Thursday, August 25, 2011

Book Review & Giveaway! 500 Acres and No Place to Hide: More Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm Girl

Thursday, August 25, 2011  ,  3 comments

500 Acres and No Place to Hide: More Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm GirlThe great folks at Penguin sent me Susan McCorkindale's hilarious memoir, 500 Acres and No Place to Hide: More Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm Girl (NAL; August 2011). It is the follow-up novel to her first memoir Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm Girl and, like the first, it is really a lot of fun!

Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm GirlBorn and bred Jersey Girl, Susan McCorkindale, was a high-powered Marketing Exec at Family Circle until her husband convinced her and their two young sons to move to a 500-acre beef cattle farm in Virginia. Life down South is verrry different than life in Ridgewood, NJ (how can a girl survive without a Starbucks or Bloomies for miles??) and Susan's memoirs chronicle the family's acclimation to their new rural habitat in side-splitting detail.

I really enjoyed both of Susan's memoirs--she is self-deprecating like the majority of us and the jams she gets herself into are hilarious and strangely familiar (Getting chased by a herd of cattle on her morning run? Check. Dropping a ham on the floor, washing it and serving it anyway? Why not?) And while some may be turned off that Susan is a bit of a moneyed princess who does farm work in her Jimmy Choos, I just found her unwillingness to give up the Jersey in her made me laugh even more.

My only beef (haha--beef, farm, you get it?) are the million footnotes. I'm a lover of the footnote and comments in parentheses as you can tell, but even I felt some of Susan's were superfluous. So, a little editing of the footnotes would have been nice, but the books are enjoyable anyway.

The giveaway!
Penguin is generously offering a copy of 500 Acres and No Place to Hide to a lucky Rockland Mother reader in the United States! If you're interested in winning a copy of the book, please comment below before 11:59 on August 31st.

Good luck!

3 comments:

  1. Susan McCorkindaleAugust 26, 2011 at 12:33 PM

    Hi Lisa,
    Thrilled you enjoyed the book! Thanks for the terrific review. If you'll let me know who wins, I'll happily dedicate and sign a book plate she (or he, I guess, right?!) can place inside the book. Thanks again!
    Susan

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  2. AmyAugust 26, 2011 at 12:50 PM

    Awesome review & would luv to win! I'm from and live in Jersey as well! Yes living right outside NYC, right near Bloomingdales is very very nice. And what about SAKS, Barneys? Can't forget those. I'm a huge girly girl myself and would luv to wear high heeled glam shoes like Susan but can't bc of bad feet problems.

    amyrbromberg(at)gmail(dot)com

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  3. SaraAugust 30, 2011 at 3:04 PM

    Wow! I was just saying the other day that I need something new to read - I'm spending way too much time on Pinterest lately.

    Uh, and I love the fact that the author of these books stopped by to comment and offered a book plate! Even after you called her a moneyed princess!

    Seriously, who wouldn't want to read a book or two by an awesome author like that?

    ReplyDelete

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