I ♥… The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus by Sonya Sones

I've read and loved one of Sonya Sones' YA books so when I saw she'd written an adult book, I couldn't wait to read it. And, yes, the whole thing's written in verse, but it only takes a few pages to get used to it.

Description:

My name is Holly.

This story is about me—

a writer who's way behind

on her deadline.

But, honestly,

how can I concentrate on my work

when my fiftieth birthday's

rushing at me like a freight train,

my hormones are making me feel

like a Szechuan flambé,

and my eighty-year-old mother's

biting her nurses?

Not to mention the fact that my daughter's

just begun applying to colleges

(none of which are within

a thousand-mile radius of home),

and lately my husband's been

such an irritating, finger-pointing stinker

that I've found myself dreaming of ways

to spend his insurance money . . .

My name is Holly.

This book

tells my story—

a coming-of-middle-age story.

I'm a writer, turning 40 this year, have lost both my parents and have been worrying about whether or not to have any more children, so The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus seemed like it was pretty much written for me.

I read it in a couple of hours and absolutely loved it. It was all I could do to stop myself tweeting "This book is SO GOOD!" every few pages. It made my eyes fill, it made me laugh, it made me go back and reread more than once.

But most of all it made me feel better about everything I've been going through and the decisions to come. I'm going to be recommending it to everyone.

My only criticism is the title (which is odd since it was the titles that attracted me to Sones's YA books), but something sweeter would have been better, I think.