By Krissy Dolor Rachel Solomon is a young Manhattan photographer who wanted out from her Jewish Midwestern roots. Enter Elizabeth Mann: WASP friend, career mentor, and future sister-in-law, who’s about to marry Rachel’s brother, and fully integrate herself into the Solomon family – complete with four babies all named after Rachel’s dead Yiddish-speaking relatives.
Like it or not, Edward Cullen is the fictional hottie du jour. Never before have women been so enamored by a sparkly, lovesick centenarian torn between protecting his girlfriend and eating her for dinner. Despite Edward's edgy persona and "angelic" good looks, we're not convinced that he's the literary dreamboat that thousands of Twilight and New Moon fans have made him out to be. Before Edward Cullen swooped into our libraries and bookstores, we had other male literary characters to dazzle us.
Breaking Dawn turns out to be as cold as a vampire’s skin. It lacks all the intensity and passion that made so many fans flock to this series the first time around. The only real emotion evident in Breaking Dawn is the deep love Meyer holds for all of her characters. She wants to ensure a happy ending for everyone of them, even if that means breaking all the rules to get them there.
Do you ever think about Laura Bush? May sound like a strange question, but it's really not: Do you ever consider what life must be like for the woman married to the most powerful man in the world? The author Curtis Sittenfeld is picking up the slack. She has parlayed a deep fascination with Laura into the 558-page novel, American Wife, which imagines the courtship and marriage of a librarian named Alice and her hard-drinking, baseball-team-owning, born-again husband Charlie Blackwell. Through good times and hardship, a doting Alice stands by Charlie's side—all the way to the White House. (Did I mention she even imagines their sex life, too?)
The leader of the world's largest (area-wise) country is not evading questions about a mistress-cum-new-wife. Vladimir Putin claims that they're is nothing between he and Alina Kabaeva. That's what they all say. And he was a spy. Shame.
