Favorite Thing #172 - Shopaholic Series

I finally finished Favorite Thing #172 - The Shopaholic Series. There are five books in the series - Confessions of a Shopaholic, Shopaholic Takes Manhattan, Shopaholic Ties the Knot, Shopaholic & Sister, and Shopaholic & Baby. I thoroughly enjoyed all of the books. They are definitely mindless beach reads (which I personally love). The books follow a "shopaholic" through her life and the trials and tribulations she faces with her shopping problem. My favorites of the books are the original (Confessions of a Shopaholic) and Shopaholic & Baby. If you need some beach reads this summer I would definitely recommend picking these up.


Favorite Thing #72 is still one of my favorite Jodi Picoult books. I think I read Change of Heart in two days. Here's a summary from Amazon.com:

"Picoult bangs out another ripped-from-the-zeitgeist winner, this time examining a condemned inmate's desire to be an organ donor. Freelance carpenter Shay Bourne was sentenced to death for killing a little girl, Elizabeth Nealon, and her cop stepfather. Eleven years after the murders, Elizabeth's sister, Claire, needs a heart transplant, and Shay volunteers, which complicates the state's execution plans. Meanwhile, death row has been the scene of some odd events since Shay's arrival—an AIDS victim goes into remission, an inmate's pet bird dies and is brought back to life, wine flows from the water faucets. The author brings other compelling elements to an already complex plot line: the priest who serves as Shay's spiritual adviser was on the jury that sentenced him; Shay's ACLU representative, Maggie Bloom, balances her professional moxie with her negative self-image and difficult relationship with her mother. Picoult moves the story along with lively debates about prisoner rights and religion, while plumbing the depths of mother-daughter relationships and examining the literal and metaphorical meanings of having heart. The point-of-view switches are abrupt, but this is a small flaw in an impressive book."