Best Book of September 2010

Better late than never, right? I usually try to have this post done within the first few days of each month but I'm going to blame this one on NYCC. Sooooo. The book that I have picked did not have the best grade of all books I rated in September but it was my favorite reading experience last month.

"If Singletree's only florist didn't deliver her posies half-drunk, I might still be married to that floor-licking, scum-sucking, receptionist-nailing hack-accountant, Mike Terwilliger."

Lacey Terwilliger's shock and humiliation over her husband's philandering prompt her to add some bonus material to Mike's company newsletter: stunning Technicolor descriptions of the special brand of "administrative support" his receptionist gives him. The detailed mass e-mail to Mike's family, friends, and clients blows up in her face, and before one can say "instant urban legend," Lacey has become the pariah of her small Kentucky town, a media punch line, and the defendant in Mike's defamation lawsuit.

Her seemingly perfect life up in flames, Lacey retreats to her family's lakeside cabin, only to encounter an aggravating neighbor named Monroe. A hunky crime novelist with a low tolerance for drama, Monroe is not thrilled about a newly divorced woman moving in next door. But with time, beer, and a screen door to the nose, a cautious friendship develops into something infinitely more satisfying.

Lacey has to make a decision about her long-term living arrangements, though. Should she take a job writing caustic divorce newsletters for paying clients, or move on with her own life, pursuing more literary aspirations? Can she find happiness with a man who tells her what he thinks and not what she wants to hear? And will she ever be able to resist saying one...last...thing?

I gave And One Last Thing... an A-. I laughed throughout this whole book; sometimes in shock and incredulity and sometimes because this book was just out and out funny. I gave it the minus because the story in and of itself wasn't all that surprising but I enjoyed it so much that I got over that, for the most part anyway.

What a way to find out that your husband is cheating! Even more surprising is how she chose to spread the news. By the end though, Lacey discovers that she was suffocating in her marriage and her life and decides by the end that her husband did her a bit of a favor even if he did it in a horrible way. What she did in retaliation was in some ways just as bad. I mean, what's the going price on someone's dignity? Can what she did be justified by finding out about a cheating husband? I guess that circumstances like these are what the insanity defense is all about.

Judgments aside, I liked Lacey and reading about her predicament. Her interactions with her cranky neighbor Monroe were just hilarious. His character was expected but he was still a joy to read. Lacey's relationship with her brother, Emmett, seems more Will & Grace-ish to me than sibling-ish. Maya and her business of basically providing letters or announcements like the one that Lacey wrote made me feel sad and giggle at the same time. That people would do that - hire someone to write a document to be released in a public venue that is aimed to ruin someone's professional and personal reputation - scares me a bit. The lesson here could be that you should be careful and not piss off the wrong person lest they get you back via a widespread nasty email that airs all your dirty deeds. They probably wouldn't do it for dirt cheap, though. Ha.

And One Last Thing... was the second Molly Harper book I've read and it was just as good as the first, Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs. Molly mostly writes amusing pararoms and her next book, How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf, will be out on February 22, 2011.