Book Recommendation: Love or Something Like It by Deirdre Shaw

Still looking for that book with which you can wind down the last few days of summer while sipping a cool drink on your patio or burying your toes in the sand? I don't know about you, but sometimes I feel a bit guilty indulging in the typical "chick lit" books since they are sometimes so extraordinarily simple I feel my brain atrophying or they are so cloyingly sweet that my teeth actually hurt. This book, is, happily, neither. Sure, it has all of the elements of "chick lit" - the main female character telling things from her perspective while she traverses the trials and tribulations of dating and relationships with men (well, boys, really). But this book is more - it is real and substantive and raw as the main character deals with a failed marriage, a career on the rocks and the issues unique to dating and living in Los Angeles (i.e., not knowing if you are really dating someone exclusively, assuming that you aren't, and the particular uncertainty that arises when men have access to 1 million gorgeous 21 y.o. models, which population is constantly being replenished). It's sweet and sad, making you wonder if the fairy tale ending will deliver -- not to spoil the book, but it does - in a non-traditional way.

I do think that should you decide to pick this book up, give yourself and entire beach day to enjoy it and then some. Or you may find yourself hunkered behind your desk with the book hidden under cover of a 3-ring binder and your computer screensaver blacking out your "work".