BITTER IN THE MOUTH * LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS

Bitter in the Mouth by Monique Truong - I loved this novel about a girl who not only hears words, but gets a taste in her mouth for each word she hears. It's an extremely distracting way to live, especially when the tastes are bitter or don't combine well, one after the other. There are all kinds of family secrets and questions that occur to the reader, and one wonders whether a thread or two has been lost. No threads are dropped in this story though; by the end of the book, all loose ends are gathered up and sewn back into the tapestry. I wouldn't mind a second installment of Lindamint's life. What happens to her and the other characters after this? It's a question that she herself would ask.

Love and Other Drugs - Steve and I watched this on On Demand recently, and I must say, pretty as she is, Anne Hathaway can be overwhelming. I loved her as a meek character in The Devil Wears Prada, but as a leading lady she's too much. In this case she dominates Jake Gyllenhaal which isn't easy to do. All that said, it's an OK love story about a guy who gets a pharmaceutical sales job and the broken girl he ends up loving. The funny parts can be funny, and rather than one heavy-set male side kick, there are two heavy male sidekicks. Maybe because the makers wanted it to be more real-life? I say just let it be a movie, folks. If you miss it, you won't really miss it, even if some reviewers gave it lots of stars.