We Are All Welcome Here is Elizabeth Berg's newest novel. (There's a newer one coming out in May.) I am a huge fan of hers and was thrilled to find this book at the library. To be honest, it wasn't a favorite of mine. While I thought the story was beautiful and touching, it wasn't as strong as many of her others. Berg has a distinct skill of writing about women and not making it cheesy or fluffy.

Three little books from Anna Quindlen, another powerful and strong female author: Peing Perfect, How Reading Changed My Life and A short Guide to a Happy Life. I was interested in all of these books but didn't want to pay the list price for such a small book that I knew would be an hour read.

Thanks to the Palo Alto Library, I finally got my hands on them and was able to read the lovely little stories which really should have been essays and not books of their own. To be fair, the reading book did recommend many awesome books to me that I love.

And finally I just finished Anna Quindlen's latest book, Rise and Shine. Since the story was about two sisters and took place in New York, I really looked forward to reading it. Quindlen is a fantastic author so, of course, the book wasn't bad. However, it wasn't great either. I felt that she has done and could have done a lot better. The characters were just not three-dimensional enough. I didn't feel sympathetic towards either of the sisters and felt like some of the major plot points were either implausible or unnecessarily dramatic. I had a pretty hard time getting into the story and I kept waiting for it to get more interesting and for something to happen. And when it finally did, I compeltely didn't believe it. It felt like a cop-out. However, when I got to the end of the book, the last two lines spoke to the core of the story and made me remember why I love her so much.

Another fantastic female author and one of my very favorites is Jane Smiley. And I am delighted that I'll be getting to hear her talk this week (cross fingers). Now I need a new book by Anne Tyler and I will be all set.