I’m excited to share with you my picks for the Must Read Books for May. One of these I have read and LOVED! And she just so happens to be a friend of mine. The other 5 I’m adding to my To Be Read pile. I’ve got some funny ones in the line-up for you this month plus a couple that looked intriguing. I’ve got 2 from a couple of YouTube starlets and if you know me in real life, you know how I like to support my fellow Girl Bosses! On to the list…
ONE: Off the Page by Jodi Picoult and Samantha van Leer
Goodreads.com Synopsis: Sixteen-year-old Delilah is finally united with Oliver—a prince literally taken from the pages of a fairy tale. There are, however, complications now that Oliver has been able to enter the real world. To exist in Delilah’s world, Oliver must take the place of a regular boy. Enter Edgar, who agrees to take Oliver’s role in Delilah’s favorite book. In this multilayered universe, the line between what is on the page and what is possible is blurred, but all must be resolved for the characters to live happily ever after. Includes twelve full-color illustrations, and black-and-white decorations throughout.
Full of humor and witty commentary about life, OFF THE PAGE is a stand-alone novel as well as a companion to the authors’ bestseller Between the Lines, and is perfect for readers looking for a fairytale ending. Fans of Sarah Dessen and Meg Cabot are sure to appreciate this novel about love, romance, and relationships.
TWO: A Taste of Bliss by Adrian R. Hale
Goodreads.com Synopsis: All Bliss Kaufman wanted was a sandwich and a nap after a grueling day beautifying this week’s bridal party. So when a bartender with a panty-melting grin offers her dinner and a ride on his motorcycle, Bliss swerves from her plans for one unexpected night with Talan McGregor. Just one. It was never supposed to go further. But once isn’t enough for Talan who returns demanding more–and his timing couldn’t be worse.
A life-changing diagnosis forces Bliss to abandon her carefully crafted plans. Even though she can make anyone beautiful with enough makeup and hair product, she can’t fix everything with her 50-pound bag of beauty tricks. Bliss is starting to think she might need Talan after all, but letting him in means cracking open her heart and embracing a life without a safety net.
After all, love is life’s greatest complication, and might just be worth the risk.
THREE: I Regret Nothing: A Memoir by Jen Lancaster
Goodreads.com Synopsis: Sure Jen has made mistakes. She spent all her money from a high-paying job on shoes, clothes, and spa treatments. She then carried a Prada bag to the unemployment office. She wrote a whole memoir about dieting…but didn’t lose weight. She embarked on a quest for cultural enlightenment that only cemented her love for John Hughes movies and Kraft American Singles. She tried to embrace everything Martha Stewart, while living with a menagerie of rescue cats and dogs. (Glitter…everywhere.)
Mistakes are one thing; regrets are another.
After a girls’ weekend in Savannah makes her realize that she is—yikes!—middle-aged (binge watching is so the new binge drinking), Jen decides to make a bucket list and seize the day, even if that means having her tattoo removed at one hundred times the cost of putting it on.
From attempting a juice cleanse to studying Italian, from learning to ride a bike to starting a new business, and from sampling pasta in Rome to training for a 5K, Jen is turning a mid-life crisis into a mid-life opportunity, sharing her sometimes bumpy—but always hilarious—attempts to better her life…again.
FOUR: You Deserve a Drink: Boozy Misadventures and Tales of Debauchery by Mamrie Hart
Goodreads.com Synopsis: Since launching her YouTube channel “You Deserve a Drink” in 2011, comedian Mamrie Hart has built an intensely devoted following of more than half a million viewers. Like her bawdy and bacchanalian show, Hart’s eponymous debut pays tribute to her boozy misadventures with an original cocktail recipe accompanying each hilarious tale. From the “Leaves of Three Martini,” commemorating the hookup to whom she accidentally gave poison ivy, to the “Bizzargarita,” in honor of the time she and a friend were approached by two uber-Republican couples who wanted to “swing” while on vacation in Mexico, You Deserve a Drink is as useful as it is entertaining.
FIVE: All I Know Now: Wonderings and Reflections on Growing Up Gracefully by Carrie Hope Fletcher
Goodreads.com Synopsis: We all know that growing up is hard to do, and sometimes the only thing that makes it better are the reassuring words of someone who has walked that bumpy road just a few steps ahead of you and somehow ended up as a fully-functioning adult. Carrie Hope Fletcher is that person.* Thanks to her phenomenally popular YouTube videos, Carrie has become an ‘honorary big sister’ to hundreds of thousands of young people who turn to her for advice, friendship and, most of all, the knowledge that things will get better.
Carrie has created a safe and positive space for young people to connect and share their hopes and concerns online, and now she will share her most personal thoughts and experiences in her first book, ALL I KNOW NOW. Part memoir, part advice guide, it will include Carrie’s thoughts on some of the topics she’s asked about most regularly: bullying, body image, relationships and perhaps the scariest question of all: what does the future hold for me? With warmth, wit and a sprinkling of hard-won wisdom, Carrie will provide the essential tools for growing up gracefully . . . most of the time.
*Although she did recently post a video about how to pee in a onesie. So the definition of ‘adult’ is a bit flexible here . . .
SIX: The Guest Cottage by Nancy Thayer
Goodreads.com Synopsis: Sensible thirty-six-year-old Sophie Anderson has always known what to do. She knows her role in life: supportive wife of a successful architect and calm, capable mother of two. But on a warm summer night, as the house grows quiet around her and her children fall asleep, she wonders what’s missing from her life. When her husband echoes that lonely question, announcing that he’s leaving her for another woman, Sophie realizes she has no idea what’s next. Impulsively renting a guest cottage on Nantucket from her friend Susie Swenson, Sophie rounds up her kids, Jonah and Lacey, and leaves Boston for a quiet family vacation, minus one.
Also minus one is Trevor Black, a software entrepreneur who has recently lost his wife. Trevor is the last person to imagine himself, age thirty and on his own, raising a little boy like Leo—smart and sweet, but grappling constantly with his mother’s death, growing more and more closed off. Hoping a quiet summer on the Nantucket coast will help him reconnect with Leo, Trevor rents a guest house on the beautiful island from his friend Ivan Swenson.
Best-laid plans run awry when Sophie and Trevor realize they’ve mistakenly rented the same house. Still, determined to make this a summer their kids will always remember, the two agree to share the Swensons’ Nantucket house. But as the summer unfolds and the families grow close, Sophie and Trevor must ask themselves if the guest cottage is all they want to share.
Inspiring and true to life, The Guest Cottage is Nancy Thayer at her finest, inscribing in graceful, knowing prose matters of the heart and the meaning of family.
What are you currently reading? Anything good that I should add to my must read list?
If you are looking for something new to read, hop over to my Book Reviews page and pick up your next book!

(Where I Party)
Thanks for the reviews! I actually had The Guest Cottage in my amazon cart for preorder, but I wasn’t sure how it sounded. I’m thinking it is worth the read. xoxo Alexis
all sound like great reads! pinned to add to my list 🙂
These look great! My daughter love Jodi Picoult books, so she will be very excited that there is a new one! Thanks for letting us know about all these great reads!
Thanks for the reviews. Now I can decide whether or not to read these. 🙂
Here from #HomeMattersParty
So great!! I was JUST asking for book recommendations on FB 🙂 Love getting a bit of a review with a recommendation too!
Thanks so much for linking up with #DreamCreateInspire this past week! 🙂
xo
~Tabitha
Great list! I am an avid reader and will look into these titles. Glad you linked up at #HomeMattersParty