I'm in love with Cathy Lamb and her quirky characters. Ok, I will confess that the storyline did get a bit out there at times but my inner smart-ass was delighted by the character of Jeanne. ( )

Yeah, I know you are like well this looks like a good book, well it was except for a whole murder subplot that put it in a different category in my mind. It also at times didn't feel realistic with what I would imagine would happen in real life with regards to Jeanne's trial for assault of her ex boyfriend. I think I was highly amused by certain parts of the book and at times thought that Lamb had some bad messaging in here.

"The Last Time I Was Me" follows Jeanne Stewart who packs up her life in Chicago. She has just blown up her career by giving a talk telling the audience that their lives are meaningless she travels west towards the ocean. She has it in her head maybe she is ready to end things, but she stops in at The Opera Man's Cafe in Weltana, Oregon and ends up staying there for days drinking and eating pancakes.

Lamb rolls out Stewart's story slowly. I liked Jeanne a lot, though at times I found her selfish. You read about the fact that she had something horrible happen to her which turned off any thoughts of marriage or children. That her mother was the one light in her life and when she died, things got dimmer. But, I didn't like how Jeanne avoided her brother, his family for years due to her loss. I can't imagine doing that. We also see Jeanne dealing with the ramifications of assaulting her ex-boyfriend (Slick Dick as she calls him) and the realization that he was never the love of her life, but she kept seeing him because it was a way to pass the time.

What was intriguing in this book is that Jeanne is going to anger management training for assaulting her ex and through that she meets a lot of other misfits. And we even get a love story in this one with Jeanne opening herself up to something new.

Jeanne deciding that Weltana is a good place to stay and buying a home that she plans to fix up brings her into contact with some migrant workers that live in the area who are being taken advantage of by the local slumlord who has the workers living in really bad conditions and abuses them in other ways. I don't know how realistic it really is that no one would have reported the guy or that so many in the town would have just watched from afar as it all went on.

The other characters all had quirks. If you have read a Lamb novel before it's a given. So I just rolled with it. I thought Jeanne's romance with the Governor was realistic, but wanted more of it though. It seemed at times that it wasn't that developed.

The writing was good though at times I had a hard time with it. For example, we find out early on there's a murder that Jeanne is involved in and even though I disliked the character and what they did, the whole thing didn't sit well with me. Lamb writing it though that you should be okay with it and trying to make it funny felt a bit off. And the civil trial that Jeanne had to deal with I thought was funny, but once again was highly unrealistic on how a jury would find things in the end. The flow was good though at one point I was wondering how many things were going to get thrown at Jeanne in this one.

The ending I thought was pretty sweet. Jeanne gets a HEA and she even steps up to be more involved in her brother's life. ( )

I wish this rating system had 1/2 stars because I would rate this book a 4.5 out of 5, I loved it. The book was funny without being dumbed down with a female protagonist who was easy to cheer for throughout her mental breakdown. From high-powered advertising Creative Director to shame of the industry, Jeanne Stewart has reached the point in her life where she has realized that her entire professional career has been a joke and turns it into a very public revelation. Jeanne goes down in flames while being honored at an industry celebration, burning bridges and humiliating colleagues, immediately followed by her leaving town and selling off almost all her personal possessions. The trigger for her breakdown could easily be attributed to finding out that her live-in boyfriend had been cheating on her their entire relationship with dozens of women. After driving to Oregon in hopes of finding a new life, or just leaving her old one, she ends up finding a boarding house with a friendly landlady, a supportive anger management group full of quirky people who all just want to be loved, and a relationship with a mysterious stranger that she never expected would save her life. What could have been a depressing read is peppered with a lot of intelligent humor and characters the reader actually cares about. I did find the repeated references to "Slick Dick" (the cheating ex-boyfriend) to get old quickly, from a character who repeatedly tells people not to swear. And the courtroom scene at the end of the book where Jeanne has to answer to her crime against her ex is a little outlandish, but overall this book is a fun read by an intelligent author. I won this book in a First Reads contest. ( )

This was a fairly entertaining read, but I had problems with the believability factor. How can a wealthy (although hated) member of a small town be missing and no one investigate or even question the disappearance? I have my doubts that real anger management classes visit bars together, throw peanut butter at one another, pretend to be birds, and require male members to go out dressed as women. Even if a grown woman were brave enough to jog naked at night, would her anger management class not at least question the safety of such when she told them about it? How can an alcoholic quit cold turkey and experience zero withdrawal symptoms? Lastly- the court trial, although hilarious, was highly unrealistic. No judge would put up with that.

That being said, it was a funny read. You just have to take it as the chick lit beach read that it is, and not expect more.

The main character was not entirely likable. You've lost your husband and unborn child in a horrid accident, you've had a nervous breakdown and are struggling with alcoholism...but you can feel much better by staring at your shoes? The reader is left wondering if Jay couldn't have found himself a kinder, less self-absorbed wife.

The other characters, although one-dimensional, were much more likable. Rosvita, in spite of (or maybe because of) her neurotic germ obsession was amusing.
All in all, as I stated earlier, this is an OK beach read, as long as one takes it for what it is. Would I read it again? No. However I DID finish it which, for me, was saying something at least.

Read this book if...
*you are bored and looking for a light, humorous read ( )

Reading this book has been an interesting journey. Having recently finished [b:Julia's Chocolates|807108|Julia's Chocolates|Cathy Lamb|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178568637s/807108.jpg|3250025], I had high expectations. I read the first part and was not impressed, but continued to read and suddenly became engaged. I like [b:Julia's Chocolates|807108|Julia's Chocolates|Cathy Lamb|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178568637s/807108.jpg|3250025] better, but I am also enjoying this book.

I thought the events that happen to Jeanne were a little bit fantastic, as in "how can that possibly happen?" As the book wears on, I see the point (at least the point for me!), which is that life is a process and sometimes getting through a process is not easy and there are setbacks.

I really like the characters. One commonality in the two books I have read by [a:Cathy Lamb|422343|Cathy Lamb|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg] is that there are really jerky men and really good men. I am glad that she balances that out.

About 3/4s of the way through the book, right before the election, I was getting tired of reading it, so I skipped ahead and read bits and pieces from the last quarter and was re=energized to continue reading. ( )