Not nearly content enough to admire them from afar, Dr. Alex Benzar aligns himself with modern women everywhere. His affinity for modern day goddesses in particular is the motivating factor behind the book The Tao of Dating: The Smart Woman's Guide to Embracing Your Inner Goddess and Finding the Fulfillment You Deserve. If you think the title takes work, just wait until you read the rest. According to his recent article for The Huffington Post, How To Be A Modern Goddess...According To A Guy, Benzar describes a modern goddess as all at once self-depreciating, self-serving and super … Read More

Breaking Dawn, the final chapter in Stephanie Meyer's addicting vampire love saga, should have been titled Breaking Rules. In the first three novels of the Twilight series, Meyers clearly outlined the laws of living that made this fantasy world so tangible. In this final book, however, she ignores everything she’s had us believe to create a novel that is filled with unnecessary drama and plot twists. Breaking Dawn speeds toward a climax that ultimately fails to deliver.

I realize that I probably bring a biased eye to the book since I think of the main characters of … Read More

Sweet Ruin, by Cathi Hanauer. Atria Books. $24.00.

When it comes to novels, I’m easy to please: Just give me a sympathetic protagonist, literate writing, a bit of suspense, and some snappy social analysis. For some reason, that’s hard to find. Cathi Hanauer nails my checklist, though, with Sweet Ruin, an emotional cliff-hanger built around that hot-button relationship issue—adultery—and set in suburban Mommyland.

Its heroine, Elayna Leopold, is a former magazine editor turned part-time freelancer, married to a workaholic lawyer, and the mother of a six-year-old daughter. So far, so familiar. But two years ago, Elayna lost a baby … Read More