Books I'm reading and have read recently...

• Letting go of Bobby James, or how I found my self of steam, by Valerie Hobbs. So far, I enjoy it, as does my younger son, who thought it would make an excellent toilet... The book is told from the point of view of Jody Walker, a seemingly uneducated sixteen year-old newlywed living with her husband in a car. It seems like one of those "we-can-learn-so-much-from-people-we-don't-expect-to-teach-us" stories. Best quote so far: "Life is too short to suffer anybody's meanness, which is what you can learn eating shrimp with store-bought coleslaw, if you look it straight in the face."
• Reality Check, by Jen Calonita. I just finished this one during the boys' afternoon nap. It was a very engaging young adult book featuring four small-town friends who get talked into doing a TV show, ostensibly to pay for college. But of course, we all know reality TV is never what it seems to be, namely realistic. The four protagonists find this out the hard way...
• Best Friends Forever, by Jennifer Weiner. This one isn't the easiest read, which is disappointing because I'm certainly a fan of the other Weiner books I've read (Little Earthquakes is my favorite of hers, one on a short list of books that have made me cry.) This novel features Val and Addie as former besties who had a falling-out in high school but are now thrust back together when Val runs over a mutual high-school nemesis after their ten-year reunion.
• Get Out of That Pit, by Beth Moore. I picked this book up at the local Mardel simply because I like Beth Moore, was feeling slightly stagnant spiritually, and I'd really enjoyed her Ester study last spring - also, and most importantly - it was the cheapest Beth Moore book I could find. So I began reading it, already disappointed that I wouldn't get from it what she intended when she wrote it (because I wasn't in a "pit," whatever that means) and it wasn't a Bible study, which I would have preferred. Ha. Just kidding. I was and am in a pit, and I made it myself. Ms. Moore here's outlining how I can get myself out.
  

There are a few other books on my shelf too, but I'll save them for another time.