Flip Flop

Since freeing myself from the bowels of academic hell (I think professional students need intense pyschotherapy. That's just me though) I've noticed a certain pattern to my reading habits.

• Read a few chapters on my lunch break at work
• Read a few chapters in the morning when working the late shift
• Read a couple of chapters over the course of the weekend when/if The Boyfriend isn't causing a distraction

Following this formula, I can read a book a week - sometimes two if I'm digging through my collection of Harlequins.

The past couple of weeks I've been out of whack a bit. More so than usual:

• Read copious amounts over the course of the weekend
• Barely pick up a book during the week

Case in point - last weekend I read three books. Granted it was a holiday weekend (President's Day) but 3 books?! That's unheard of for me. This weekend, I've polished off 2 books and started on a third.

One would think this is because I'm reading really good books - but sad to say, I'm stuck in the land of mediocrity at the moment. Here's the rundown for the last two weeks:

• The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club by Susan McBride - a mystery and 3rd in her Debutante Dropout series. I found the pacing wildly uneven in this one, so the mystery comes off as merely acceptable.

• The Secret Lives Of Housewives by Joan Elizabeth Lloyd - see review.

• The Profiler by Lori A. May - A Silhouette Bombshell from last year. I knocked this one off in a day, and it's one of those books that you forget the moment you finish the last page. The serial killer angle ain't bad, but the heroine is a bit of an ingenue, and I got fed up with her mentor calling her "kiddo." Drove me batty.

• Changing Habits by Debbie Macomber - I can always count on Macomber to pluck a few heartstrings, and this was an interesting story of 3 women who become nuns and later leave the order for a variety of reasons. My only quibble here is that one of the nuns falls for a Vietnam vet, and I wanted more detail to his history. Macomber chalks up his baggage as "having been in Vietnam" which granted, couldn't have been fun, but I wanted nitty-gritty and instead got glossed over. Still, a good read.

• Sofie Metropolis by Tori Carrington - Now I've read books similar to the Stephanie Plum series, but this one is essentially a clone. The only differences are that Sofie is Greek, a PI, and there isn't a love triangle. You do find: the wacky grandparent, the heroine not very good at her job, the heroine who keeps her gun out of commission (in this case her car's glove box not her cookie jar), the philandering ex, the dog with personality, the mother lamenting her daughter's single status and job choice, and the mysterious foreign hottie with "no past" who shows up at the most opportune times. In this case, the hottie is Australian. A pleasant read, but very been there, done that.

The last two reads were from my languishing hard cover collection. In a misguided attempt to convince myself that I'm making progress on my TBR, I'm trying to read through my trade paperbacks and hard covers. The idea being that these books are larger, and therefore take up more space. I'm not sure it's working, but I'm still plugging away.