Let's Bust a Recap : Just One Damned Thing After Another

Remember last year when I confessed that after a quick trip down to Florida, I came home with thirty books after visiting some of my favorite secondhand bookstores? 

Just One Damned Thing After Another was one of them. I was browsing the shelves at (you guessed it) The Book Shelter and that title popped out at me. I had never heard of it or the author Jodi Taylor, but you can't just pass by a spine like that without at least seeing what it's about. And when I turned it over and the first thing I read in big bold print was "the bestselling British madcap time-travelling series that seems to be everyone's cup of tea", then flipped open the front cover and saw that in place of a dedication, Jodi Taylor had written, "I made all this up. Historians and physicists—please don't spit on me in the street."—I decided it needed to come home with me. After reviewing the open slots on my bingo card, it was the obvious choice for "an impulse buy" and I found myself reading it at the end of the year. 

Unfortunately, it was a flop. 

According to the back cover: "Jodi Taylor is, and always has been, a history nut. Her Chronicles of St. Mary's, a wild mix of history, adventure, comedy, romance, tragedy, and anything else the author could think of, began as a self-published book called Just One Damned Thing After Another. It's now a bestselling, wildly addictive series." I had a hard time finding anything about the publication history of this book on the internet, but it's copyrighted 2013 in my edition and was published by Night Shade Books. I'm not sure what journey it took between its self-published beginnings to now being a twelve book series with the thirteenth book set to come out this summer, and I'm equally unsure how the term "addictive" could be applied to it, but apparently Jodi Taylor has found her audience. I'm just not in it.

So what's it about? Hard to say. Let me refer again to the back cover: "The Chronicles of St. Mary's tells the chaotic adventures of Max and her compatriots—Doctor Bairstow, Chief Leon Farrell, Mr. Markham, and many more—as they travel through time, saving St. Mary's (too often by the very seat of their pants) and thwarting time-travelling terrorists, all the while leaving plenty of time for tea. From eleventh-century London, to World War I, from the Cretaceous Period to the destruction of the Great Library at Alexandria, one thing is for sure: wherever the historians at St. Mary's go, chaos is sure to follow in their wake."

And, in fact, "chaotic" is the perfect word to describe this book. The plot (if you can call it that) is muddled at best, the multitude of characters unmemorable and nearly impossible to keep track of (I eventually just put a bookmark in the character list at the front because I was flipping back to it nearly every time a character's name was mentioned), and the writing was just bad (it did seem like the author shoved in every possible thing she could think of). Taylor definitely has a gift for humor, but this book would need a serious overhaul from a fantastic editor to make it worthwhile. Any kind of meaningful development was entirely nonexistent. At one point, Max referenced the fact that she'd been at St. Mary's for five years. If you had asked me how much time I thought had passed, I would have said only a few months. The "romance" is so out of left-field it comes as more of a shock than anything. And at no point did I ever feel even a hint of sadness when a character died. It just wasn't great. 

One would hope that the writing improves as the series continues, but that's not a rabbit-hole I'll be falling down any time soon. 

The tl;dr version: fun premise, poor execution. 

Have you heard of this series? If yes, are you a fan?

Let's Bust a Recap : The Joy Luck Club

Okay, so here's the thing: this book is bitter. And I'm having a hard time figuring out how to start this recap. So head out to left field with me and we'll see if we can't circle around to it.

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan is on all those must-read lists I like so much. But the first time I remember really cataloguing this title away in my brain library was a few years ago when a girl I knew in college started blogging about books. She listed this in her Top 5 Favorite Fictional Books EVER, and when I read that, I mentally filed it away as one to look out for. About a year after her post, Cody and I made our maiden voyage into The Book Shelter and this book came home in our stack. 

Fast forward about three and a half years and now I'm in a book club with some of my best friends. When they visited me up in NC last summer, this book on my shelf by AMY Tan caught my friend AMY's eye. While we were out and about downtown, she picked it up at a thrift store for like a quarter, and subsequently chose it as her next selection for our book club. 

So last September found me reading this collection of sixteen essays or short stories about four Chinese women, their American-born daughters, and the complicated relationships they all have with each other. The Joy Luck Club published in 1989 is the debut novel of Amy Tan, herself the American-born daughter of her Chinese immigrant mother, and it is the work she is still best known for despite having written five additional novels, a couple of children's books, and some non-fiction into the mix as well. In The Joy Luck Club, we are first introduced to Jing-Mei "June" Woo whose mother has recently passed away. Jing-Mei has been asked by her father to fill in her mother's spot at the Joy Luck Club, a group of Chinese women founded by Jing-Mei's mother in 1949 who get together to play mahjong. 

This book was a hard one for me. I thought the structure was really interesting, and I found the interlocking stories and shifting perspectives intriguing as well as challenging. I did a LOT of flipping back and forth to make sure I was connecting the right daughter with the right mother. The book is divided into four section, and each section has four stories. The first and last sections are the mothers' stories, the middle sections are the daughters' stories. I found the language really beautiful and thought the book was exceptionally well written. The imagery is very rich, and I definitely felt exposed to a lot of aspects of Chinese culture as I read it (though Tan has been criticized from some for her depiction of Chinese culture). I could probably read this book a hundred times and still not fully appreciate all the symbolism Tan employs to tell each woman's story.

But is this a book I would want to read one hundred times? I don't think so. As I said to start this recap, the word that comes to mind when I think of The Joy Luck Club is "bitter". I found it so harsh, and the fractured relationships between these mothers and daughters left me heartsick. While there was some attempt at communication and relationship-building between some of our characters, we have to wade through a lot of miserable life circumstances and the consequences of years of poor choices to get to even a glimmer of hope. Just as these stories are interconnected while being distinct, so these mothers, while connected to their daughters, seem to be cut off from them. It was really hard to read even while being really beautiful. While this is a book I might see myself revisiting at some point in the future, it is by no means one I would turn to again and again. While The Joy Luck Club undoubtedly is the type of book that lends itself to re-reading for a better grasp at understanding it, it would be hard for me to knowingly subject myself to that kind of trauma again. It's a book I would recommend, but wouldn't recommend. 

How's that for a recap? Have you read The Joy Luck Club or any of Tan's other work? Have you ever read a book that was traumatic while still somehow retaining beauty?

Let's Bust a Recap : Measure for Measure

Well, it's high time for some more Shakespeare around here and this year's choice for a comedy was Measure for Measure though this turned out to be another of Shakespeare's "problem plays" meaning it read more tragic than comedic. As I got deeper and deeper into the madness, I felt like Measure for Measure was a definite tragedy on par with Othello, but I guess since no one dies in the end, the First Folio people gave it the comedy stamp and so it remains to this day.

We open upon Duke Vincentio of Vienna cutting out and leaving the kingdom in the self-righteous iron fists of Angelo. Apparently, Vincentio has let things go to pot and Angelo has taken it upon himself to restore order starting with arresting Claudio and sentencing him to death for getting his girlfriend pregnant. 

Only Claudio is actually a pretty upstanding guy and everyone is outraged that he's on death row. Vienna is one big party town and unlike most of the philandering men around the block, Claudio is a one-woman man and the only reason Juliet isn't already his wife is because of a legal technicality. Like, basically they're just waiting on the paperwork to clear. 

When Claudio's friend Lucio finds out what's happened, he rushes off to find Claudio's sister Isabella who is in a convent on the brink of becoming a full-fledged nun. He begs her to go to Angelo and get her brother off the hook. Why Isabella is the only qualified candidate for this job, I'm still not sure, but away she goes to try to talk sense into Angelo.

She and Angelo get into it, and evidently, Isabella is so super-fine that Angelo can barely contain himself and by the end of their debate, he tells Isabella that he'll let Claudio off and lasso her the moon and anything else she wants if she'll just sleep with him one time. 

You see what's happening here, right? He's got Claudio going to the chopping block for the very crime that he's all hot and heavy to commit with Isabella. 

Isabella tells him exactly what he can do to himself and threatens to out him to the entire city; Angelo responds by totally gaslighting her. Because who's going to believe this little girl over Mr. Law-and-Order?

What a scumbag.

Isabella heads straight to her brother in jail and is all, "My dude, say your prayers and man up to meet your Maker because I would rather die myself than give up my innocence." To which Claudio is all, "No doubt, I would kill that guy myself if I wasn't locked up." But after two more seconds changes his tune to, "Would it really be the worst thing?" And Isabella is all, "Get ahold of yourself!"

Meanwhile, some random friar that's been skulking around town and hanging out in the jail overhears everything and takes Isabella aside for a chat. But is it really a random friar? Of course not. It's Duke Vincentio in disguise because he never had any business to attend to out of town. He just wanted to shake off the yoke of responsibility for a while and let Angelo mete out some justice of biblical proportions while he watches undercover, I guess. 

So he pulls Isabella aside and tells her that she should go back to Angelo and agree to do the nasty with him as long as he consents to meet her in the dead of night and keep his mouth shut the whole time. To which Isabella replies, "Does anyone even know what a conscience is?" And then Friar Duke is all, "No, no; we'll send this chick Mariana who's in love with Angelo." And Isabella is all, "Seriously? I wouldn't send any other woman to degrade herself in this way either." But then Friar Duke explains that Mariana is actually Angelo's fiancée and he owes it to her to marry her but has declined to fulfill his commitment ever since her dowry was lost at sea. So Isabella's like, "Oh, I guess it's fine then."

What?!

So Mariana goes off and has her little incognito fling with Angelo.

But then Angelo sends a message to the prison ordering Claudio's execution to commence immediately.

MEGA-SCUMBAG.

When Friar Duke gets word of this, he then concocts a plan to execute some other poor schmuck who looks like Claudio and send his head to Angelo instead. Which they do. And then he tells Isabella (who thinks her brother was just beheaded) and Mariana (who just entrapped Angelo) to go plead their case to the Duke (aka HIMSELF) who's arriving back in town any minute. 

He then does a quick wardrobe change and makes his grand entrance into Vienna. So now we've got a nice little audience for Isabella and Mariana to rat out Sir Scumbag. They air their grievances and Angelo is all, "They're both crazy." And Duke Vincentio is like, "Unless you can present this friar, you're both liars."

At which point of the play I am absolutely raging. 

The duke ducks back out and changes back into his friar disguise so he can come back in and verify everything the girls said. To which Angelo is still like, "Why should anyone believe you?" And then Duke Vincentio pulls of his mask and is all, "Gotcha, sucker."

You'd think that right about now we'd string Angelo up the nearest pole, right?

You'd be wrong. Because he gets to live and be married to Mariana, Claudio shows up (to Isabella's profound gratitude) and gets to live happily ever after with Juliet, and Duke Vincentio ups and proposes marriage to Isabella.

No. NO. NO. No.

First of all, I'm so over Shakespeare's mindless, thirsty women who still want the most despicable men even after those men spit in their very faces. Second of all, Angelo should have burned at the stake. He is so gross.

Isabella does not answer Duke Vincentio's marriage proposal. There's a scripted silence which a lot of people interpret to mean she accepts him, but for the sake of my sanity, I have to believe she turns up her nose, marches her little behind back to the convent, and becomes a nun for the rest of her days. SHE HAS TO, RIGHT?

The only truly comedic elements of this play were the little exchanges between Lucio and the duke wherein Lucio is unwittingly bashing the duke to his face while he's disguised as the friar, and then dogs on the friar to the duke not realizing they're the same person—that's funny. Duke Vincentio ultimately "punishes" him by sentencing him to marry some prostitute he knocked up—ummm, not quite as funny. 

Y'all. I just can't. Like I said at the beginning, this one was a tragedy for me. It made me more mad than Othello, and I could still spit tacks over that abominable ending. Angelo is the worst, Duke Vincentio not much better, and Mariana is on a level with Helena of women who could do better and ought to know it. Geez.

Personally, I'd call this one of Shakespeare's more compelling plays, but don't read it if you're not ready to rail against the universe for a little while. Hopefully next year's comedy will furnish a few more laughs. 

Let's Bust a Recap : The Selection Trilogy

We're going to start this post off with a little bookish confession: I'm not a library user. I don't even have a library card, and I haven't checked any books out of any library since I was a child. I'm a slow reader and I don't need the pressure of deadlines in my reading life. But in January, when the book club decided to read The Selection by Kiera Cass, I borrowed my husband's library card, got me down to our local library in town and checked out the trilogy. I didn't really have any personal desire to read these books, and I figured they would be a one-off for me. 

(SPOILER: I was right.)

The Selection, The Elite, and The One by Kiera Cass were published in 2012, 2013, and 2014 respectively, and from what I can tell, the trilogy is pretty popular with its demographic. There are a couple other books in the series along with several spin-off novellas. Every person that I know who has read these loved them, so my opinion is definitely in the minority on this set (although I found plenty of my people in the Goodreads review section). 

In The Selection, we are introduced to 17 year old America Singer who through a series of absurd unfortunate events, finds herself in the Selection with 34 other young ladies who are in a Bachelor-style competition to marry Prince Maxon of their dystopian country Illéa. America has recently broken up with her secret boyfriend Aspen and really has no interest in marrying Prince Maxon because she's so above all this and is only participating so she can get some good meals and help financially support her family back home. (Can you just see me rolling my eyes?) 

A lot of people have described these books as a cross between The Hunger Games and The Bachelor. I've never had any interest in The Hunger Games—books or movies—and I find the concept of The Bachelor completely inane. So it didn't come as a shock to me that I couldn't get into these books. On top of the fact that the content wasn't my cup of tea to begin with, I found the writing rather juvenile, America to be an entirely unlikable character, and most of the plot hilariously predictable and impossibly convenient. The books weren't hard to read, and I can see why girls might find this series entertaining, but I found America's flip-flopping, spineless, wishy-washy attitude tiresome by the end of the first book and nearly unbearable by the end of the second. I didn't think any of the characters were written with any consistency, and Cass didn't develop any of the remotely interesting plot points she dropped in the book. It just didn't work for me.

My book club was less than impressed with my complete lack of enthusiasm for these so I'll reiterate that my opinion—at least among the people I actually know in real life—is definitely in the minority. I'm glad I was able to find them at our library so I didn't waste any money on them and was able to return them for someone else to enjoy. But these just weren't for me, and I wouldn't recommend them. (Book Club, please don't kick me out.)

Have you ever come to blows with a friend over a book that she loved and you didn't?

Let's Bust a Recap : The Blue Castle

Up to this point in my life, I would tell you that I am a huge fan of Anne Shirley. In every scenario where I'm mysteriously left on a deserted island until the end of time, the Anne books are the ones I'm taking with me. I have two entire sets of the eight book series: my beloved paperbacks that my mom gave me when I was in the fourth grade, and the gorgeous hardcovers my husband found for me at an obscure online Canadian bookstore. I've lost track of how many times I've read this series from beginning to end, most recently finishing them up once again in January of last year. These books are always in my rotation, and much as I might try, I cannot choose a favorite from among them.

But this post isn't about Anne of Green Gables. My point is: up to this point in my life, I would tell you I'm an Anne Shirley fan—not a Lucy Maud Montgomery fan. Much as with my darling Christy Miller and Robin Jones Gunn, I had some secret aversion to venturing outside of the Green Gables canon into Montgomery's other work of which there is much to be explored. But just as I discovered a deeply held love for Gunn's work outside the world of Christy and friends, I have recently dipped my toes into Montgomery's Blue Castle and have found myself just as charmed and delighted with her writing as I might have expected given she authored my favorite books in the world. 

And now there's no turning back. 

For some reason that I can only chalk up to retail therapy (of the bookish variety) in the midst of the monster life changes we were going through, I found myself adding a host of L.M. Montgomery paperbacks to my AbeBooks shopping cart last summer. Instead of just buying a couple titles to ease myself slowly into this venture, I checked out with thirteen. Because go big or go home, right? And a few months later around my birthday, I decided to treat myself to one to fill the "book from your favorite genre" box on my unread shelf book bingo card. 

And that one was The Blue Castle, originally published in 1926. This novel is one of the very few adult works of fiction that Montgomery penned in her career and the only one set entirely outside the setting of Prince Edward Island. In it, we meet twenty-nine year old Valancy Stirling who is now very much considered an old maid by her nag of a mother and the rest of her dreadful extended family. After being diagnosed with a terminal heart condition (which she keeps secret), Valancy decides to start making up her own mind about things beginning with a little brutal honesty with her family—leading them to believe she has lost her ever-loving mind—and eventually resulting in a marriage proposal to the town renegade Barney Snaith—leading them to absolute shock and horror.

And I loved every word. L.M. Montgomery's wit is razor sharp and her prose as lovely as ever. I was drawn into the story, and while the plot certainly wasn't earth-shattering, I still enjoyed the journey all the way to the pleasant conclusion. 

While nothing will ever supplant my precious Anne books (or my Christy books for that matter), I am very much looking forward to continuing my jaunt through the rest of Montgomery's work, and am so pleased to find I have a whole new set of books I can count on when I need a guaranteed reading success. I'd definitely recommend The Blue Castle, and in fact, I promptly pressed it into my mother's hands nearly as soon as I finished reading it myself. 

What author never lets you down when you need a guaranteed good read? And where should I head next with L.M. Montgomery? I'm thinking Emily of New Moon.

Let's Bust a Recap : Church Membership Books

Today's post is a 3-for-1. Last Sunday, after sharing our testimonies with our church, they voted to accept us as members. Hooray! One of the most intimidating things for me about uprooting our lives and moving last year was the prospect of finding a new church family. Not only have I never had to do that before—I grew up in church under my own dad's preaching—I deeply loved our Florida church family and the thought of finding any other church that I could love like that was a near-impossibility in my mind. I knew God would guide us to the right place, but the whole endeavor was daunting nonetheless.

As it turns out, we ended up joining the very first church we visited in North Carolina. To be clear, it was not the only church we visited, but it was the first church we visited our first Sunday after moving here. I think God has a sense of humor that way. 

Anyways, being the reader that I am, I decided to seize the opportunity to read the books we have about church membership. I've always taken church membership seriously, and because of the way I was raised, I took it for granted that all Christians took church membership seriously as well. As I grew and observed the world around me, I quickly realized that this is not the case. Church-hopping or even regularly attending a church without ever actually joining seem to be perfectly reasonable options for a lot of people. Jumping ship as soon as something you don't like occurs seems to be the socially accepted protocol.

So is church membership really important? I believe that it is. But why do I believe that? Before I read these books, I would have had a hard time articulating my answer to that second question.

The three books I read while we were in the process of joining our church are Church Membership by Jonathan Leeman, I Am A Church Member by Thom S. Rainer, and What Is A Healthy Church Member? by Thabiti M. Anyabwile. And I read them in that order. Naturally, reading three books on the same topic by three different authors is going to lead to a little comparing and contrasting, but overall, I found all three books to be helpful and Biblically sound. 

The first book I read, Church Membership by Jonathan Leeman, was the most comprehensive in what church membership is and why it is important. This book helped me solidify why I believe church membership is Scriptural, and this is the book I would hand to the person asking if church membership is really a big deal. I did find Leeman's voice to be a little abrasive at the start of this one. In talking it over with my husband, he made the comment that sometimes Leeman can come across as "This is right because I say it is" instead of "This is right because God says it is" and that did feel true at times as I was reading his book. But it's very easy to read a tone into something based on how I'm feeling as I'm reading it, and the fact of the matter is: Leeman backed everything in the book with Scripture. As I continued to read, that obnoxious edge I felt at the beginning wore off, and by the end I was truly appreciative of Leeman's thorough and instructive approach.

The second book I read, I Am A Church Member by Thom S. Rainer, was the book I was looking for when I began this endeavor. While still giving a clear, Biblical defense for the importance of church membership, Rainer's book was the most practical, giving hands and feet to what it is to be a healthy, functioning church member. This is the book I would hand the person who already has a high view of church membership, but wants to be a better member. This book would be great to do with a small group or in a new member class. Rainer includes excellent study questions at the end of each chapter making it even easier to facilitate that. I also found Rainer's voice to be the most loving and engaging. I read this book easily in one sitting, and I found myself in tears at times while reading it. This is the only book of the three that I definitely see myself revisiting in the future. 

The third book I read, What Is A Healthy Church Member? by Thabiti M. Anyabwile, was the most philosophical. This is a companion book to Mark Dever's books Nine Marks of a Healthy Church and What Is A Healthy Church? (of which I have not read either...and don't intend to). While I didn't disagree with anything in Anyabwile's book, it was my least favorite of the three. It is very Academic and—I'll be totally honest with you right now—very Boring. His writing, in stark contrast to Leeman's and Rainer's, was clinical and unemotional. I found his book to be the least accessible of the three, and I might hand this to the person who is in grad school or is writing their own book on the topic of church membership. 

The best thing I can say for all three of these books is that each of their respective authors backed everything they presented in their books with Scripture. They were each helpful to me, and I'm thankful to have them in my library as a resource on a topic that's important to me. While I probably wouldn't recommend Anyabwile's book to anyone, I would definitely recommend Rainer's or Leeman's depending on what a particular reader might be looking for. 

Mostly, I'm so thankful to God for bringing us to our new church family, and I'm thankful that through this process, He brought me to a deeper understanding of His plan for the local church and church membership. 

Let's Bust a Recap : To All the Boys

Oh Lara Jean. I can't be the only bookworm to happy sigh every time I recall a book I particularly loved, right? And this adorable trilogy falls squarely into the Happy Sigh category. 

I read these books last July for my recently formed book club, and may I just say: we came out bangin' in our little book club. Our first month we read The Penderwicks and followed up immediately with To All the Boys—both grand slams for me. Even though our technical book club "assignment" was only to read the first book in each of these series, I read all five Penderwicks books in quick succession, and I inhaled the To All the Boys trilogy in a week. 

First of all, this trilogy is perfect summer reading. Light, fun, unputdownable—it checks all my boxes. Second, I have to take a second to crush on how cute the physical hard copies are themselves. I also can't be the only bookworm to crush on some cute books, can I? I think if we're all honest with ourselves, we can admit that even though we're not supposed to, sometimes we just judge a book by its cover, and I have to confess that these cutie hardcovers make my day every time I look at them. If you look closely at the photo, sans dust jackets each book is a popping pink, sky blue, and purple. I'm so glad I stumbled across the hardcover editions at The Book Shelter instead of settling for the paperbacks. In fact, I ordered the middle book off amazon because I only found the first and third installments at The Book Shelter and even though one of my friends offered to send me the second book for free because she had an extra copy, I declined because I needed the hardcover. Are you so over me crushing on these books? I get it. Let's move on to the actual recap. 

In To All the Boys I've Loved Before, our main character Lara Jean discovers that all the love letters she's ever written (five total, to be exact) have somehow been mailed out and ended up in the hands of the boys who were never meant to see them—including her older sister's boyfriend. (If you're a female, you should have just died a little inside hearing that premise.) The resulting consequences land Lara Jean in a fake relationship with one of her letters' recipients to avoid dealing with the awkwardness of confronting Margot's now ex-boyfriend who is still super-close with the family. Throughout the trilogy, Lara Jean and Peter have to navigate whether or not they are developing real feelings for each other and learn to trust each other despite their unconventional beginnings. 

I loved every second. To All the Boys I've Loved Before was published in April of 2014; P.S. I Still Love You a year later in May of 2015; and Always and Forever, Lara Jean two years later in May 2017. God bless all the hearts that were reading these books as new releases because I would have actually laid down and died if I had not been able to immediately start reading P.S. I Still Love You upon finishing To All the Boys I've Loved Before. The three together read like one big novel, and I would have lost every single friend I have complaining about having to wait for the next installment. 

My book club buddies and I couldn't help comparing the Covey girls to the Penderwicks because in both series, we have tight sisters who fiercely love their widowed dads. The dynamics between Margot, Lara Jean, and Kitty and the conflicts they have to navigate are different than what the four Penderwick girls go through, but in each series the love is so authentic and real. I fell in love with both families and was rooting for them with my whole heart. 

In rare form, I actually watched the To All the Boys movies that were adapted for Netflix before reading the books, and, though I enjoyed the movies, didn't have any serious plans to read the books until one of my favorite bloggers Sheree at Keeping Up With the Penguins reviewed To All the Boys I've Loved Before on her blog. After hearing her glowing review, I immediately decided these were must-reads for me, and I'm so glad I didn't miss out on them. As per usual, the books offered so much more for me to love than the movies ever could by themselves, but in reading them, I still thought the movies were sweet and perfectly cast (with the possible exception of Jordan Fisher playing fair-haired John Ambrose McClaren). I actually called my brother who lives in Hollywood and works in the movie industry and told him to make Netflix release these on DVD so I could add them to my collection. (Still waiting, Reagan...)

Anyway, I will 100% be visiting Lara Jean again...maybe even this summer. While I don't think this trilogy is for everyone and wouldn't recommend it as widely as I would The Penderwicks, it was definitely for me and I'm so glad Sydney picked it for book club because otherwise, who even knows how long it would have been till I got to meet the Coveys?? Thanks, Syd!

What books make you Happy Sigh? And do you crush on cute books?