The Bright Side of Disaster by Katherine Center

I look for books to entertain me, to soothe me during difficult times, to keep me company in the quiet hours of the night and to take me outside of my own world and into another. I like to feel, learn and immerse myself in the thoughts and words of writers. Often, I find myself leaving books half-finished, growing weary with stilted prose or predictable plots. But there are those rare moments when I find a book that really speaks to me. A book that makes me fall in love with both the writing and the characters. I cherish these books and I want to pass them along to everyone I know. When I finish a book that sparks such a pure and wonderful reaction, I can’t wait to post about it here. I just finished Katherine Center‘s debut novel, The Bright Side of Disaster, and it left me clutching the book to my chest and sighing the contented sigh of a happy reader! I urge you to pick up a copy for yourself.

“Sometimes the worst thing that can happen is exactly what you’ve been waiting for…”

Book Summary:

Very pregnant and not quite married, Jenny Harris doesn’t mind that she and her live-in fiancé, Dean, accidentally started their family a little earlier than planned. But Dean is acting distant, and the night he runs out for cigarettes and doesn’t come back, he demotes himself from future husband to sperm donor. And the very next day, Jenny goes into labor.

In the months that follow, Jenny plunges into a life she never anticipated: single motherhood. At least with the sleep deprivation, sore boobs, and fits of crying (both hers and the baby’s), there’s not much time to dwell on her broken heart. And things are looking up: Jenny learns how to do everything one-handed, makes friends in a mommy group, and even gets to know a handsome, helpful neighbor. But Dean is never far from Jenny’s thoughts or, it turns out, her doorstep, and in the end she must choose between the old life she thought she wanted and the new life she’s been lucky to find.