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Lauren Baratz-Logsted

Författare till Crazy Beautiful

52+ verk 2,667 medlemmar 199 recensioner 1 favoritmärkta

Om författaren

Serier

Verk av Lauren Baratz-Logsted

Crazy Beautiful (2009) 229 exemplar
How Nancy Drew Saved My Life (2006) 201 exemplar
Annie's Adventures (2008) 196 exemplar
The Thin Pink Line (2003) 176 exemplar
The Twin's Daughter (2010) 164 exemplar
The Education of Bet (2010) 137 exemplar
I Love You, Michael Collins (2017) 137 exemplar
The Bro-Magnet (2011) 114 exemplar
Durinda's Dangers (2008) 111 exemplar
Little Women and Me (2011) 108 exemplar
A Little Change of Face (2005) 87 exemplar
Georgia's Greatness (2009) 84 exemplar
Jackie's Jokes (2009) 80 exemplar
Crossing The Line (2004) 71 exemplar
Secrets of My Suburban Life (2008) 70 exemplar
Marcia's Madness (2010) 65 exemplar
Petal's Problems (2010) 59 exemplar
Rebecca's Rashness (2011) 56 exemplar
Zinnia's Zaniness (2011) 55 exemplar
Angel's Choice (2006) 50 exemplar
Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes (2008) 46 exemplar
This Is Chick-Lit (2006) 46 exemplar
The Final Battle . . . For Now (2012) 45 exemplar
Vertigo (1739) 44 exemplar
Zombie Abbey (2018) 27 exemplar
Joint Custody (2021) 25 exemplar
Me, In Between (2008) 20 exemplar
Z (A Novel) (2012) 16 exemplar
Pursuing the Times (2012) 15 exemplar
The Sisters Club (2015) 14 exemplar
Falling for Prince Charles (2016) 9 exemplar
The Other Brother (2018) 8 exemplar
Waiting for Dead Men's Shoes (2012) 3 exemplar
Sisters 1 exemplar
Emma Speaks Out 1 exemplar
Bardolatry 1 exemplar
Constance in Love 1 exemplar
Kr̃lekens bojor 1 exemplar

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Taggad

Allmänna fakta

Födelsedag
20th Century
Kön
female
Nationalitet
USA
Födelseort
Monroe, Connecticut, USA
Bostadsorter
Monroe, Connecticut, USA
Danbury, Connecticut, USA
Utbildning
University of Connecticut at Storrs (BA ∙ Psychology)
Western Connecticut State University
Yrken
doughnut salesperson
bookseller
window washer
Freelance editor
book reviewer
Relationer
Logsted, Greg (husband)
Baratz, Lucille (mother)
Organisationer
Readerville
Agent
Pamela Harty (Knight Agency)
Kort biografi
Lauren grew up in Monroe, CT, where her mother and father owned a drugstore. She is a graduate of the University of Connecticut at Storrs, where she majored in psychology. She also has what she calls her “half-Masters” in English from Western Connecticut State University (five courses down, another five to go…someday!). Throughout college, she worked semester breaks as a doughnut salesperson, a job that she swears gave her white lung disease from all the powdered sugar she breathed. Upon graduation, she began work at the venerable independent bookseller, now sadly defunct as such, Klein’s of Westport. There, she bought and sold for the better part of 11 years. In November 1994, Lauren left the bookstore to finally take a chance on herself as a writer. Success did not happen over night. Between 1994 and May 2002 – when Red Dress Ink called with an offer to buy THE THIN PINK LINE – Lauren worked as a book reviewer, a freelance editor and writer, and a window washer, making her arguably the only woman in the world who has ever both hosted a book signing party and washed the windows of the late best-selling novelist Robert Ludlum. Since Red Dress Ink’s call in 2002, Lauren has been kept very busy with writing more novels and checking her Amazon ranking on a daily basis. She still lives in Danbury, with her husband and daughter, where she has lived since 1991. In addition to writing, Lauren’s daughter keeps her busy, accounting for the rest of her time. Lauren’s favorite color is green. Lauren’s favorite non-cat animals are penguins.

Medlemmar

Recensioner

I guess the story was okay, but the main character was completely self-absorbed without a thought or care about how her behavior would impact anyone else. I wouldn't have wanted to marry her either.
 
Flaggad
amandabeaty | 6 andra recensioner | Jan 4, 2024 |
Going into The Twin's Daughter I wasn't sure what to expect. When I first heard about it from the blog-o-sphere it was labeled as a 'gothic young adult historical' and this certainly fits that mold. From the family secrets, odd behaviors, late night visitations, a touch of romance and death, all we needed was a windswept castle out in the hinderlands of England!

I suppose the well appointed house in London's fashionable wealthy area will make do, especially considering all that transpired there.

The course of the novel is about five or six years, we start when Lucy is thirteen years old and meeting her Aunt Helen, her mother's twin sister, for the first and we end with Lucy roughly nineteen and contemplating the nature of love, family and betrayal. Lucy's recounting of the events leading up to the first of several deaths is vivid and full of emotion. Her confusion over what had happened, the shocking way her mother began acting and the rapidly deteriorating state of her father's health--she tells us about this while growing up and realizing her feelings for her friend next door Kit.

There are two sides to this book; on the one hand there is the twisted love square of Aliese, Helen, Richard and Frederick and on the other is the blossoming innocent love of Kit and Lucy. Whereas the adults love lives are better suited for a Jerry Springer episode, Kit and Lucy build a relationship based on mutual trust, affection and need. So you have the dark side of love and the light side of love, coinciding side by side.

I was more interested in the dark side of the book; Helen's jealousy, Aliese's steadily building coldness and Richard's presence in general. Like Lucy, in hindsight a lot of what Aliese (her mother) said or actions she thought was her mother but could have been Helen (or vice versa) began to click into place. It paints a truly horrifying picture of dysfunction of the highest level. Who knows how greed and resentment will twist a person? How one person's act to find the sister she's always wanted to meet might destroy a family completely?

Lauren has written a historical novel before, The Education of Bet, that I enjoyed but had a few qualms with (mainly that the ending felt rushed), I have no such issues with The Twin's Daughter. Lauren moved the plot along at a healthy clip, but it never felt rushed or abrupt. The transitions in time (often entire months just being jumped over) made sense; if Lucy's life was pretty much the same day in and day out after Emma's birth, we don't need 6 months to relive it. Her relationship with Kit felt natural, though I laughed out loud when Kit demonstrated his feelings for her. Lucy was utterly oblivious and made a lot of assumptions based on circumstantial things--something bites her in the butt more than once.

There was a definite menace to the novel, a shadow that permeated the entire book as one bad turn happened after another to Lucy with no real indication of why. Its a chance comment on an important day from her mother that Lucy is finally able to put it together. A tale of betrayal, love and contempt is what transpired and makes me heartily glad that Lucy chooses a different path.
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
lexilewords | 13 andra recensioner | Dec 28, 2023 |
I'm of two minds over The Education of Bet. On the one hand, this had all the makings of a historical novel I love. Feisty heroine, madcap adventures, romance, family secrets and its set somewhere in the 1800's. However, maybe due to the slim nature of the volume the story didn't feel complete. By the time the ending chapters occur I felt as if the author rushed to a conclusion too abruptly.

The story is very much like Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (of which Bet grows to love) or maybe more accurately the Amanda Bynes' movie from about half a decade ago She's the Man (in which Bynes dresses like her twin brother, and attends school in his place, all while he's off having some sort of musical epiphany). Actually that's an apt description; much of what happens to Viola in the movie (it is a direct update of Twelfth Night) is mirrored in The Education of Bet. That's not a bad thing! Amanda Bynes in general, and She's the Man in specific, entertains me a lot. It just made me feel like dejavu.

What works best for this novel is when Bet is struggling to be more 'boy' like, but ending up being even less so. To that point Bet lived a very sheltered life, having never left the estate since her and Will had moved in with their Uncle. All her knowledge of what boys are like come from Will, his stories and her books. She doesn't understand why there is so much social posturing, bullying, arguing and a sort of defeatism. While this makes sense, it also marks her as being very very naive. There's no doubt that at the all-girl schools similiar, if less hands-on and violent, things happen between the students. Just whereas boys will use their fists first, girls use their words. Bet never had that experience however, being the bastard daughter of a maid. She often will question things that happen or things that her room-mate, James, acts as if are ordinary.

The characters over all are shallow feeling, with very little depth given to the vast majority of them. Bet longs for an education and to go to school, but we're never shown exactly why (for the freedom of it? Just because she wants to? The author implies several different reasons, but doesn't seek to expand on them). Similiarly Will longs to join the military, but has such a romantisized view of it that it made me wonder at if he was at all intelligent. James is quiet, and feared and likes to keep a low profile--but until the end we aren't told very much of his backstory. I'm still wondering why the other students kept a wide berth from him (just because he was so weird?).

There is also a certain amount of uneveness to the narrative. For the first fifty pages Bet goes back and forth with memories and stories she was told of her family before moving in with Gardner. Once she's at the school, other than infrequent letters to Will, its almost exclusively dedicated to the present. This makes the news Bet receives seem like it come out of no where. Truly when she said "I hadn't thought about it" (that's the paraphrase, if I put the quote in it would be a spoiler) in a surprised manner I believed her. I certainly hadn't thought about it. The scattered clues leading to the revealation were just there in the story.

Though this is a critical review, I did enjoy the novel. Bet's interactions with Will and later James are amusing, as is her commentary on what its like to be a boy. Just reading about her trying to keep all the lies straight is entertaining. Unfortunately it suffers from being entirely too short. 192 pages was clearly not enough time for Baratz-Logsted to flesh out this story suitably.

And a minor pet peeve: the exact year this is set is never said or shown. Nor are there any clues as to when it is! While I don't think knowing whether it was set in 1804 or 1876 is critical to the plot, it would have at least kept me from trying to figure it out.
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
lexilewords | 12 andra recensioner | Dec 28, 2023 |
Oh boy, this book was not the best but for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to DNF it.
For starters, this seemed like it was not edited well. The author loved using exclamation marks! Every other sentence! Seriously!
Secondly, the flashbacks to when Bet was young. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do not believe that four-year-olds know enough to be mad at the world. And speak in complex sentences.
 
Flaggad
libraryofemma | 12 andra recensioner | Oct 20, 2023 |

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Statistik

Verk
52
Även av
2
Medlemmar
2,667
Popularitet
#9,620
Betyg
½ 3.4
Recensioner
199
ISBN
169
Språk
6
Favoritmärkt
1

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