R&R Challenge November Winner!

The goal of the Read & Review Challenge is to read 5 or more books from the R&R Library by March 31st. All books in the library are free! Each month there will be a giveaway for those who review the books they've read.

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This month's winner is...

Marcy Hatch

Marcy reviewed HOT FLASHES AND COLD LEMONADE by Susan Flett Swiderski.

Living the perfect life has always been easy peasy for Pearl Bryzinski, because she’s practically a pro at ignoring the negative and putting a positive spin on the facts, but it’s impossible for her to find anything positive about Daddy skipping town with that blue-haired floozy in a flashy brown Pinto. No matter how hard she tries, she can’t ignore the fact that he’s gone… or the fact that she’s becoming a drama queen who can sweat like a sumo wrestler doing push-ups in a sauna. It’s almost enough to suck the blush out of her rose-colored glasses. Whether she likes it or not, she’s gonna have to turn some of her wishbone into backbone. Layer by layer, assumptions and misconceptions peel away, as Pearl learns to buck up in the face of reality, and to laugh at her imperfect… but not so bad… life. Supported by a down-to-earth husband who loves her with every blue-collar bone in his body, a mother who isn’t the self-centered witch Pearl imagined her to be, three terrific grown kids… okay, make that two terrific kids, and a Golden Boy who’s a far cry from 24-carat… and a bunch of wonderful wacky gal pals, Pearl comes to realize that her mixed bag of family and friends makes her life damned near perfect. Pearl being Pearl, she’ll never give up her rosy specs entirely, but learning to handle reality also means learning to deal with death.

GOODREADS | AMAZON

The review was posted on Amazon.

There’s a lot to like about this story...  November 4, 2015 By  M. S. Hatch This review is from: Hot Flashes & Cold Lemonade (Paperback)

There’s a lot to like about this story and if you like slice of real life stories, you might well give this five stars. I’m not a huge fan (I tend to like more adventure, intrigue, magic maybe, a ghost or two…) but like I said, there’s a lot to like.

Pearl for starters. She was an interesting character and I could relate to her blindness when it came to her ‘golden boy’ son. We all want to think the best of our kids, help them out when we can. It took a lot for Pearl to see how he was using her, manipulating her. I wanted a little more come-uppance for him. I loved all Pearl’s friends - especially Candy - and Pearl's family, and how she assumed something was going on because she couldn’t imagine anything else. And I loved how Pearl changed, not drastically, but just enough so she could be a better person for herself AND her family.

My only real complaint (and it’s entirely subjective) is that there was a lot of description, most of which I loved. Susan has a great way of describing things, like this: “Leggy petunias still loitered in her garden, slouched beside the chrysanthemums like a gang of long-limbed teenagers with no place to go.” Can’t you just picture that? The problem was it slowed down the pacing at times and it just felt like too much at times.

Aside from that, this book was well-formatted and error free as far as I could tell and if you do like slice of life stories, you would probably love this.