NBS recommends beach reads

Something Borrowed (Movie Tie-In)

By Emily Giffin

P285

MANILA, Philippines -Something Borrowed is the smash-hit debut novel for every woman who has ever had a complicated love-hate friendship. Rachel White is the consummate good girl who always played by all the rules. She is a hardworking attorney at a large Manhattan law firm and a diligent maid of honor to her charmed best friend Darcy. Since grade school, she has watched Darcy shine, quietly accepting the sidekick role in their lopsided friendship. But that suddenly changes the night of her thirtieth birthday when Rachel finally confesses her feelings to Darcy’s fiancé, and is both horrified and thrilled to discover that he feels the same way. As the wedding date draws near, events spiral out of control, and Rachel knows she must make a choice between her heart and conscience. In doing so, she discovers that the lines between right and wrong can be blurry, endings aren’t always neat, and sometimes you have to risk everything to be true to yourself.

Big Girl: A Novel

By Danielle Steel

P285

A chubby little girl with ordinary looks, Victoria Dawson has always felt out of place in her family, especially in body-conscious LA. While her parents and sister can eat anything and not gain an ounce, Victoria must watch everything she eats, as well as endure her father’s belittling comments about her body and see her academic achievements go unacknowledged. Ice cream and oversized helpings of all the wrong foods give her comfort, but only briefly. The one thing she knows is that she has to get away from home, and after college in Chicago, she moves to New York City. Landing her dream job as a high school teacher, Victoria loves working with her students and wages war on her weight at the gym. Despite tension with her parents, Victoria remains close to her younger sister, Grace. Though they couldn’t be more different in looks, they love each other unconditionally. So when Grace announces her engagement to a man who is an exact replica of their narcissistic father, Victoria worries about her sister’s future happiness, and with no man of her own, she feels like a failure once again. As the wedding draws near, a chance encounter, a deeply upsetting betrayal, and a family confrontation lead to a turning point. Behind Victoria is a lifetime of hurt and neglect she has tried to forget. Ahead is a challenge and a risk: to accept herself as she is, celebrate it, and claim the victories she has fought so hard for and deserves. Big girl or not, she is terrific and discovers that herself.

Double Dork Diaries

By Rachel Renée Russell

P349

Nikki Maxwell has just started at her new school and is determined to make a fresh start, leaving her dorky past behind her. But when you’re the girl who spills spaghetti over herself during lunch, who dresses as a giant rat for Halloween and whose dad arrives a van with a giant cockroach on the roof, it’s hard to transform from loser-queen to queen-bee overnight.