"The Silver Star" by Jeannette Walls

I love any book by Jeannette Walls.  Her books are always humorous and always have eccentric characters.  Of course I had to pick up The Silver Star when I saw it in Barnes & Noble.  It took me a little longer to read it than I would have liked due to being busy.  But it was a great book and I would definitely recommend any book of hers.  The characters are eccentric but you always root for them in their story.

Overview from Barnes & Noble's website:

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls’ gripping new novel that "transports us with her powerful storytelling...She contemplates the extraordinary bravery needed to confront real-life demons in a world where the hardest thing to do may be to not run away" (O, The Oprah Magazine).

It is 1970 in a small town in California. “Bean” Holladay is twelve and her sister, Liz, is fifteen when their artistic mother, Charlotte, takes off to find herself, leaving her girls enough money to last a month or two. When Bean returns from school one day and sees a police car outside the house, she and Liz decide to take the bus to Virginia, where their widowed Uncle Tinsley lives in the decaying mansion that’s been in Charlotte’s family for generations.

An impetuous optimist, Bean soon discovers who her father was, and hears stories about why their mother left Virginia in the first place. Money is tight, and the sisters start babysitting and doing office work for Jerry Maddox, foreman of the mill in town, who bullies his workers, his tenants, his children, and his wife. Liz is whip-smart—an inventor of word games, reader of Edgar Allan Poe, nonconformist. But when school starts in the fall, it’s Bean who easily adjusts, and Liz who becomes increasingly withdrawn. And then something happens to Liz in the car with Maddox.

Jeannette Walls has written a deeply moving novel about triumph over adversity and about people who find a way to love each other and the world, despite its flaws and injustices.

"Then Came You" by Jennifer Weiner

I don't think I've ever read a book by Jennifer Weiner.  I was in Barnes & Noble and trying to find another book for the "Buy 2, Get 1 Free" deal and saw this one.  It sounded pretty interesting and I picked it up.  It was a little slow in the beginning, but I really liked this book.  It took me a little longer to get into it due to being busy at work and not having the time to read.  But once I got about half way through, I had to finish.  I would definitely recommend this book.  I liked it enough to pick up another one of her books last time I went into the bookstore.

Synopsis from Barnes and Noble's website:

Jules Strauss is a Princeton senior on a full scholarship who plans on selling her “pedigree” eggs to help save her father from addiction.

Annie Barrow, a struggling Pennsylvania housewife, thinks that carrying another woman’s child will help her recover a sense of purpose and will bring in some much-needed cash.

India Bishop, thirty-eight (really, forty-three) and recently married to the wealthy Marcus Croft, yearns for a baby for reasons that have more to do with money than with love. When her attempts at pregnancy fail, she turns to Jules and Annie to make her dreams come true.

But each of their plans is thrown into disarray when Bettina, Marcus’s privileged daughter, becomes suspicious that her new stepmother is not what she seems . . .

Told with Jennifer Weiner’s trademark wit and sharp observations, Then Came You is a hilarious, tender, and timely tale that explores themes of class and entitlement, surrogacy and charity, the rights of a parent and the measure of a mother.