Having It And Eating It by Sabine Durrant

After having my boyfriend move in with his teenage boys and becoming engaged, I find myself attracted to books about family life and marriage. This book caught my attention with its clever cover, and the back containing an excerpt of the chance encounter between Maggie Owen, a woman raising two small children and living with her boyfriend Jake, and Claire, the girl she's idolized since high school. When Claire reenters Maggie's life, Maggie finds herself questioning her choices and constantly wondering about Claire's seemingly glamorous lifestyle. When Claire begins opening up to Maggie and confessing that she's worrying about time running out for her to have children of her own, she also reveals she's fallen in love with a married man and is currently dating another one. Maggie can't help but notice that Jake is spending a lot of late nights at the office and seems distant, and that the gardener that lives in Claire's basement keeps flirting...and she's starting to flirt back.

This book surprised me because just when I thought I had the characters figured out, something happened that surprised me. Durrant writes all of them believably, from the nosy mothers who join Maggie at the playground to Jake's seemingly chauvenistic friend Ed, who seems all to happy to drag Jake away from his family life. The ending is quite satisfying, although somewhat sad, as characters are forced to live with their choices and realize that the grass is indeed greener on the other side (regardless of who's in charge of gardening it).

How to Be Bad by E. Lockhart, Sarah Mlynowski, and Lauren Myracle

I got this as an ARC (Advanced Reader's Copy) from Random House. For some reason they send me all of E. Lockhart's new books. Not that I mind, I really like her. This one, How to Be Bad is actually a collaborative effort between E. Lockhart, Lauren Myracle and Sarah Mlynowski. They all decided to write alternating chapters from alternating points of view (3 girls). All three girls live in Niceville, FL and work at the Waffle House.

Jesse starts the story. She is almost a senior in high school (which will be starting shortly) and she has just found out that her Mom has breast cancer. This terrifies her so much that she can't bring herself to tell her best friend, Vicks. But Vicks has enough on her mind - her boyfriend just left for the University of Miami to start school as a freshman and play football. Before he left they were inseperable, but he has only sent her one text message in two weeks. Finally, there is Mel, a girl who is obviously way too well off to be hostessing at the Waffle House. Mel has $400 jeans and diamond earrings. Jesse, who lives in a trailer park, chafes at the sight of her.

So when Jesse suggests a road trip for her and Vicks to go see her boyfriend in Miami, Mel offers to foot the bill as long as she can come. And so the three set off in Jesse's mother's old station wagon, and the adventure begins. They run into several alligators, cute boys, a house party, Disneyworld, and lots of other unexpected stops along the way. And even though their plans are thrown off course, this makes for a more interesting trip. Jesse, Vicks and Mel learn more about each other than they ever dreamed, and cemented all three friendships.

I did like the story. It was never dull and the three points of view melded well together. Although I did feel like sometimes they might have been trying to outdo each other with their plot twists. But the characters were fun and well developed.