The Sweet Spot by Stephanie Evanovich

I didn't really care for this book. I don't really think the message was a very good one and I thought the writing was okay at best.

It's a story about Amanda, who is a restaurant owner, who ends up dating a pro-baseball player, Chase. That's pretty much the story with the usual obstacles for them to overcome. What I don't really like is Amanda's willingness to give up her restaurant so easily for Chase. If that's what she wants to do, than that's fine and those around her should be supportive. But the book makes it seem that you can't have both, and she totally could still be with Chase and run her restaurant. It would be hard, but most things that are worth it are.

I did think the struggle Amanda feels about her sexual fantasies is something a lot of women in relationships can relate to. People in general feel uncomfortable with their kinks, even those that are very common according to an article in the New York Post from 2011.

What I thought was cool about this book was that the main characters in The Sweet Spot were minor characters from her other book, Big Girl Panties. I think it would be smart and cool if Evanovich does that again in her next book. I think Eric and Nicki, two workers at her restaurant and roommates, would be an excellent choice. It reminds me of what Sarah Dessen usually does in her books, incorporating places and characters so it's almost as if it's interwoven together.

If you're interested in reading this book, you can get it as a paperback for $7.99. That's a pretty good price for a beach read.

Favorite Quotes:

• "She wouldn't go so far as to say she considered herself particularly unlucky; she just knew her boundaries."

• "'Son, no matter where your talent takes you, you're going to be a man a lot longer than you're going to be a ballplayer. Knowledge is the only true power. Learn all you can.'"

• "'You know, the best waves to ride come from the roughest seas. Risk it.'"

• "Most of the time, his easygoingness was a treasure, but not now, when she was troubled and full of self-doubt."

• "But she never walked with her head down because that just wasn't in her nature. She may have been beaten, but she wasn't broken. Or was it the other way around?"

• "Now she listened to it for the last time, and when it finished, the only sound she heard was of the methodic, pounding breakers as she sat alone on the beach, all cried out, with nothing but the memories of what she had had and what she had lost."

• "' Thanks to modern technology, folks who aren't qualified to make a decision about what's for dinner now have the ability to make snap judgements at a moment's notice, and what's worse, the ability to voice them without having to stand behind what they say. It gives a whole new meaning to the words witch hunt.'"