Review: Five Stages of Grief by Bethany Ramos

Hi my lovely followers! I know you are all looking forward to Steampunky goodness, and believe me, you will have tons of it this month. But before we get into all that clockwork quirkiness, It's time for something entirely different. lol. Today, I have the pleasure to host author Bethany Ramos! She is touring her book 5 Stages of Grief and the tour will be stopping here for the next three days! Yay! If you can't tell, 5 Stages of Grief isn't usually what I read...but hey, I should step out of the box more often because it was great!

Title: Five Stages of Grief
Author: Bethany Ramos
Series: N/A
Pages:
Publisher: Black Opal Books
Format: Paperback
Genre: Chick Lit
Source: Provided by author for touring purposes

Synopsis:
Danielle thinks that the worst is behind her, but she could't have been more wrong. As a beauty editor of Denver's hot new High Life magazine, Danielle Starkey didn't have becoming a widow on her to-do list. Then nine months after her husband's death, she discovers he booked a vacation with another woman. Suddenly, Danielle sees Adam's death in a whole new light and has to get over it - for the second time.Hit with the truth when she least expects it, Danielle brings a fresh, funny, and honest approach to the grieving process as she struggles through online dating, stalking her dead husband's mistress, and, hopefully, finding the man of her dreams. With her stubborn and sassy best friend April by her side. Danielle refuses to let sleeping dogs lie. Will she finally face the truth about herself and her marriage? Or will she succumb to one of the five stages of grief?

My Review:
I am not normally a big Chick-Lit reader. A lot of it is way too fluffy for me and I just kind of feel a little ditsy and idiotic while reading it. Of course...sometimes you just need a bit of fluff to keep you from going insane. We can't all read classics and deep intellectual essays all the time. Sometimes you just want something pink and girly and ridiculous...which is probably why actresses like Katherine Heigl and Kate Hudson still have jobs. Regardless...like a pint of Ben and Jerry's, sometimes you crave things that aren't that good for you, and I just had to take up Bethany's offer when she was looking to tour her new book The 5 Stages of Grief. And Lo and Behold! This wasn't just some fluffy, candy-coated bit of sugar-lit like I thought it would be! True, there's a lot of girly-ness, and Cosmo reading, and general drunk-girl-banter...but it still had depth, life, and this great optimism about getting over yourself that I found really refreshing.

This book provides a whole new twist to the cheating husband story. The main character Danielle is struggling through the grief that her husband died a terrible and early death at the age of 29, when she is blindsided by finding out that he wasn't such a good guy at all. In fact, he had a mistress on the side, even though they'd only been married for 3 years! The total arse! Now she has to deal with the conflicting emotions of grief, anger, and confusion...all while stalking his mistress and attempting date after date with awkward or terrifying Internet matches...

I found Danielle to be extremely likable and she's so relateable! It's honestly like someone made a carbon cut-out of me, aged her about 10 years, and then just plopped her down in Denver. I swear, the way that Danielle acted and spoke and even obsessed about reality TV was like Bethany was spying on me and just wrote my real life on paper. Her voice is utterly original and full of personality. There is no challenge whatsoever to get that movie going in your head when she's narrating. She definitely channels someone like Carrie from Sex and the City or The thing I liked most about her was that she wasn't some annoying, whiny twit that shows up in a lot of Chick-Lit books. She was smart, career driven, and has a tendency to go off the deep end sometimes. All in all, she was hilarious and nice and made you empathize with her. 

I give 5 Stages of Grief 4 out of 5 Keys!! Like I said, I am normally  not a big reader of Chick Lit. Sometimes it makes me feel like I am wasting my time, or that by reading it, I am becoming progressively stupider until I have the IQ of a sponge. However, 5 Stages of Grief has gotten me to reassess my concept of Chick Lit. Sure it's still sugary sweet and a tad fluffy...but...even though you might not be doing mental jumping jacks when you read it doesn't make it bad. It makes it an enjoyable and hilarious insight into the mind of the modern woman. After all...most of us aren't intellectual geniuses, feminists or brain surgeons. We're normal everyday girls...we like our chocolate, trashy magazines, and our wine...and there's nothing wrong with that. I liked this book so much that I am considering opening myself up to even more opportunities to read Chick Lit in the future, instead of only once in a great while. Yay for broadening my reading! :)