Love, Alice by Barbara Davis

In the 1960s, a young English woman is sent away in shame. In the now, a young widow wonders where things went so wrong. The two stories meet and intermingle under the guard of a sad South Carolina cemetery angel.

The most famous marker in the cemetery sits not far from Dovie's fiance's headstone, where she visits every day to eat her lunch and wonder why he committed suicide. But one day her attention is drawn over to the Tate angel when an elderly woman leaves a letter (and her glasses) there.

Dovie's beating herself up about something she had no control over, and she's falling apart at the seams. Suddenly, it's much more interesting to get involved in somebody else's drama, even though she can clearly see this meddling is going to be bad for her career and future.

I'm not sure why I picked this book up, and I'm even less sure why I kept reading - it's way too saccharine for my taste, but I persisted. It's not a bad book - if you like romance novels and fated love stories you'll enjoy it. There are twists and minor surprises along the way. It resolves well. (Blech.)

Pretty in Plaid by Jen Lancaster

Subtitled: "A Life, A Witch, and A Wardrobe, or the Wonder Years Before the Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered, Smart-Ass Phase"

Remember the glory days of childhood where your biggest wardrobe concerns were whether you shouldn't wear yellow on Tuesdays (or was that Thursdays?) and if you remembered your sash for the Girl Scout meeting this afternoon?  Jen Lancaster remembers that and so much more.

Lancaster's made a writing career by telling her own life stories with wit and sarcasm. I've read some of her other books (who could forget the story about going to the unemployment office carrying a designer bag?) and they're all really, really funny. This time around, Jen's mining her childhood, teen years, college, and early adulthood - the pre-career Jen, you could call it.

We all have special childhood memories, but in addition to remembering "the lobster birthday" Jen also recalls what she was wearing and why. Framing these great self-mocking memories with significant wardrobe choices gives the stories a connecting thread - and a bit of foreshadowing, in many cases. Also, the luxury of time allows Jen to look back with added wisdom that brings a new depth to the stories: one story's big gay reveal is all the funnier because there are a signs, references and hints sprinkled in the lead-up, to all of which teen-Jen is hilariously myopic.

I listened to the audio, read by Jamie Heinlein, and this is a perfect car-read. It's laugh-out-loud funny and likely to send you on your own mini-nostalgia trip of bad hairstyles and questionable fashion.