I thought of how to title this one this week and this is the best I could come up with because these two books do talk about women who fell in love with the wrong men.

Is love ever enough to conquer it all? It seems to be what is explored within the two fiction and non-fiction picks for this week.

Good in Bed and Slow Motion. Two nicely written books. Check out why they’re both great Sunday Reads.

As a reminder:

Sunday Reads are a collection of hand-picked books for serious readers who want a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

A weekly Sunday pick that features a fiction and non-fiction/creative non-fiction book that you would want to curl up with on a lazy Sunday evening, the books are contemporary classics or modern works that are either just beautifully written and need to be shared, or were picked because they have an urgency to them: they discuss noteworthy events, they’re inspirational and revealing, they have an underlying controversial issue that is explored within the book.

Mention a book in the comment section and it may just get added to Sunday Reads pick. Or just give a yay or nay to any of the books mentioned (if you’ve read them).

Fiction Pick: Good In Bed, by Jennifer Weiner

This was my first Jennifer Weiner read. I admit that I picked up this book in Books-A-Million, on my fourth wedding anniversary vacation, because of Jennifer’s introduction.

She set out to write a  book about a girl who was a lot like her, she said. Although I can’t relate to the weight issue this character faces, I can relate to thinking, (before I got married), that I would never find a partner kind of guy. You know, a man and not a boy. The issue the main character struggles with.

Cannie is what some people will call fat. She’s a passionate writer who writes from the newsroom of the Examiner. The kind of writer who sends in regular queries and short story submissions.  Yet  her ex-boyfriend writes a piece about her in a column that he titles, “Loving a Larger Woman.”

Her ex writes: “Loving a larger woman is an act of courage in this world and maybe it’s even an act of futility. Because in loving C., I knew I was loving someone who didn’t believe that she herself was worthy of anyone’s love. “

And so the story starts, with a single woman examining her life, her weight, why she dated a guy that would write such a thing in the first place, why she needed a break from him but ends up having his baby, how her relationship with her father parallels her own relationship, her career. As she battles these issues and starts to dig into what she really wants from life,  the true home she seeks for herself, things start coming together.

Good in Bed is a work of fiction that is rich with non-fiction. Cannie could be the average woman, or writer looking for love and stability from a society obsessed with diet, beauty and cosmetic issues.

Non-Fiction Pick: Slow Motion; A Memoir of a Life Rescued By Tragedy, by Dani Shapiro

Slow Motion is one of my favorite memoirs: it’s so personal, so telling, yet educational. Shapiro makes herself a lab rat (so to speak) in order to show the purity of struggle and imperfection that produces life lessons.

You see this in the first sentence,

“The night before I receive the phone call that divides my life into before and after, my face swells in an allergic reaction to a skin cream, then blisters and chaps.”

She is obsessed with beauty, or the control that comes with obsessing over beauty. She needs to look great for her married boyfriend: The right face, the right shoes, the right designer brands.

In the meantime, she struggles with an alcohol addiction, “I am drunk, halfway home,” she writes.

The book is about tragedy: her parents’ car accident. The accident that helps her slow down and look at her life: the life of a college dropout who has started dating her best friend’s dad–a famous lawyer who puts her up in a lavish apartment and helps her live the lavish city life. But who is she? She doesn’t know because she is lost in this married, suave ladies man.

But we learn that even before her parents’ tragic accident, she has always been alone. Felt alone. And you start to understand.You see the author’s reformation, and you get to understand the role that love plays in both good and bad relationships. You learn why self-awareness is so important.

Slow Motion is an honest and pure memoir. A candid Sunday Read.

Yay or nay to either book? 

See also: Last week’s Sunday Reads