Rumor Has It

Book: Rumor Has It by Jill Mansell


"In a town this small, a secret is hard to keep"

Book Synopsis: Londoner Tilly Cole discovers the perils of smalltown life in Mansell's perfectly executed exemplar of fluff. After her live-in boyfriend does a runner, Tilly ditches London for Roxborough and a job as assistant to interior designer Max Dineen. Much of the town's gossip centers on handsome ladies' man Jack Lucas, and despite his almost irresistible charm, Tilly resolves not to be the latest notch on his bedpost. [via Amazon]

Book Notes: Freshly single and looking for dire change from the London scene, Tilly decides to apply as a Girl Friday in the little town of Roxborough. Her boss, Max, just happens to be an ultra sexy but very gay interior designer who lives with his teenage daughter Louisa, whose mother (and Max's ex-wife) is a famous soap-opera star in the United States. They all warn her about the infamous Jack Lucas, the town's notorious yet most sought after bachelor. With his good looks, wit and keen sense of humor, Tilly finds herself drawn to his captivating charm but is slapped back to reality by cautionary tales of his reputation.


What I found so interesting with this story is that it's quite rare to find a chick lit book that has a dynamic and stellar ensemble that you felt like rooting for everyone's happy ending. It brilliantly combined the various forms of love and relationships and surprisingly proved to be so much deeper that your typical love-hate story (most especially for her best friend Erin). It was impressive to have such memorable characters that had their own unique sub-stories and perspectives that tied up nicely in the end.

Light, fun, and punchy with character that could easily be your friends, it's easy to see why Jill Mansell has developed a chick-lit following.


Quotable Quotes:


"Logically I knew it wasn't my fault, but mentally I was at rock bottom. My husband was gay and, let me tell you, that doesn't do wonders for your ego. I lost all my self-confidence. I'd never felt so physically, unattractive, so completely undesirable."


"Sorry. Jack's a good bloke, but... Maybe not ideal happy ending material."


"You can't ending something that hasn't had a beginning." 

Books vs E-books

Paperback Book Loot

I've been a Kindle user for a couple of months now and I love it to bits and pieces. It's such an amazing little device and it fit perfectly into my always-on-the-go-lifestyle. Instead of picking which books to pack in, I get to bring along a library, and still get to shop for new ones no matter where I am in the world! But it suddenly dawned upon me that I miss paper books—a lot!

Did you know that only 15% of Kindle users stop buying print books? Yup, that means I'm in the 85% that think the Kindle is awesome but are still old school at heart. There's nothing as fulfilling as seeing a stack of books you've read piled up, or browsing through your bookshelf searching for titles, the smell of a fresh from the box book, the texture of the cover and the anxiety attacks of damaging the book! It's really all part of the experience, and I missed it!

So I figured, lets pull a Hannah Montana stint here and have the best of both worlds—I'm a Kindle reader and an old school paperback reader!

I finally got around to Fullybooked since I couldn't stop thinking about The Rossetti Letter. The last I was there, I was still deciding whether to read it on my Kindle or old school paperback. The latter eventually won my mental debate but when I got there earlier, it was out of stock. (NOOOOO *slow motion action trailer voice*)

It was the curse of the part 2. The Devlin Diary was available (although unrelated stories) i was still very adamant on reading The Rossetti Letter first. I thought about just pulling out my Kindle and getting it via Whispernet, but the goal of the afternoon was old school paper reading. So with a quick trip to customer service, they worked their magic and sourced out the book for me! * yay! game show applause*

There was also an event going on, and I badly wished I was more familiar with the work of Rafe Bartholomew author of Pacific Rims. To a lot of book worms, meeting an author is much like meeting a rockstar, so it was pretty cool seeing his fans (and him of course)!

Anyway, it was a pretty awesome day and I got a whole new set of book loot...

1. First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde
2. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
3. The Alchemyst by Michael Scott
4. The Devlin Diary by Christi Phillips

and I even slipped in a copy of one of my fave movies... The Rebound (i love real dvds that are priced reasonably!)

So now its really all about which I wanna begin with first! hmm...

Now you guys know whats on my TBR list, let me know what's on yours! Share your book loot!

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose

Book: Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose by Tony Hsieh

"Powered by service"

Synopsis: The visionary CEO of Zappos explains how an emphasis on corporate culture can lead to unprecedented success. Pay new employees $2000 to quit. Make customer service the entire company, not just a department. Focus on company culture as the #1 priority. Apply research from the science of happiness to running a business. Help employees grow both personally and professionally. Seek to change the world. Oh, and make money too. In his first book, Tony shares the different business lessons he learned in life, from a lemonade stand and pizza business through LinkExchange, Zappos, and more. Ultimately, he shows how using happiness as a framework can produce profits, passion, and purpose both in business and in life. [via Amazon]

Book Notes: You know a book is good when right after you put it down you have this overwhelming feeling of wanting to learn so much more—that was exactly what I felt after! I suddenly found myself at the Zappo website looking for all those uncanny details written in the book. With some of the insanely hilarious anecdotes, I was so close to having some random and totally unrelated conversation with one of their live chat customer representatives. I even signed up for a copy of their famous culture book and started following their visionary CEO on twitter.

The book was easy to read and extremely relatable. It wasn't about Internet jargon and html codes, it was their remarkable story from the brink of bankrupcy to becoming a billion dollar Internet sensation. But more than the dollar signs and the added zeros to the their paychecks, the Zappos story is really about the culture they managed to cultivate. It wasn't just a business, but a family, a network of individuals who were passionate, driven and imaginative. Their very unique transparent company structure was fascinatingly employee oriented and prided in their development and advancement within Zappos. I suddenly found myself googling their offices and thinking what a pretty kick-ass environment to be a part of! I even made a mental note that the next time I find myself in Vegas, I should sign up for one of their tours.

Overall I thought it was a very timely book for me to have read especially with the months pending to the opening of my business. It gave me a different perspective on how to be a boss and how to relate to my employees. These little people are the backbone of your business and they must be nurtured to be the best employees possible, and thats your job as the boss. It made me realize how important it is to create a working atmosphere that doesn't feel like work. It has to remain challenging, exciting and fun combined with getting everything required done.

Quotable Quotes:

"I always fantasized about making money, because to me, money meant that later on in life I would have the freedom to do whatever I wanted. The idea of one day running my own company also meant that I could be creative and eventually live my life on my own terms."

"We had no idea where it would lead us, but wherever it was, we knew it had to be better than feeling bored and unfulfilled. We were ready for an adventure."

"I thought about how easily we were all brainwashed by our society and culture to stop thinking and just assume by default that more money equals more success and more happiness, when ultimately, happiness is really just about enjoying life."

"I had decided to stop chasing the money and start chasing the passion. I was ready for the next chapter in my life."

"Looking back, a lot of our growth happened that way. We'd just throw ideas against the wall to see if they'd stick, improvise and make it happen."

"Play only with what you can afford to lose."

"Envision, create and believe in your own universe, and the universe will form around you."

"Some of us tried to figure out what our true passions were so that we would have something better than partying to focus on. I was one of those people."

"There's never one way to do things, but an incredible amount of ways to get things done. It takes an open and creative mind to find, invent and execute them."

"We learned a great lesson: If you just focus on making sure that your product or service continually WOW people, eventually the press will find out about it."

"...they saw a real-life example that it was actually possible to run a values-based company that also focuses on everyone's happiness. They saw that it wasn't just theory, that there was a way to combine profits, passion and purpose."

Once and Always

Book: Once and Always by Judith McNaught

Synopsis: Suddenly finding themselves orphans in America, Victoria and her sister return to England to stay with their remaining living relatives. Victoria was sent to live with an elderly cousin, the Duke and his son, Jason. Their love story embarks with the Duke trying to match Victoria and Jason, much to the horror of the two. Victoria is keen that her childhood sweetheart, Andrew, would find her, marry her and take her home to America. But when Victoria believes Andrew has married another, the Duke pushes for a quick engagement. Suddenly Andrew calls on Victoria only to find it was too late for she was already a married woman.

Book Notes: I felt like the character Andrew could have played a much bigger role in this book. His sudden appearance and disappearance was absolutely senseless especially since I quite honestly rooted for him because I didn't like Jason's character. He merited sympathy for having a horrible childhood, and he deserved recognition for his self-made wealth, but this was a classic tale that money cannot buy manners. Try as he might to be a gentleman but he raped her twice in the book. Not only that, he treated her like a common whore, giving her jewellery after every deed. There came a point when I couldn't understand how and why they fell in love with each other.

There could have been so much more to this story and so much less of the other stuff. It had the makings of a good plot, gone terribly wrong with a cruel, self-loathing, leading man.

Whitney, My Love

Book: Whitney, My Love by Judith Mc Naught

Synopsis: Whitney is a strong-headed country girl with a fixed obsession that she would one day marry her childhood crush, Paul Sevarin. Tired of her antics, her father sends her to Paris to live with relatives and learn the proper ladylike manners. Suddenly, Whitney was no longer an awkward infatuated juvenile—Paris has transformed her into a charming rare jewel. From the town joke, she was the toast of Paris with suitors falling all over themselves to win her over. But with her heart was still back in England, anxious to finally win Paul's affection. But unknowing to Whitney, the Duke of Claymore has taken a fancy with her and with the sudden financial difficulties of her father, she is suddenly betrothed to him. Posing as her neighbour, the Duke sets out to court Whitney although she wants nothing to do with him.

Book Notes:With their love-hate relationship, it was poised to be a very interesting love story. It constantly pulled on my heartstrings, and I felt butterflies in my tummy the entire time I was reading the book. But upon further scrutiny, I realized how dysfunctional her main characters are. They were highly emotionally abusive and often too proud and stubborn to communicate properly with one another. There was also a scene in the book during one of the blind rage black outs of the Duke that I felt was so horrid and emotionally wrenching. If you decide to read this, be the judge of this scene.

But that aside, truth be told I enjoyed this book because I happen to like complicated, dysfunctional and passionate characters. Bottom line: I just want to point out that this is a work of fiction, and although this book has some violent scenes, any woman who finds herself in an abusive relationship should not be blinded by a false kind of love.


***edit: January 07, 2013***
At this point i have lost count on how many times i have reread this book! in the three years since ive read this i always seem to find myself running back to it just to relive some fond memories. Its come to a point that sometimes i feel like these characters are real, like as if i know them.

Sometimes it even scares me a little that i have placed Clayton at a pedestal, as if yearning that his likeness would come to life some how. (clearly, i still do have a penchant for the dysfunctional for that seems to be the only normal i know of) there is just something about him, from his physical attributes to his character flaws, i cant help by keep falling in love with him.

I reread my earlier review and it sounded very constricted to how i imagined internet readers to judge it by but screw it... i bloody love this book! there is something about this book that i cant seem to get enough of, and must continue to relive every moment and all 700 pages of it!

Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story

Title: Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story by Christopher Moore

Synopsis: Here's something different: a vampire novel that's light, funny, and not at all hackneyed. Between scenes of punks bowling frozen turkeys on the graveyard shift in a supermarket, or snapping turtles loose in a loft and gnawing on designer shoes, this novel has comic charm to spare. But it also packs an appealingly downbeat message about the consumer culture: Becoming a vampire has given the twentysomething heroine "a crampless case of rattlesnake PMS"--a grumpy mood in which she realizes that she can dress to the nines as a "Donner Party Barbie" and still end up disillusioned and unhappy, just another slacker doing her own laundry and watching sucky TV 'til the sun rises. [via Amazon]

Book Notes: It was good to take a break from the heavy, brooding vampire love stories that's been all over pop culture and Christopher Moore's take on the vampire-human love story was absolutely hilarious. You get a wide-eyed, naive, country boy in the big city and a newly turned bombshell vampire trying to figure out life and their newly discovered urges together. It was fast, and punchy with jokes carefully placed at just the right moments. It was also brilliantly set in Downtown San Francisco and I loved the easy references to landmarks I was so familiar with. It made the story feel so much more real—like I knew exactly which Safeway they worked in and I've walked that same Ghirardelli Square several times as well. If you're tired of the Edward Cullen types, try this one for a good laugh.

Quotable Quotes:

"The plea for eyeliner appealed to the writer part of him, the part that believed that creative thought was worth something."

"I haven't seen anything that over-accessorized since Batman."

"Is there something wrong with your food? No, I'm just not very hungry. You're going to break my heart, aren't you?"

"Okay, not a particularly smart god, but at least a god who has her original nose."

"I suppose you could complete the look with a pair of Italian f-me pumps and some maroon lipstick."

"This is just pot right? This isn't some weird designer kill-the-family-with-a-chain-saw-and-choke-to-death-on-your-vomit drug, right?"