Dolls Behaving Badly: A Novel for Every Woman Who’s Earned a Little Fun by Cinthia Ritchie (2013)

This was a perfectly good book until I got to the end and there were Discussion Questions. As in a book club. Is that really a thing people do? Like, not just for the wine? It seems like all that talk would ruin the story, just like grade-school book reports did. I don’t really understand how the author and/or editor(s) think this book is so high-falutin and literary it needs reading group discussion questions at the end, and yet saw fit to put blow-up dolls on the cover (and it’s a really good cover! Good imagery and symbolism; totally appropriate for the story! So eye-catching I picked it up, even though I’d never heard of the book or the author!).

But yeah.

Discussion Questions.

*swigs wine*

Chocolate: 150 Delicious and Decadent Recipes by the eds. of Fine Cooking Magazine (2013)

This book is glorious, and I want to eat pretty much everything in it. Examples:

• caramel-pecan brownies (pg. 10)
• flourless chocolate cake with chocolate glaze (pg. 102)
• chocolate truffle tart with whipped vanilla mascarpone topping (pg. 147)
• brownie cream cheese bites (pg. 70)
• always a classic, thick and chewy chocolate chip cookies (pg. 16)

And just about every recipe is accompanied by a lovely picture, all of which I’m drooling over now. Yum!