"Call Me Irresistible" by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

At the beginning of Call Me Irresistible, Ted Beaudine is about to be marry Lucy Korvik. Meg is one of the attendants and Lucy’s best friend, but she doesn’t believe that Lucy and Ted are meant for each other. After the wedding is called off, the shocked small town of Wynette blames Meg for the broken relationship. Throughout Call Me Irresistible, the ostracized Meg is not at the best point in her life. She is just about broke, and her credit card is maxed out. Plus, even her parents and siblings have cut her off so that she will stop living an aimless life and find responsibility and a purpose.

To be responsible, Meg must first find a job. This isn’t easy, considering no one wants to hire the girl who broke up Ted and Lucy. Eventually, she finds a couple jobs, and her fashion sense inspires her to sell jewelry on the side. Slowly Meg begins taking responsibility for herself, and the town no longer wishes to collectively ostracize her. Meg starts to like the town residents in return, including her best friend’s former fiance. As those two spend more time together, she unexpectedly falls for the irresistible Ted.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips is romance author that always makes you laugh, and Call Me Irresistible will not let you down. This book made me laugh, smile, and I even wanted to cry at some points when the town was ganging up on Meg. I could not put this book down once I started it, and this is the case for most of her books. Frequent readers of Susan Elizabeth Phillips will appreciate how she incorporates stories and characters from her other books so it’s possible to find out what is going on with your favorite characters.

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Book review by Becky.

May We Suggest...Stephen King

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. When Stephen was eleven, his mother brought her children to Durham, Maine, for good. Stephen attended the grammar school in Durham and then Lisbon Falls High School, graduating in 1966. From his sophomore year at the University of Maine, he wrote a weekly column for the school newspaper, THE MAINE CAMPUS. He was also active in student politics, serving as a member of the Student Senate. He came to support the anti-war movement on campus, arriving at his stance from a conservative view that the war in Vietnam was unconstitutional. He graduated from the University of Maine in 1970, with a B.A. in English and qualified to teach on the high school level.

He and Tabitha Spruce married in January of 1971. As Stephen was unable to find placement as a teacher immediately, the Kings lived on his earnings as a laborer at an industrial laundry. Stephen made his first professional short story sale ("The Glass Floor") to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. Throughout the early years of his marriage, he continued to sell stories to men's magazines. Many of these were later gathered into the Night Shift collection or appeared in other anthologies. In the fall of 1971, Stephen began teaching high school English classes at Hampden Academy. Writing in the evenings and on the weekends, he continued to produce short stories and to work on novels.

In the spring of 1973, Doubleday & Co. accepted the novel Carrie for publication. At the end of the summer of 1973, the Kings moved their growing family to southern Maine. There, Stephen wrote his next-published novel, originally titled Second Coming and then Jerusalem's Lot, before it became Salem's Lot, in a small room in the garage. Carrie was published in the spring of 1974. That same fall, the Kings left Maine for Boulder, Colorado. They lived there for a little less than a year, during which Stephen wrote The Shining, set in Colorado. Returning to Maine in the summer of 1975, Stephen finished writing The Stand, much of which also is set in Boulder. The Dead Zone was also written. To date, King has written over 48 novels and various other fiction and nonfiction works.

Currently, Stephen and Tabitha now spend winters in Florida and the remainder of the year at their Bangor and Center Lovell homes. The Kings have three children: Naomi Rachel, Joe Hill and Owen Phillip, and four grandchildren. Stephen and Tabitha provide scholarships for local high school students and contribute to many other local and national charities. Stephen is the 2003 recipient of The National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

Stephen King's Published Books and Stories

• 1960 - People, Places, And Things - Volume 1 (limited edition with Chris Chelsey)

• 1964 - The Star Invaders (limited edition)

• 1974 - Carrie

• 1975 - Salem's Lot

• 1977 - The Shining

• 1978 - Night Shift (stories)

• 1978 - The Stand

• 1979 - The Dead Zone

• 1980 - Firestarter

• 1981 - Cujo

• 1981 - Danse Macabre (nonfiction about horror)

• 1981 - Roadwork

• 1982 - Creepshow (comic book, illustrated by Bernie Wrightson)

• 1982 - The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger

• 1982 - Different Seasons (novellas)

• 1983 - Christine

• 1983 - Pet Sematary

• 1983 - Cycle of the Werewolf

• 1984 - The Talisman (written with Peter Straub)

• 1985 - Skeleton Crew (stories)

• 1985 - The Bachman Books (novel collection)

• 1986 - It

• 1987 - The Eyes of the Dragon

• 1987 - Misery

• 1987 - The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three

• 1988 - The Tommyknockers

• 1988 - Nightmares in the Sky (Photo book with text by King)

• 1988 - Dark Visions

• 1989 - The Dark Half

• 1989 - Dolan's Cadillac (limited edition)

• 1989 - My Pretty Pony (limited edition)

• 1990 - The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition

• 1990 - Four Past Midnight (stories)

• 1991 - Needful Things

• 1991 - The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands

• 1992 - Gerald's Game

• 1993 - Dolores Claiborne

• 1993 - Nightmares & Dreamscapes (stories)

• 1994 - Insomnia

• 1995 - Rose Madder

• 1995 - Umney's Last Case

• 1996 - The Green Mile (originally published as a monthly serial consisting of six parts:The Two Dead Girls, The Mouse on the Mile, Coffey's Hands, The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix, Night Journey, and Coffey on the Mile)

• 1996 - Desperation

• 1997 - Six Stories (stories)

• 1997 - The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass

• 1998 - Bag of Bones

• 1999 - Storm of the Century

• 1999 - The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

• 1999 - The New Lieutenant's Rap (limited edition)

• 1999 - Hearts in Atlantis

• 1999 - Blood and Smoke (audio book)

• 2000 - Riding the Bullet (electronically published novella)

• 2000 - The Plant(electronically published)

• 2000 - Secret Windows

• 2000 - On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft(nonfiction autobiography)

• 2000 - Dreamcatcher

• 2001 - Black House (written with Peter Straub)

• 2002 - From a Buick 8

• 2002 - Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales

• 2003 - The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger (revised edition)

• 2003 - The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla

• 2004 - The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah

• 2004 - The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower

• 2004 - Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season

• 2005 - The Colorado Kid

• 2006 - The Secretary of Dreams

• 2006 - Cell

• 2006 - Lisey's Story

• 2008 - Duma Key

• 2008 - Just After Sunset

• 2009 - Stephen King Goes to the Movies

• 2009 - The Little Sisters of Eluria (limited edition)

• 2009 - "Graduation Afternoon" (in PostScripts)

• 2009 - "Throttle" (in He is Legend)

• 2009 - UR (e-novella available only on Amazon.com's Kindle)

• 2009 - Under the Dome

• 2009 - "A Good Marriage"

• 2009 - "Big Driver"

• 2009 - "1922"

• 2009 - "Fair Extension"

• 2010 - Blockade Billy

• 2010 - Full Dark, No Stars

• 2011 - 11/22/63

"Wonderstruck" by Brian Selznick

Just like in The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick’s latest creation, Wonderstruck, presents a protagonist on a journey of self-discovery after the loss of a parent. For children’s literature, this is heavy stuff. However, Selznick injects his stories with imagination and fantastic storytelling, causing the reader to focus less on the dire situations and more on the brilliant world he creates.

Wonderstruck is a hybrid type of literature. While the book is over 600 pages long, at least half the pages are just hand drawn pictures, and some of the pages that are only text are just a mere paragraph. The pictures in the book give the reader a visual to the world that Selznick has created. The writing style is straight-forward and easy to grasp. While not a graphic novel technically, Wonderstruck is not just a novel either.

In Wonderstruck, Selznick tells two stories. One story is told entirely through just pictures and the other through words. In one story, the main character deals with the loss of a parent while the other deals with rejection by a parent. These two stories intertwine together, giving the reader a satisfying conclusion when the two stories finally merge at the end.

Wonderstruck is great for how accessible it is. Every few pages, the reader is rewarded with detailed pictures that push the story along. Indeed, Selznick’s works are universally readable to anyone including children and adults. All that is required is imagination and appreciation for great storytelling.

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Book review by Justin.