The Sixes by Kate White

I loved this book! I stayed up late two nights in a row, absolutely freaking myself out to the point that even though CK was asleep next to me I still had to get out of bed and go in the living room to watch TV so my mind would stop racing with thoughts of serial killers. I couldn’t get enough of the take charge main character, the college setting, the Fall season, and the bitchy co-eds. I’m so glad that I’m taking a trip home to Maine in October because this novel (while taking place in Pennsylvania) made me seriously want to go sit under a tree in a wool sweater letting bright red leaves fall on my head and then go have four beers at a townie bar. Afterwards I’d have to check to see that all of the windows and doors were locked at my house and that nothing had crawled under the bed but that’s the fun part, right?

The Sixes takes place at Lyle College and opens with the murder of a perky young female student. Author Phoebe Hall is hiding out at the Lyle post professional scandal and teaching a few sections of non-fiction writing at the urging of her old boarding school roomie who is now the president of the college. Having worked with faculty for many years I definitely got a huge kick out of the descriptions of some of the more colorful members of the community.

Anyway, Phoebe puts her stellar research skills to good use when her old school chum asks her to look into the possibility that there’s a secret society on campus and the members might have something to do with the mounting local body count. And then all hell breaks lose and the super creepy rains down hence my lack of aforementioned sleep. Definitely pick-up or download this book to your Kindle. It is the perfect end of summer read. No beach required but you might want to invest in a nightlight…just in case.

Pretty: A Novel

A drug and boozed soaked evening leads to an inevitable tragedy and just like that we’re following Bebe’s adventures in post-rehab halfway house land with a side of beauty school fumes. I really didn’t want to like Bebe Baker but she made it impossible for me to stay angry with her. Besides I’m a sucker for a good “I’ve hit rock bottom” story and the inevitable feelings that tag along with a read like this which are generally of the “my life is looking pretty good right now” variety.

The characters Bebe befriends in Serenity house are fantastically unconscious about flying their freak flags. There’s Jake, the schizophrenic who believes he’s Jesus, Buck, real name Becky and self-defined “Republican Dyke from Alabama” and all-around super sweetheart (honestly I kept picturing Toni Colette’s character from The United States of Tara) and Violet, goth girl and self-mutilator who is known to sport her mother’s official Snow White Disneyland costume on occasion. Group therapy never gets old with this crew.

When Bebe isn’t stealing her house-mate’s peanut butter by the spoonful in midnight snack binges (a girl after my own heart) she’s listing her diagnosed initials in a litany like manner: ADD, MDD, CD, PTSD (aka Attention Deficit Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, Chemical Dependency, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder respectively). If that isn’t enough she’s also coasting on fumes towards beauty school graduation (528 hours down. 72 hours left to go) and still has fifteen wet sets to create before she completes the required two-hundred hairdos.

Bebe is a mess but somehow Jillian Lauren makes you love her, root for her to succeed and grip the book just a bit more tightly when she starts to slip.  At times I wished that I could physically drag Bebe towards the right path — the one that would finally get her to San Francisco and the fresh start she wished for and frankly deserved. In my imagination I frantically stood on the sideline waving her toward the Yellow Brick road, but honestly I felt a little guilty for not warning her that it’s always 66 degrees here and at least in LA you can be ADD, MDD, SD, and PTSD with a tan.