Beth Harbison (times 4)

I read the following four books in four days, and noticed some interesting things, so I thought I'd toss them all in one post.

4 Stars     -      4 Stars      -      3 Stars      -      3 Stars

When I read a book I like, my natural inclination is to see what else the author has out there and then hope that the one I liked wasn't a fluke. It's always nice to find an author I know I can count on. And after reading these four books, I think it's safe to say that Beth Harbison is one of those authors. And, after reading 4 separate examples of her writing, I think I'm actually able to pretty accurately predict when one of her books is just what I need.

These four books are all stand alone novels (though Secrets of a Shoe Addict does feature a character from Shoe Addicts Anonymous, you don't have read the latter to enjoy the former).

I am not going to break down the plots of each book for you, you can click the photos for the goodreads profile, but here are my general thoughts:

The plot lines are interesting, though I didn't find them particularly plausible (which sounds like a critique, but it's really not. If novels were all exactly like real life, we wouldn't need to read them). Where I think Harbison excels is in character development. She creates women who, despite unrealistic backgrounds and circumstances, ring true. They have FEELINGS and REACTIONS that feel genuine. And there is enough variation among the women that there is someone to appeal to each reader. So while I'd still categorize these as light/beach reads, the characters were deeper than I expected.

It's interesting to have read so many of her books in such a short time, because although these books were all very different stories, and I didn't necessarily feel like they were repetitive  there were things I noticed popping up in some form in each book:

• Shoes/Fashion (obviously)
• Characters who are dealing with issues of Confidence
• Accidental/Unexpected Pregnancy
• Friendship
• Food

And yes, I realize that some of those are sort of vague and you'd expect to see them in many novels. It's the way that she approaches these things that made them stand out to me. I'd be interested to know if other people have noticed it too?

Secrets of a Shoe Addict got 3 stars instead of 4 only because there were a few scenes that were a little more graphic than I cared for. I realize that this is entirely personal preference and they weren't irrelevant to the story, so I'd understand other people arguing that they were necessary. But this is my blog, and my ratings are entirely based on my SUBJECTIVE opinions about what I read. So 3 Stars. 

My one beef with the books is really more of an editing problem than a writing one. In 3 of the 4 books there were clear continuity errors. There were scenes that felt like they'd been rewritten at some point in the process, and the reader was left with pronouns that don't match, tense errors, etc. While the author may have been the origin of these problems, isn't it sort of an editors job to catch them? As a reader, there is little that I find more annoying than being pulled out of the story because of an error like this. 

Overall though, if you're a fan of chick lit, these books are great fun. They get my seal of approval, and I'll certainly be picking up a few more of her books for some poolside reads this summer.