Book Review Club

The one good thing about being sick (in my mind) is that it's a great excuse for a marathon of reading. My husband spends hours and hours staring at the TV, watching literally anything when he's sick, but not me, I tuck myself up under the covers and work my way through my TBR stack. Having been sick since Sunday, I've now had my eyes roving over the pages of three different books. Three books in three days! It's like some sort of miracle for me. And I just might move on to number four tonight...


Anyway, my illness is not the point of this post. This post is my first contribution to Barrie Summy's Book Review Club, which will result in a new book review on the first Wednesday of every month. (Of course, if I find an excellent book in between posts that I simply must tell you fellow bloggers about, I will certainly post my comments).


But today, I'm reviewing, admittedly a little bit late, Eileen Cook's debut Unpredictable.

I know at least some of you have read this book and most of you have probably heard of it by now, and in my defense, I bought it when it came out. However, as books will do, it somehow managed to get lost in the shuffle, falling down on the TBR stack, getting cut by library holds, until I finally just picked it up yesterday and dove in.

A devoted reader of Eileen's blog, I know the woman is quirky and pretty darn hilarious, and the book is all that on a bigger scale. I'm not the sort of person to give a detailed book review--I prefer to give a little blurb and then gush about my favorite things. Hope that's not a problem for anyone. If you'd like a more in-depth summary of the book or an excerpt, I'm sure you can find one over at Eileen's...

So without further ado, my book review:

Sophie Kintock wants her boyfriend back. Having been together six-years she doesn't consider his decision to break things off a particularly valid one. So after her initial tactics to undermine his life (and sanity) fail to have the desired effect--he's found another girlfriend and basically forgotten that Sophie even exists--she decides to kick things up a notch by pretending to be psychic in an effort to warn away the new girl.

The bogus readings she gives sends her life spiraling out of control, putting Sophie's non-existent psychic powers in demand and throwing her love life into a tizzy. Crazy-hilarious hijinks ensue.

What I love most about this book--and there's a lot to love--is the little details. The characterization is wonderful, and you end up feeling like these characters are your friends, you're so intimately attached to their lives. Beyond that, there were so many possibilities to connect with this book. Set in Vancouver, it brought back some lovely memories for me, mentioning two of the eateries on Granville Island I visited with my husband on my visit to the city years ago. One of the characters loved Hitchcock movies--me too! Sophie liked ice cream...I like ice cream--I don't think I need to go further with this--you get the picture.

If Unpredictable is already in your TBR stack, yank it out and start reading. If, by some odd oversight, it's not, I predict that your life will neither be as quirky or as funny until you put it there. (Lucky you, it's at bargain basement prices on Amazon right now!)