What's on Your List?

You know when you kind of want to hate somebody, because they are so talented, pretty, and friendly, and have a whole bunch of traits that you wish you had? But you just can't hate them because you like them so much?

I don't know how she did it, but Melanie Jacobson managed to make me feel that way about herself AND the main character in her first novel, The List.

I have been blog friends with Melanie for at least two years, and I love every single blog post she writes. And I'm not just saying that because I know she's reading this - I promise.

So when I got the opportunity to read her book, I jumped at the chance. I mean, if her book had a similar voice to her blog posts, I knew I was going to love it.

And I did.

First of all, look at how fun the cover is:
Don't you just want to slip on those flip-flops, put the pretty little flowers behind your ear and stroll along the waterline?

Next, (like I mentioned before) I hate, I'm jealous of, I love the main character. Her name is Ashley, she wears tons of cute shoes and clothing, she has ambition and drive (she creates a list of 25 things she wants to do before she gets married and she is determined to complete it), and she makes amazing sandwiches. (I love sandwiches.) What's not to like?

One thing I was really impressed with was the way Melanie seamlessly added aspects from her own life into the book. For example, one of the characters in the book is deaf. Melanie's parents were deaf. Also, Ashley meets a guy on a fictional dating website, and Melanie met her husband on a real dating website. (And he's not even psycho!) (She also used her husband's name for one of the characters. I guess that is one of the fun parts of writing a book - you can choose names of people from your past or present as names of characters. I'll never write a book myself, but I love imagining what I would name my characters if I did.)

I really enjoyed reading this book. It's a light-hearted, friendly read. It's the sort of book you could take on vacation with you, sit in the warm sand and let your worries melt away while you jump into Ashley's world for a while. (My hands are ice-cold as I type this. I wish I could be sitting on the sand reading this book right now.)

How to learn more about this book:
1. Go to Melanie's website.
2. Click here to read the first chapter, as further proof that you will then have to read the entire book.
3. Purchase the book online here.
4. Purchase it to download to your Kindle (or iPhone, or Android, or Blackberry, or iPad, or computer...) here

P.S. Melanie didn't pay me (or bribe me) to say any of these things. I truly did love the book. And I'm not just being nice. I even took my kids to the new indoor swimming pool in town when I was about 2/3 of the way through the book, and I spent a good portion of the 3 (!) hours we were there wondering what was going to happen with Ashley.

P.P.S. If you would like to leave a comment, you can tell me one thing that you really want to do before you die. My one thing was a deal maker/breaker before Christian and I got married - I told him I had to go to France five times in my life before I die. I had been twice before we got married, and he sent me to Paris again two years ago, so I have to visit two more times before I die. Hopefully I will actually go with him one of these years...