The Bright Side of Disaster by Katherine Center

I loved the author's writing style in this book. Her particular brand of humour and honesty pulled me in from the beginning. I wanted to see what would happen to these people. I cared about Claudia and I believed that her conflicts were real.

However, I have to say that I was very disappointed to read another book about a woman who cannot effectively stand up for herself and whose self esteem was apparently so low that she would allow a man to treat her as poorly as he saw fit. I got so frustrated with Claudia that it was hard for me to finish this book. Claudia's passive acceptance of Dean's actions, just rubbed me the wrong way I wanted to see her stand up for herself and I was disappointed when she didn't. However, after thinking about this book I appreciated Claudia a little more, at times in our lives most women have accepted less than they deserved from the men in their lives. So even though I still don't like how Claudia behaved, it rang true for me. Finally, I must say that having had breastfed 3 daughters, it was nice to see someone give a pretty accurate account of how hard breastfeeding is for some at the beginning.

I was, originally, so disappointed in Claudia and sad for her that there was no way that I could recover enough of my initial liking of your writing style to really enjoy the book. However, this book made me think quite a bit, the characters also felt like real people, and for me those are always traits of wonderful authors. I look forward to Ms. Center's next book.

Simple Jess, an old title that was new to me

I read about this book at another site and I just had to see what made so many people think it was so great.
I have read Pamela Morsi books before, one of the first Morsi reads for me was "Doing Good" that book made me laugh, cry and tell others about it, I also went out to get a few more of her books to add to my TBR pile ( which is really three plastic roller boxes underneath my bed). When I realized that she also wrote some romance novels years ago, I thought, hmmm maybe I'll see what those are like. One of them made me so angry that I literally chucked it in the garbage. It just made me feel good!

However, Simple Jess is insightful and interesting. It will make you turn the pages. There were times, when as a woman, I was so infuriated by how the widow, Althea Winslow was treated that wanted to scream. However, the writing was so good that I believed it, I believed this could really happend and I believed in the feelings that each character was feeling. I have to say that at the end of this book I felt cheated, when I read a romance novel, I expect the end of the novel to be about the two main characters. I want to see the novel resolve itself with them. Not with two secondary character. Even having said that, this book is definitely a keeper, if you can find it. It took me a while.