Lauren Baratz-Logsted
Author of Crazy Beautiful
About the Author
Series
Works by Lauren Baratz-Logsted
Constance in Love 1 copy
Bardolatry 1 copy
Kr̃lekens bojor 1 copy
I love you Michael Collins 1 copy
I love you Michel Collins 1 copy
Emma Speaks Out 1 copy
Sisters 1 copy
Associated Works
Flirting with Pride & Prejudice: Fresh Perspectives on the Original Chick-Lit Masterpiece (2005) — Contributor — 242 copies, 9 reviews
Literary Cash: Unauthorized Writings Inspired by the Legendary Johnny Cash (Smart Pop series) (2006) — Contributor — 17 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 20th Century
- Gender
- female
- Education
- University of Connecticut at Storrs (BA ∙ Psychology)
Western Connecticut State University - Occupations
- doughnut salesperson
bookseller
window washer
freelance editor
book reviewer - Organizations
- Readerville
- Agent
- Pamela Harty (Knight Agency)
- Relationships
- Logsted, Greg (husband)
Baratz, Lucille (mother) - Short biography
- Lauren grew up in Monroe, CT, where her mother and father owned a drugstore. She is a graduate of the University of Connecticut at Storrs, where she majored in psychology. She also has what she calls her “half-Masters” in English from Western Connecticut State University (five courses down, another five to go…someday!). Throughout college, she worked semester breaks as a doughnut salesperson, a job that she swears gave her white lung disease from all the powdered sugar she breathed. Upon graduation, she began work at the venerable independent bookseller, now sadly defunct as such, Klein’s of Westport. There, she bought and sold for the better part of 11 years. In November 1994, Lauren left the bookstore to finally take a chance on herself as a writer. Success did not happen over night. Between 1994 and May 2002 – when Red Dress Ink called with an offer to buy THE THIN PINK LINE – Lauren worked as a book reviewer, a freelance editor and writer, and a window washer, making her arguably the only woman in the world who has ever both hosted a book signing party and washed the windows of the late best-selling novelist Robert Ludlum. Since Red Dress Ink’s call in 2002, Lauren has been kept very busy with writing more novels and checking her Amazon ranking on a daily basis. She still lives in Danbury, with her husband and daughter, where she has lived since 1991. In addition to writing, Lauren’s daughter keeps her busy, accounting for the rest of her time. Lauren’s favorite color is green. Lauren’s favorite non-cat animals are penguins.
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Monroe, Connecticut, USA
- Places of residence
- Monroe, Connecticut, USA
Danbury, Connecticut, USA - Associated Place (for map)
- Connecticut, USA
Members
Reviews
Why I read it: I saw tweets about this really funny book from a guy's perspective from Jane at Dear Author and then I saw it on NetGalley so I snapped it up.What it's about: (This is the blurb from Goodreads) Women have been known to lament, "Always a bridesmaid, never a bride." For Johnny Smith, the problem is, "Always a Best Man, never a groom." At age 33, housepainter Johnny has been Best Man eight times. The ultimate man's man, Johnny loves the Mets, the Jets, his weekly poker game, and show more the hula girl lamp that hangs over his basement pool table. Johnny has the instant affection of nearly every man he meets, but one thing he doesn't have is a woman to share his life with, and he wants that desperately. When Johnny meets District Attorney Helen Troy, he decides to renounce his bro-magnet ways in order to impress her. With the aid and advice of his friends and family, soon he's transforming his wardrobe, buying throw pillows, ditching the hula girl lamp, getting a cat and even changing his name to the more mature-sounding John. And through it all, he's pretending to have no interest in sports, which Helen claims to abhor. As things heat up with Helen, the questions arise: Will Johnny finally get the girl? And, if he's successful in that pursuit, who will he be now that he's no longer really himself? The Bro Magnet is a rollicking comedic novel about what one man is willing to give up for the sake of love.What worked for me (and what didn't): This book is SO funny. I was cackling my way throught his book and I think I started laughing pretty close to page one. Johnny is hilarious. I actually found him to be a really nice, sweet, funny, considerate guy but most of the girls in the book didn't feel that way. When he meets Helen, he so wants to impress her, that he decides to ditch the sports references and other things which girls are always telling him are annoying. Helen is the District Attorney so he also has to cover up his fondness for finding loopholes in the law (he likes the puzzle solving aspect of it) on crime shows and when talking to his lawyer friend Steve. "So let me get this straight,": she says. "It's not loopholes you have a thing for, it's ice holes?" "Oh, yes," I say. "From when I was little and my dad used to take me ice fishing. Ever since he got MS and can't get around as well anymore, I liked to remember the times when we used to be together on the ice, sitting around the ice holes." Well at least the part about his having MS is true. "That's sweet," she says. Hey, I'm on a roll here. "Not only do I like ice holes," I say, "but I like sinkholes." "Sinkholes?" "I mean, I'd hate to get my truck stuck in one, but they're so interesting, the way they just appear all of a sudden. And peepholes, I like those too." "Peepholes?" "It is always good to see who's on the other side of the door so you know whether you want to let them in or not. Oh, and blowholes - you know, whales. They should be saved." "So," she says slowly, reviewing my case item by item. "you like ice holes, sinkholes, peepholes and blowholes?" I nod. "But not loopholes?" I nod gain. Hole this, hole that - even when I'm determined not to just be myself, I'm such an asshole. I just can't help it.Pretty soon, the girls have him watching General Hospital (the conversations about the Cassidines and the Spencers are hilarious!), redecorating his condo and even getting a cat (because, he's told, girls like cats). So, he and his equally clueless-about-women BFF Sam go cat hunting. "Which one should we check out first?" I ask Sam, looking over the listings. "First? What do you think, we're going to drive all over Danbury like we're house-hunting or something, interviewing various feline applicants?" "I'll take that as a 'we're just going to one place and take whatever they have'?" "Precisely. Here's one. 'Free, six adorable kittens in need of a good home'." "But I dont need six. I only need one." "What are you, stupid? We look at the six and pick out the one you like best. How hard can it be?" "But is says 'good home', not 'homes'. Clearly whoever placed the ad is looking to have all the kittens adopted at once." "Oh, for Christ sake Johnny just get in the truck and drive."But, as funny as this book is (Did I tell you? It's REALLY funny), there are some really poignant moments too. Johnny is loyal. He goes to the local hardware store every day to buy supplies for his paint business, partly because he doesn't like being tied down by buying in bulk, but mostly because he wants to help out the local hardware store - he's not a fan of the big chains. He goes to Leo's coffee shop every day out of loyalty to Leo rather than go to a Starbucks or similar. He even goes to Leo's everyday later in the book just to cheer the old man up when he's not really even in the market for coffee. He has an "opportunity" early in the book to get laid but she's so drunk he feels uncomfortable and leaves rather than take advantage of her. See? I told you he's a good guy.In the end, Johnny decides that even though he loves Helen, he has to to come clean because if he can't be himself (or a slightly cleaned up version of himself - he finds he looks good in J Crew, but he really prefers to be called 'Johnny' rather than the more mature 'John'), then she's not the woman for him. Which is also sweet. I liked that he came to the conclusion that he deserved honesty in his relationship.Helen has secrets of her own and I don't think it will come as a surprise to readers that they are more suited to each other than either knows.Because the story is told in Johnny's first person POV, we don't get to know Helen all that much but it's such fun to be in Johnny's head that I didn't really mind that. I would have liked to see another conversation between the couple at the end or maybe a scene showing their life as they decided to live it once all the secrets are revealed but it was otherwise an excellent read.It's very much on the "sweet/subtle" side of the heat intensity so it is suitable for younger readers too.What else? In the end, the message of the book is that there is someone out there for everyone, even self-confessed assholes. Sure, it doesn't have the best title or cover in the world. But, this is a great book. I highly recommend it.Grade: B show less
Originally posted at Romance Around the Corner
This is a perfect example of why you should never judge a book by its cover. I know it’s bad, I also know the title isn’t helping, but believe me, you’re in for a treat.
Johnny Smith is man’s man. That means that every single guy he’s ever met loves him. They all find him funny, clever, approachable, admirable, all the guys want to be his best friend and they all want Johnny to be their Best Man. In fact, he’s been Best Man at eight show more weddings and counting! However, when it comes to women the story is the complete opposite. They all hate him, no matter what he does, men love him for it and women hate him. He’s been disappointing women ever since he was born.
See what I mean? Now, at 33 years old, he’s ready to settle down and form a family. But he wonders:
When he meets Helen, finding the answer to that question becomes an urgent matter because he really likes her. So he enlists the help of everyone around him: his friends’ wives, his dad and even the local tailor. They all agree that he should change his douchey ways and become a different guy: no baseball cap, no jeans, no t-shirts, no sports, no belching; but yes to the opera, yes to changing his name from Johnny to John, yes to watching General Hospital and yes to getting a cat.
It’s pretty obvious to the reader that Helen isn’t shallow and that they are pretty compatible, but he is so worried about becoming what he thinks is a better person that he fails to see this. He’s completely self-absorbed and blind, but he doesn’t realize it and his journey is about figuring out that the right person loves you just the way you are.
I have so many good things to say about this book that I don’t even know where to start. First I should say that it’s a comedy and I that I started laughing from page one, right about the “then she dies part” and just kept laughing all the way to the end. Next I should say that the whole book is told from Johnny’s POV and that, plus the whole “journey to self-discovery” part of the story, made me feel like I was reading a bizarre chick-lit, but instead of chick-lit this should be called dude-lit or something like that. I have read my fair share of chick-lit and some I have loved, but most just blurs together, so this book was a refreshing and an original twist to the genre.
I’m trying to come up with a way to describe Johnny and the best I can say is that he was charming, goodhearted, caring, clueless, and yes, a douche. His story inspired lots of laughs, lots of face-palms and lots of yelling “get a clue!”. This is a guy who is wicked smart for some things, and then goes and says things like this:
(Johnny asks his friend Sam to help him get a cat)
Parts of his characters felt a bit over the top and cartoonish. Things like his obsession with sports, his lack of understanding women’s minds, and the fact that he put together women into one huge bag where if you manage to decipher one then you have deciphered them all, felt like a huge stereotype of how men are and not like a real person. But despite his shortcomings, both as a book character and as a person, I loved him. He was reliable, honest, loyal and inherently good. When you have to spend a whole book in company of the same character he better be likeable, otherwise the reading experience is going to be bad. Thankfully Johnny was as likeable a character as it gets.
Another thing I loved about the book was the narration. Johnny’s personality grabbed me to the point where I felt like he was sitting beside me telling me his story. Sometimes first person POVs read more like the characters talking to themselves, but in this case I felt like he was talking directly to me.
The book isn’t perfect, the ending was a bit weak, it wasn’t what I was expecting which was good, but it was abrupt and rushed. The book’s pacing is slow and it drags a bit in the middle, but then I had so much fun that I didn’t want it to end. Helen isn’t really the heroine, she acts more like a secondary character and as love interest, she isn’t developed at all and we don’t really get to know much about her which was disappointing.
Finally I want to say that I’m happy I read the book and I’m happy because I read it. It’s a feel good book similar to its main character: crass on the outside, but charming and funny on the inside. This is how romantic comedies should be.
In case there were any doubts left, I wholeheartedly recommend this book to everyone feeling like spending an afternoon laughing out loud and in the company of a great guy. show less
This is a perfect example of why you should never judge a book by its cover. I know it’s bad, I also know the title isn’t helping, but believe me, you’re in for a treat.
Johnny Smith is man’s man. That means that every single guy he’s ever met loves him. They all find him funny, clever, approachable, admirable, all the guys want to be his best friend and they all want Johnny to be their Best Man. In fact, he’s been Best Man at eight show more weddings and counting! However, when it comes to women the story is the complete opposite. They all hate him, no matter what he does, men love him for it and women hate him. He’s been disappointing women ever since he was born.
Right from the start, I’ve been a disappointment to women.
Here’s me at my own birth:
On January 1, 1977, after thirty-two hours, fourteen minutes and fifty-three seconds of labor, most of it during a heat wave so bad there are citywide power outages – a heat wave that would have been perfectly normal in Florida, but in New England, not so much – my mother, Francesca Smith, gives birth to me at home at exactly 2:19 p.m.
She insisted on the home birth because she said it would be more natural.
Alfresca Tivoli, Francesca’s sister, is present as Francesca’s birthing coach because my father, John Smith, says it’s women’s work. Plus, he’s scared shitless.
As I emerge from between my mother’s legs – all thirteen pounds, eight ounces of me – Alfresca catches me. Then I do the usual baby stuff: I get my cord cut, I’m slapped, I cry, I get weighed and measured, someone wipes the cheesy stuff off my hairy head, and finally I get handed off to my mother.
“Oh,” Francesca says, gently parting the swaddling to examine my body further, “it’s a boy. This wasn’t what I was expecting at all. I was so sure, all along, I was going to have a girl.”
Then, she dies.
“If you’d been a girl,” Alfresca says, taking me from my dead mother’s arms as the midwife tries in vain to resuscitate my disappointed mother, “this never would have happened.”
See what I mean? Now, at 33 years old, he’s ready to settle down and form a family. But he wonders:
How did I get to be the guy that men all gravitate toward but that women, except for lesbians, mostly shun?
When he meets Helen, finding the answer to that question becomes an urgent matter because he really likes her. So he enlists the help of everyone around him: his friends’ wives, his dad and even the local tailor. They all agree that he should change his douchey ways and become a different guy: no baseball cap, no jeans, no t-shirts, no sports, no belching; but yes to the opera, yes to changing his name from Johnny to John, yes to watching General Hospital and yes to getting a cat.
It’s pretty obvious to the reader that Helen isn’t shallow and that they are pretty compatible, but he is so worried about becoming what he thinks is a better person that he fails to see this. He’s completely self-absorbed and blind, but he doesn’t realize it and his journey is about figuring out that the right person loves you just the way you are.
I have so many good things to say about this book that I don’t even know where to start. First I should say that it’s a comedy and I that I started laughing from page one, right about the “then she dies part” and just kept laughing all the way to the end. Next I should say that the whole book is told from Johnny’s POV and that, plus the whole “journey to self-discovery” part of the story, made me feel like I was reading a bizarre chick-lit, but instead of chick-lit this should be called dude-lit or something like that. I have read my fair share of chick-lit and some I have loved, but most just blurs together, so this book was a refreshing and an original twist to the genre.
I’m trying to come up with a way to describe Johnny and the best I can say is that he was charming, goodhearted, caring, clueless, and yes, a douche. His story inspired lots of laughs, lots of face-palms and lots of yelling “get a clue!”. This is a guy who is wicked smart for some things, and then goes and says things like this:
(Johnny asks his friend Sam to help him get a cat)
“Precisely. Here’s one. Free, six adorable kittens in need of good home.”
“But I don’t need six. I only need one.”
“What are you, stupid? We look at the six and pick out the one you like best. How hard can it be?”
“But it says ‘good home,’ not ‘homes.’ Clearly whoever placed the ad is looking to have all the kittens adopted at once.”
“Oh, for Christ sake, Johnny, just get in the truck and drive.”
Parts of his characters felt a bit over the top and cartoonish. Things like his obsession with sports, his lack of understanding women’s minds, and the fact that he put together women into one huge bag where if you manage to decipher one then you have deciphered them all, felt like a huge stereotype of how men are and not like a real person. But despite his shortcomings, both as a book character and as a person, I loved him. He was reliable, honest, loyal and inherently good. When you have to spend a whole book in company of the same character he better be likeable, otherwise the reading experience is going to be bad. Thankfully Johnny was as likeable a character as it gets.
Another thing I loved about the book was the narration. Johnny’s personality grabbed me to the point where I felt like he was sitting beside me telling me his story. Sometimes first person POVs read more like the characters talking to themselves, but in this case I felt like he was talking directly to me.
The book isn’t perfect, the ending was a bit weak, it wasn’t what I was expecting which was good, but it was abrupt and rushed. The book’s pacing is slow and it drags a bit in the middle, but then I had so much fun that I didn’t want it to end. Helen isn’t really the heroine, she acts more like a secondary character and as love interest, she isn’t developed at all and we don’t really get to know much about her which was disappointing.
Finally I want to say that I’m happy I read the book and I’m happy because I read it. It’s a feel good book similar to its main character: crass on the outside, but charming and funny on the inside. This is how romantic comedies should be.
In case there were any doubts left, I wholeheartedly recommend this book to everyone feeling like spending an afternoon laughing out loud and in the company of a great guy. show less
Pursuing the Times - Lauren Baratz-Logsted Oh, I think this is just the thing to turn my feminist ire to after I finish Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference. Why, yes, I'm annoyed by the way the NYT scorns women writers, particularly when they write for women readers.***And may I just say, smugly, that I was right? Perfect timing. Baratz-Logsted takes Pride and Prejudice, sets it in the modern world of 21st century publishing, and creates a show more memorable protagonist in Mercury Lauren, a popular writer of chick lit, who can't get no respect. Mercury could be one of her own satirical creations: she's a wack job in private life, but also a serious and hard-working writer. Unlike the myriad tales of earnest male writers suffering for ennui and thwarted promise, Mercury isn't angsting about her talent or her sales. She's good at what she does, and has the steadily-growing royalties to prove it. But because the writing of women for women is widely disparaged in the US, she is constantly assailed by men (including her own brother) who've never read Chick Lit and can't imagine it has anything to say to men. As much as I loved the goofy I Love Lucy hijinks, and I did, I loved even more that it was a romantic comedy in which the male lead had to prove himself deserving. Don't let the writer's light touch fool you: there's plenty of meat on those petite bones. Funny, sexy, and with something to say about the human condition, it's a delightful read.
Personal copy
*******
It surprises me how often I pick the same book at the same time of year. Often within days. show less
Personal copy
*******
It surprises me how often I pick the same book at the same time of year. Often within days. show less
Going into The Twin's Daughter I wasn't sure what to expect. When I first heard about it from the blog-o-sphere it was labeled as a 'gothic young adult historical' and this certainly fits that mold. From the family secrets, odd behaviors, late night visitations, a touch of romance and death, all we needed was a windswept castle out in the hinderlands of England!
I suppose the well appointed house in London's fashionable wealthy area will make do, especially considering all that transpired show more there.
The course of the novel is about five or six years, we start when Lucy is thirteen years old and meeting her Aunt Helen, her mother's twin sister, for the first and we end with Lucy roughly nineteen and contemplating the nature of love, family and betrayal. Lucy's recounting of the events leading up to the first of several deaths is vivid and full of emotion. Her confusion over what had happened, the shocking way her mother began acting and the rapidly deteriorating state of her father's health--she tells us about this while growing up and realizing her feelings for her friend next door Kit.
There are two sides to this book; on the one hand there is the twisted love square of Aliese, Helen, Richard and Frederick and on the other is the blossoming innocent love of Kit and Lucy. Whereas the adults love lives are better suited for a Jerry Springer episode, Kit and Lucy build a relationship based on mutual trust, affection and need. So you have the dark side of love and the light side of love, coinciding side by side.
I was more interested in the dark side of the book; Helen's jealousy, Aliese's steadily building coldness and Richard's presence in general. Like Lucy, in hindsight a lot of what Aliese (her mother) said or actions she thought was her mother but could have been Helen (or vice versa) began to click into place. It paints a truly horrifying picture of dysfunction of the highest level. Who knows how greed and resentment will twist a person? How one person's act to find the sister she's always wanted to meet might destroy a family completely?
Lauren has written a historical novel before, The Education of Bet, that I enjoyed but had a few qualms with (mainly that the ending felt rushed), I have no such issues with The Twin's Daughter. Lauren moved the plot along at a healthy clip, but it never felt rushed or abrupt. The transitions in time (often entire months just being jumped over) made sense; if Lucy's life was pretty much the same day in and day out after Emma's birth, we don't need 6 months to relive it. Her relationship with Kit felt natural, though I laughed out loud when Kit demonstrated his feelings for her. Lucy was utterly oblivious and made a lot of assumptions based on circumstantial things--something bites her in the butt more than once.
There was a definite menace to the novel, a shadow that permeated the entire book as one bad turn happened after another to Lucy with no real indication of why. Its a chance comment on an important day from her mother that Lucy is finally able to put it together. A tale of betrayal, love and contempt is what transpired and makes me heartily glad that Lucy chooses a different path. show less
I suppose the well appointed house in London's fashionable wealthy area will make do, especially considering all that transpired show more there.
The course of the novel is about five or six years, we start when Lucy is thirteen years old and meeting her Aunt Helen, her mother's twin sister, for the first and we end with Lucy roughly nineteen and contemplating the nature of love, family and betrayal. Lucy's recounting of the events leading up to the first of several deaths is vivid and full of emotion. Her confusion over what had happened, the shocking way her mother began acting and the rapidly deteriorating state of her father's health--she tells us about this while growing up and realizing her feelings for her friend next door Kit.
There are two sides to this book; on the one hand there is the twisted love square of Aliese, Helen, Richard and Frederick and on the other is the blossoming innocent love of Kit and Lucy. Whereas the adults love lives are better suited for a Jerry Springer episode, Kit and Lucy build a relationship based on mutual trust, affection and need. So you have the dark side of love and the light side of love, coinciding side by side.
I was more interested in the dark side of the book; Helen's jealousy, Aliese's steadily building coldness and Richard's presence in general. Like Lucy, in hindsight a lot of what Aliese (her mother) said or actions she thought was her mother but could have been Helen (or vice versa) began to click into place. It paints a truly horrifying picture of dysfunction of the highest level. Who knows how greed and resentment will twist a person? How one person's act to find the sister she's always wanted to meet might destroy a family completely?
Lauren has written a historical novel before, The Education of Bet, that I enjoyed but had a few qualms with (mainly that the ending felt rushed), I have no such issues with The Twin's Daughter. Lauren moved the plot along at a healthy clip, but it never felt rushed or abrupt. The transitions in time (often entire months just being jumped over) made sense; if Lucy's life was pretty much the same day in and day out after Emma's birth, we don't need 6 months to relive it. Her relationship with Kit felt natural, though I laughed out loud when Kit demonstrated his feelings for her. Lucy was utterly oblivious and made a lot of assumptions based on circumstantial things--something bites her in the butt more than once.
There was a definite menace to the novel, a shadow that permeated the entire book as one bad turn happened after another to Lucy with no real indication of why. Its a chance comment on an important day from her mother that Lucy is finally able to put it together. A tale of betrayal, love and contempt is what transpired and makes me heartily glad that Lucy chooses a different path. show less
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