria, at least that’s what her father, Jim, has always told her. She envisions a beautiful, regal woman in elegant dresses and decadent up-dos, but one day, when she’s six years old, she stumbles upon a picture of the queen and she realizes that her father’s comparison is more a cruel joke than a compliment. When Victoria turns seven, Jim and wife, Christine, have another baby girl, much to Jim’s dismay, who desperately wants a boy, but the winning consolation of it all is that newborn Gracie, looks exquisite – the perfect resemblance of both her mother and father. 

          Victoria grows up to be smart, successful and independent in her own right, fulfilling her dream of graduating college, living in NYC and becoming a teacher. Of course, all of these goals do not meet her parents expectations or wishes for her and there relationship continues to be strained. Gracie grows more beautiful with every day. She models, has many friends and boyfriends and above all, is the apple of both her parents’ eyes. In fact one day, Jim tells Victoria that she was the “Tester Cake” and Gracie the prized pie.

          As you might imagine, Victoria pulls farther away from her family with every year, insult and family reunion gone wrong; but when Gracie announces she’s getting married to her college sweetheart, Victoria has no choice but to return to the family that has shunned her all her life. This time armed with a successful, handsome, and smart boyfriend, Victoria is not alone in her misery. In fact, she’s not miserable at all and it might surprise a few people.

          Big Girl explores many issues in its saga of the life of Victoria Dawson, most notably weight, family and parenting, sibling rivalry, love, forgiveness, trust and growth. I was amazed at how much time Danielle Steel covered in this book with out feeling like she left out anything. She has a way of highlighting important dialogue and integral events to flesh out her characters and evoke just the right emotion from her readers. Partnering with Brilliance Audio and Kathleen McInerney, who read Big Girl, I felt like I was right there with Victoria through all of her moves, transitions and struggles. Kathleen McInerney has quickly become one of my favorite narrators, first listening to her on Emily Giffin’s Love the One You’re With, she has impressed me with her enunciation and soothing sound. It brought a level of calmness to some of the more infuriating scenes, but still evoked the necessary strength and compassion of Victoria’s story.

All in all, a quick and straightforward listen. Although it was a tad predictable at times, it left listeners with a happy ending and don’t we all need happily ever after sometimes?

      3 STARS

Star Book Review: Tales from the Yoga Studio by Rain Mitchell

Tales from the Yoga Studio was the first of a new series of books on yoga and friendship in Southern California by Rain Mitchell. Ms. Mitchell has shared a few articles on her writing process and the difficulty with which it was and the strength she gained from it. Fittingly, then, her series tackles the topic of yoga as a meditative practice for letting go and how a group of Southern Californian friends use it to get through some of the toughest times in their lives.

 Lee is the go-to guru of all yoga teachers in sunny L.A. and that’s just who friends Graciela, Stephanie, Imani and Katherine go to every week as they head over to Lee’s studio in Silver Lake for a workout that helps them sweat out all their demons. It’s not only the four friends who are aware of Lee’s special talents as a yoga instructor and sure enough, yoga empire, “Yoga Happens” seeks out Lee for one of their new chain studios opening up in LA, making her a bountiful offer, hard for any working mom, to refuse. Along with their lush offer, Yoga Happens has even guaranteed Lee a spot for her husband, Alan at the posh studio, where he can play his music for yoga goers. Like any offer that appears too good to be true, Yoga Happens contract is exclusive and if Lee accepts, she must close down her own quaint studio in Silver Lake.

Lee’s followers and close friends, Katherine, Graciela, Imani and Stephanie also have their fair share of issues going on at the moment. Katherine, newly sober, is having a difficult time allowing herself to trust others, especially one guy in particular. Will she give him and herself a chance at love or will she be too afraid to get close? Stephanie is battling her own demons while trying to keep her writing career alive. Will the script she’s currently working on be accepted or will she burn out before she can finish it? Graciela, a gorgeous hip hop dancer, has the chance of a lifetime to be in a video for Beyonce but will an unfortunate injury hold her back? Finally, Imani wasn’t so sure that yoga was for her, but as she begins checking out local studios with bff and paparazzi magnet, Becky, she starts to realize that it may be just the calm she needs to help her weather her own heartache.

I love yoga but still didn’t know what to expect from a contemporary women’s fiction book on the subject. I thought it started off somewhat slow, but something kept pulling me back into the story. I don’t know if it was the fluidity of the writing that was reminiscent of the peace and relaxation of child’s pose or the characters that highlighted the creativity and togetherness of female friendship; but by the story’s end I was hooked on SoCal’s soothing yoga practice and Rain Mitchell’s writing.

I will definitely be checking out the second book in this series when it comes out.

3 Stars

For more info on Rain Mitchell or Tales from the Yoga Studio, check out her web page:

http://www.talesfromtheyogastudio.com/

For one of the articles I posted by Rain Mitchell, check back to this post in March:

http://lipglossandliterature.blogspot.com/2011/03/writers-wednesday-with-rain-mitchell.html

***I received Tales from the Yoga Studio from FSB Media in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts and opinions of this review are my own.***

 

Star Book Review: Misery Loves Cabernet (Charlize Edwards #2) by Kim Gruenenfelder

Misery Loves Cabernet welcomes readers back into the life of personal assistant, Charlize “Charlie” Edwards where we find her in the next phase of her life. When we last read about her in A Total Waste of Makeup she was harried with the wedding of kid sister, Andy. While she’s off-duty as a stressed out maid of honor, Charlie is still busy bailing out another person close to her, neurotic boss and A-List movie star, Drew Stanton, of whatever wacky hijinks he’s got himself wrapped up in now, from getting his hand stuck in a toilet (again!) to kidnapping her ninety year old grandma, Mawv. Bffs, Dawn, Jenn and Late continue to keep Charlie on solid ground, maintaining their weekly girls night out to enjoy the eclectic entertainment of the newest drag queen shows in town. Charlie is still pining after handsome photog, Jordan, who has fled the states for a job in Paris and it doesn’t sound like he’s coming back anytime soon; but luckily a new man has entered her life in the form of a gorgeous Irish producer, Liam, who wants to cast Drew in his newest Indie film and it will be up to Charlie to convince Drew that scaling back to do a little film is in his bigger interests. Usually, she’s not one to get caught up in the business side of Drew’s life but when Liam says the magic three words, “filming in Paris” Charlie is on her phone to make sure Drew reads that script! Of course, life never works out nice and neat for Charlie and from here on she’s on yet another wild adventure as she tries to get to Jordan half-way across the world.

Charlie is such a lovable character that she and the crazy antics of her friends and family are definitely what made the story. In fact, I became so engaged in the book that I never really stopped to wonder what the point of it all was. Don’t get me wrong, because it is most definitely entertaining from page one to page 368. I even found myself laughing out loud at various parts to the point of a few eye-brow raises from others in my reading vicinity. I also must say that I just love the cover of this book! I think it is so cute, humorous and perfect to attract the eye of any chick lit fan and I will miss carrying it around. I was a little disappointed by the way the ending wrapped up and wished maybe things hadn’t ended so quickly, but all in all, I was entertained and reading Misery Loves Cabernet was like coming home to an old friend, Charlie, who I’d met in A Total Waste of Makeup. I can’t wait to check out Kim Gruenenfelder’s third novel, There’s Cake In My Future which just came out late 2010.

3/5 Stars

Star Audio Book Review - Delirium by Lauren Oliver; Read by Sarah Drew

           

            What would you do if you just met the love of your life but everyone told you that you had to give up on love...forever? In Delirium, Lauren Oliver’s second YA novel, readers and listeners are brought into a futuristic, dystopian world in which scientists have discovered a cure for the delirium, the disease that has been brought upon humans due to love. They say love causes a delirium that has been devastating to society through divorces, infidelity, heartache and even the exciting or “good” qualities associated with the feelings of love. Society promises that once “cured”, humans will no longer find themselves victim of the attachments, emotionality and instability of love; thereby freeing humans from the anguish and, by default, also, the blessings of love. The end result is a planned, predictable and more stable way of life. Anyone who goes against these rules and regulations is either labeled a sympathizer or a resistor and is hunted down and banished to exile forever. 

Lena Holoway, a high school student in Portland, Washington, has always done the “right” thing or more accurately, she’s always done whatever was expected of her. She eagerly awaits her procedure, counting down the days to when she will be cured of the “disease”. Prior to the procedure, she undergoes a detailed evaluation to find out what profession, spouse and other aspects of her future will entail. Scientific questioning reveals her future husband, college and career but one day, the unthinkable happens – and Lena falls in love with a boy in town named Alex. All of a sudden her whole world, her beliefs, her perceptions, her ideas, dreams and hopes for the future are all up in the air. She is more confused than ever and for the first time, Lena isn’t doing what’s expected of her. The girl who eagerly counted down the days until her procedure is now debating whether or not she even wants to have the procedure; only it might not be up to her to decide.

In a futuristic tale of Romeo and Juliet, Lauren Oliver explores what happens when a young girl comes of age and discovers love in a world where love has been forbidden. Find out what happens when she starts thinking for herself and how she learns to handle the conflicts and inner turmoil that take a toll on her psyche. Will she have the procedure that supposedly will free her from the restraints of love? What will become of her and Alex?

                                                                                                            

Sarah Drew does an excellent job narrating from the young adult perspective and has come become one of my favorite young adult narrators.

This was my first experience reading or listening to a dystopian-type novel and while I applaud Lauren Oliver for her creativity in manifesting a world in which science has broken the spell of love, I’m not so sure this is the type of book I am most interested in.  Like I said, I think Lauren Oliver did a fantastic job writing the story and has a great imagination for what it would be like to be a teenager, falling in love for the first time in a world where love had been banned but for me, I was not as interested in the concept as I would have hoped. Maybe it was because I had read so many great reviews of this book, that my expectations for it were unrealistically high, but there were many parts where I just felt the novel moved too slowly for me. Listening to Delirium definitely allowed for a more interactive and engaging experience for me, but overall, I was disappointed in the book as a whole. I would still be interested, however, in checking out Lauren Oliver’s first novel, Before I Fall, to see if maybe that is more a story to my liking. Check it out for yourself and tell me what you think! I still love the cover of Delirium – I think it is just beautiful.

  3/5 Stars

            

For more information on Lauren Oliver, visit her web site at

http://www.laurenoliverbooks.com/

   Other audio books read by Sarah Drew:

    The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell

              

Read my review of The Carrie Diaries at the Chick Lit Club!

Star Audio Book Review - Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen; Read by Susan Ericksen

This was my first introduction to the magical reality of Sarah Addison Allen and it was in stereo with the talents of new-to-me, narrator, Susan Ericksen. In Garden Spells, I met two estranged sisters who come from an eccentric family, the Waverley’s, who have been made known by their infamous mother and an even more bedazzling apple tree in their back yard garden. Claire Waverly, the more conventional sister, chose stay at home in their Southern town and embrace all that they were given by their mother and the apple tree. With the combination of a few tasty, ancestral recipes and the magic of the apple tree, Claire developed a prosperous catering company full of foods that would make even the most doubtful eater putty in their hands, shapeable and conforming to its hidden ingredients. The apple tree was a central figure, not just in Claire’s catering company but in the lives of all those who dared to eat one of its apples. Powerful and all-knowing not only in its great stature, the apple tree had the enchanting capacity to reveal the biggest event of a person’s life when one bit into one of its fruits. The allure of the tree was precisely what drew people to the Waverly’s and away from them, including Sydney Waverly, who spent the majority of her life running from it and their family’s secrets.

When Sydney has to escape David, the father of her only child, who is more dangerous than the mystical secrets of her past, she is forced to put aside her own childish and rebellious ways for the sake of her daughter, Bay, and returns home to the safety and the roots of her hometown. No sooner than Sydney comes home is she reminded of all the magic and mystery of her childhood and she finds herself having to confront her past and the people she spent so much time avoiding. On the one hand, it’s the first time Sydney has a chance to build a relationship with her sister, Claire, but not everyone is happy about her return home. Sydney and Claire find themselves working side by side on a journey full of love, life, mystery and magic.

Garden Spells was a true fairytale, complete with bad guys, love, revenge and of course, a little magic. Sarah Addison Allen and Sarah Ericksen made a good team of creator and narrator on this mystical journey of sisterhood and growth. For anyone who enjoys a good tale of magical realism with a little bit of Southern charm, this unabridged, fiction audio book is for you. Listen to it and others by Sarah Addison Allen.

3 STARS

Star Audio Book Review: The Book of Tomorrow by Cecelia Ahern; Narrated by Allie Coffey

     The only other book I have read by Cecilia Ahern was Love, Rosie (aka Where Rainbows End) but I am familiar with her flair for creating worlds filled with magic and fantasy. The Book of Tomorrow is no exception, incorporating something mystical into the reality of life in Ireland for teenager, Tamara Goodwin. After her father commits suicide, Tamara's life changes drastically. Her mother is a mess, unable to even get out of bed. No longer able to afford their posh home in Dublin, Tamara and her mother are forced to move in with Tamara's Aunt Rosalyn, who is as cold as ice. Even worse, something odd is about Rosalyn and ever since they arrived, she won't even let Tamara check on her mother to see how she is doing, always chiding her to “let her be and get her rest”.

     Tamara greatly misses her friends back home and doing all the fun things she's used to – from posting funny pictures on facebook to sending each other messages via Twitter - life is so much more dull in the country. That is until one day, a traveling library comes down the road, driven by Marcus, librarian and book aficionado, but it is one book in particular that attracts Tamara even more than the handsome book conductor. The book appears to be a diary of sorts with a padlock on the cover. Determined to unveil its contents, Tamara finds a way to break the diary open but is left with quite the surprise when she finds all its pages are blank. At least today they are. Tomorrow, all of sudden, the pages are filled with HER handwriting. As if that's not odd enough, the writing isn't about what happened yesterday or even today but the date on the page is always the very next day – The diary is written about Tomorrow.

     Mostly out of curiosity to find out if its contents are real, Tamara begins consulting the diary each day to see what will happen and strangely enough, everything it writes about comes true the next day!

     All too soon, the diary begins to reveal unexpected things and not all things that Tamara likes. She begins to wonder if she might be able to have an effect on their outcome since she knows what will happen before it does but sure enough one way or another, all the vents and circumstances of the diary still come true. Is the book a blessing or a curse? Tamara begins piecing together all kinds of events and secrets that no one wanted her to ever find out. What will Tamara do now that she holds the answers to so much. So soon? Who can she tell and will anyone believe her?

     Cecelia Ahern does a good job tying the fantastical together with some real world tough lessons, as her main character, Tamara Goodwin learns what it means to grow up and start caring about tomorrow. Ali Coffey does a good job narrating this magical tale as she tells it from the perspective of seventeen going on eighteen year old, Tamara Goodwin. She shows a wide range of character, switching voices from that of sinister and malicious Aunt Rosalyn to carefree and jubilant friend, Wesley.

3 STARS

Star Book Review: Sammi Ever After by Soma Helmi

First time author, Soma Helmi, wrote a fictional home-run with her debut novel, Sammi Ever After. True to the traditional format of Chick Lit novels, Sammi Ever After has readers follow one woman on her journey in search of self. When girl meets boy and they fall in love, it seems like everything is going to be happily ever after, but all too soon, he dumps her. To make matters worse, he leaves her stranded at an airport in a foreign country, in which she has no job and no place to live. Luckily, she has one true friend in the area who lets her cry and sulk on his couch for weeks on end, that is of course, until his girlfriend decides it’s time for Sammi to move on. Finally having to face the dilemma of starting over in a new city on her own, Sammi is determined to “fake it til she makes it”.

Find out what “happily ever after” means to Sammi as she travels from Indonesia to Australia to London to the Islands of Greece and then back to London in a story full of romance, friendship and travel. Join in as Sammi seeks out her own fairytale ending and story is and along the way much hilarity and humility ensue. One of the bits I absolutely adored in this novel was at the beginning when Sammi goes to dinner with Liam at the Red Lion. As her dish of chicken dinner comes out, Sammi reaches in her bag for Sambal, a sauce she never leaves home without. I imagine it must be the Indonesian version of Tabasco sauce. Little details like that can tell you so much about a character and I thought it was such a wonderful trait to add to Sammi’s character to make her a unique and unforgettable heroine.

Native Indonesian and first-time author, Soma Helmi, may already be established as a filmmaker, art director and graphic artist but I predict it won’t be long before she adds “acclaimed women’s fiction novelist” to her ongoing list of credits.

**Follow Soma Helmi on Goodreads!!

                                                                STAR RATING: 3 STARS

Star Book Review: The Big Love by Sarah Dunn (Audio); Narrated by Eliza Foss

     As many of you already know, one of my major aspirations in life is to become a published chick lit author. On my journey I have read two very influential books on “how to” become a successful chick lit writer; one, Will Write for Shoes: How to Write a Chick Lit Novel by Cathy Yardley; and two, See Jane Write: A Girls Guide to Writing Chick Lit by Sarah Mlynowski and Farrin Jacobs. Mlynowski and Jacobs (2006) book mentioned Sarah Dunn’s The Big Love over and over, citing her writing process and quoting some of the more efficient and notable lines from the novel. It has been on my “to-be-read” (or listened to) list ever since.

     Published in 2004, I considered this to be one of the earlier books of the chick lit genre, keeping this in mind as I heard the very much traditional and formulaic chick lit plot with which this book centered itself around. In such a “classic” style, the female heroine is catapulted on a search for self after losing the thing nearest and dearest to her heart (usually a boyfriend). To (very) briefly sum up this type of plot (or at least my interpretation of such a plot): girl loses boy; in turn, girl loses sense of self; girl forced to search for self; just when things seem to be going well, boy (or another boy) comes back; girl either decides she wants boy or that she doesn’t need him to survive; girl solidifies sense of self and accepts life and self for the better; and usually she lives happily ever after (with or without boy). Of course, most novels are much more complex than my (very) brief interpretation, and often throw in a few unique and unpredictable curve balls, but basically, I believe this was the formula most often followed in early, “classic” chick lit novels.

     Many things made The Big Love stand out for me apart from other ‘classic” chick lit books. I especially enjoyed the creativity of the opening premise in which the author chose to set the scene for main character, Alison, to lose the “love of her life”; Alison’s boyfriend leaves in the middle of a dinner party, with the excuse that he is just running to the store to get a bottle of mustard, only he never comes back. Not only does he not come home, but he calls to tell her that he’s been having an affair with his ex-girlfriend and is madly in love with her again – all the while, Alison’s dinner guests are still at their house. As the story continues, Alison is set up on various dates; contemplates the saga of her relationship and what led up to its demise and above all, begins a search for self as “Alison” rather than as “so-and-so’s girlfriend”. She finds herself wondering, was her ex “the big love”? Is there such a thing as “the big love”?

     I’m so glad I listened to the unabridged audio version, read by Eliza Foss. With its combination of a classic story line, winning female heroine, and fantastic narration, The Big Love had me at from its inception. Eliza Foss did a good job portraying each character, namely Alison, as she made her way on a journey in search of self in this comical and heartfelt story. Listen to the full audio to find out what she concludes in her quest for The Big Love.

Star Rating: 3 stars