Can't figure out how many stars to give this, perhaps by the end of this review I'll figure it out.

The main character, Jeanne Stewart, is a broken woman who has the most creative smart mouth but also the most shattered of broken hearts. She doesn't take crap from anyone but goes home alone and cries and drinks herself to oblivion every day.

Part of me really likes Jeanne Stewart, she's sassy, smart and not afraid to speak what's on her mind. But then she comes across as a feminist and incredibly More...

The blurb makes you assume this will be a depressing book about a woman who was wronged, which is really not what this book is about. It's about a woman who has a lot grief and has never given herself the chance to do so. Her cheating boyfriend snapped her out of her numbness of it all though, and she now has to find herself. Here is the thing though, her journey is nothing but HILLARIOUS! Do not get me wrong, there are times where i felt her suffering almost as if it was my own. *Total kudos fo More...

There I was in PDX leaving for vacation to Spain without my carefully researched and ordered well ahead of time vacation reads, which were left on my kitchen counter. I made a beeline for Powell's Books and was drawn to 'The Last Time I Was Me' because of the title. I didn't have much time to shop so I grabbed the book and took it to the cashier, who raved about it, laughed about it, and told me how much she loved Cathy Lamb's work. Since Ms. Lamb is a local author, I felt even better about the More...

Jeanne is a publicity agent who works long hours to maintain a beautiful home and a successful career. But is she really happy in her success or is she running away from something. When she discovers her boyfriend is cheating and suffering from the recent death of her mother, she retaliates with a revengeful act involving condoms and peanut oil with her boyfriend. She also has a breakdown in front of a huge audience of her coworkers telling them exactly what she thinks of them. As a result, she More...

Jackie says:

Oh, the smart-a%% in me fell in LOVE with the main character Jeanne, a former creative director of an advertising firm who had a very public nervous breakdown during a presentation to 834 shallow advertising schmucks (which she actually called them, by the way). This is after she was brought up on assault charges for exacting a little revenge on her live-in, dead beat, VERY much cheating boyfriend (I'll only tell you that this attack involved a glue gun and a very embarrassing trip t More...

Frothy, cute book about a woman who suffers a “nervous breakdown” and tries to rebuild her life. I use the term “nervous breakdown” loosely as it’s really more a case of Jeanne getting really pissed and mouthing off to multiple people. Considering how often she does exactly this I didn’t really see how her actions during said breakdown were any different than her regular, everyday kind of activities.

Jeanne is super sassy and smart, in good ways and in bad. At times it’s a bit much and she can cr More...

Great book!

After what felt like a slow start (it took me about 25 pages to get "hooked"), this turned out to be one of the most fun reads I've had all year.

What can you say about a woman with an anger problem? An anger problem brought on by the deaths of her husband and unborn child and, subsequently, by her beloved mother? Follow that anger problem with a cheating live-in boyfriend (upon whom she extracts sweet revenge) and you have a seriously unhinged woman. Take that seriously unhinged woma More...

***Spoiler Alert!***

“It would make a good film!” To be honest, that is what this book immediately reminded me of – watching scenes at the movies that have been designed to visually titillate, shock, excite or provoke extreme reaction. The cynical part of me wondered if Ms Lamb secretly dreams of motion picture glory! To be fair, maybe it is just the first person narrative device she employs, where the reader experiences all events through Jeanne Stewart’s eyes, which makes the story seem sometim More...

I liked this book and like Cathy Lamb as an author, but this one pales in comparison to Henry's Sisters, which was the first C. Lamb book I read. The story is about a very successful woman who is grieving and angry and whose drinking is out of control, but the story is told in a humorous way, if you can imagine that! She drives away from her job and everything she knows, and heads west. She ends up in a small town in Oregon on her way to a suicide in the Pacific Ocean. There she finds new friend More...

This book is over the top, slightly implausible, uproariously funny and full of quirky, slightly unhinged characters. You root for a happy ending.

Jeanne is an angry, articulate, and in her own words, "slightly unhinged." She is full of grief and anger. She kills her high powered career in advertising with her honest words given at a conference. She sells her spiffy sports car and drives to Oregon. There she stays until she decides whether she would drive her new-old SUV into the Pacific Island. More...

This is the second Cathy Lamb book I have read and I found it difficult to have to put it down to come back to real life. It is the kind of book, where you just want to curl up on the coach, the deck, the patio, where ever is your favorite comfy spot and just read, read, read.

Jeanne Stewart is a woman who will get under your skin, in a good way, and take you on a journey that every woman can relate. Perhaps you have not experienced ALL aspects of her story, but some are certainly familiar and r More...

My mom recommended this book to me and was raving about how good it was to the point that I almost felt like it couldn't live up to the hype. Then I read it and it was SO GREAT. This book is about a woman, Jeanne Stewart, who has a number of bad things happen in her life over a long period of time. She continues to repress her emotions and anger about those things until ultimately she snaps and has a bit of a nervous breakdown (in a hilarious way). The book is about how she begins to put her lif More...

As usual with Lamb's stories, this book is filled with crazy, funny, sad, scared, brave people fighting the good fight against the powers of stupidity, evil, sexism, racism, and all the other isms.

I liked Jeanne, the main character, while she was just as crazy as most of Lamb's other heroines, she was less scared than the heroines of the last couple of books. At the beginning of the book she was scared, grieving, depressed, drinking too much, and getting ready to go on trial for a assaulting aga More...

I stumbled on this book quite by accident. I was mindlessly pinning things on Pinterest when I saw this book listed on a stranger’s board. She described it as one of the best books she’s ever read. Curious, I went to Amazon to read the reviews. Many people claimed they liked this book against their better judgment. The word “funny” came up over and over in the reviews. Figuring I could use some humor in my life, I downloaded it to my Kindle (it was only about 6 bucks).
This book has me scratching More...

First book I have read by Cathy Lamb - won't be my last! This books is full of funny, if not troubled, characters who are trying to find their place in life. The main character, Jeanne, is an emotional tail spin and handles this point in her life in a most entertaining way. As I read the book, I asked myself a lot of times...how many others wish they could do this with their own lives but just don't have the courgage!!



I hight recommend this book - I laughed, laughed, laughed and even cried a lit More...

I can't believe how much I enjoyed this book. It looks somewhat deceiving in that it has that chick lit vibe going on (I tend to read more serious novels). It is however, at its core, quite serious. We have Jeanne who is whip smart but has a big smart ass mouth. You can't help but like her even before you know the devastating losses she has suffered, and once you know that as well, she simply MUST get some happiness in her life!

The ensemble characters are all, for the most part, believable too. More...

I did not like this book at all. I read it for my book club and the majority of them enjoyed it, but I thought for realistic fiction it wasn't very realistic. Can you really be involved in a murder plot as fantastical as that and no one gets caught? Or assault someone and have no repercussions? The anger management aspect of the book was strange to me also. Those characters were odd. I did not like the main character and maybe that is just because I could not relate to her experiences or how she More...

After reading Such a Pretty Face, which I loved, I decided to give some of Cathy Lamb's other books a read. The Last Time I Was Me is the story of Jeanne who after tragically losing her husband and unborn baby in a car wreck is now twelve years later dating a loser named Jared and working as an advertising rep. After learning of her boyfriend's infedelities, she gets back at him in a creative way and has a breakdown at work. So, she packs up all the things that she wants to keep, sells her sport More...

Thanks, Jaye, for this book. I found the story to be mostly engaging, with a nice variety of characters. I thought the anger management counselor was a rather weak attempt at a hippy-dippy type. Her dialog did not ring true. Also, the germaphobic landlady was a bit over the top. But otherwise, I enjoyed the people. The author also has a wonderful sense of the people and landscape of Oregon. A couple of jarring grammar mistakes: affect/effect (Come on, people! Is that really so difficult?) and a More...

After Jeanne Stewart finds out her live in boyfriend has been cheating on her, she takes matters into her own hands and deals out her own brand of punishment. The loss of her mother, her husband and a miscarriage adds to a mini meltdown where she then quits her high paying job and heads out for Oregon. She settles in the small town of Weltana, not too far from Portland on the Snake River. Reading the cover, you would think this is a serious book. It is full of quirky and crazy characters who run More...

When was the last time you had the guts to say exactly what you were thinking, feeling, or knew to be true. Jeanne had no problem doing just that which created more than a few very humorous points in this book. There is absolutely no way some things in this book could actually come to pass, but then again, who knows. The characters are delightful and each and every one of them could count among my friends. The town seemed magical, and the renovation to Jeanne's house made me wish I could do some More...

A must read for any women having made change in her life! It made me cry, laugh and contemplate! There are many statements and comments that go right to your heart giving you strength and forgiveness. This is a funny and serious story of a woman sick of the relationship/career wars. She breaks down, runs for solace, finds a place to call home, meets interesting hometown neighbors and is involved in a murder. Her heart and soul are filled guiltless amounts of home made pancakes! I've read it twic More...

After I read the first few pages, I could not stop laughing. Other parts of the book had me wiping away tears. This is an excellent book about a woman who drops out of her life after great personal tragedy and an exhaustion with her day-today reality and how she starts over. Despite the premise, the characters are hilarious and the dialogue fantastic. If I had to pick a tiny flaw, I thought some of the characters' quirkiness's a bit forced, but immediately rushed to read Lamb's other books as so More...

I liked this book. I have wondered (more than once) when the last time was that I was I me. I could totally relate to the main character as I have felt that I was having a nervous breakdown, and done crazy things because of it. However, I do not think that some of the stuff was necessary (like the murder) to make this book good. I wish that had not been included in the story. It would have been fabulous without it! I did love the sense of redemption and coming through it all to have a much happi More...

I liked this book but I didn't love it the way I loved Julia's Chocolates. The quirkiness and the hope that I felt with Julia's was not there with this book. It was a fun read but it lacked the inspiration of Lamb's first book.
There were aspects of this book that bothered me so I want to get them out of the way before saying anything else. First off, there were elements of the plot that I found somewhat far fetched....murder??? without getting caught? It was a sideline story, a distraction from More...

I love Cathy Lamb's humor.
This book is filled with murder, mayhem, mirth and more mirth--some tongue in cheek.
Emmaline, the anger management instructor was wonderfully humorous. She had anger written all over her character. When she displayed her own anger, I was laughing out loud at this tiny person all dressed in white stomping down the sidewalk yelling, "Shi! Shi! Shiiiiiiiiiiii!" repeatedly at the top of her lungs.
I want more of Cathy Lamb's humor which reminded me a little bit of Jennifer W More...