Rating: 
Summary: "Essential" summer reading!
Review: 'Charlotte' is an "essential" read! It's a well-written, witty, funny story with a great cast of characters! I love Charlotte because she's honest & wonderfully quirky. I highly recommend this book. I have already passed my copy on to a friend. Libby Schmais is a true talent. I can't wait for her next book!!
Rating:
Summary: "Essential" summer reading!
Review: 'Charlotte' is an "essential" read! It's a well-written, witty, funny story with a great cast of characters! I love Charlotte because she's honest & wonderfully quirky. I highly recommend this book. I have already passed my copy on to a friend. Libby Schmais is a true talent. I can't wait for her next book!!
Rating: 
Summary: Check it Out
Review: A friend of mine gave me this book to check out. I was skeptical, thinking it was one of those formulaic chick-lit books. For example, I just read one called Apocalipstick, that was a complete Bridget Jones knock-off. Anyway, while this book is entertaining, also has depth, believable characters and doesn't depend on a fairytale, Prince Charming ending. Although I live in D.C., I liked the New York setting, the characters and plot were interesting and a little off-beat. If you're looking for something a little more than boy meets girl, girl acts like[a fool] , boy likes her anyway, I would recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly Enjoyable
Review: Although I usually limit my reading to demanding material - I'm currently reading Borges' Selected Non-Fictions and Muldoon's Moy Sand and Gravel, and recently finished Faulkner's As I Lay Dying - I read 'Charlotte' on the advice of a friend. Although not equal in difficulty, vocabulary, or style to my usual reading, I was thoroughly immersed in the characters and plot. The background theme, a woman required by her mother's will to live in an apartment with her formerly absent father, while initially far-fetched, played out nicely, and the relationships with friends and lovers were consistently engaging and plausible.
Rating: 
Summary: Easy, fun, light - great beach read
Review: An easy, fun read along the lines of other "pink books" out these days, The Essential Charlotte is different because of its sense of innocence and its Jane Austen-ish portrayal of modern-day daily life. Whether intended or not, Schmais has managed to fit in all the mundane daily activities of most professional, single women of today's world - work and career, dating and the search for a partner, reproductive issues and decisions, dysfunctional family dynamics, the loss of parents - and create an image of life in society as a middle-class white, female. In the process, Schmais tells a sweet, sometimes funny story of Charlotte's quest for happiness (mirrored through her favorite computer game and spurred on by the voice of her dead mother). While I cannot credit Schmais with Austen's biting satirical and political undercurrents, The Essential Charlotte is fun and, although there is some sex, would be a good choice for that set of teen readers who are past juvenile fiction but still like a happy ending.
Rating:
Summary: a great little book
Review: Charlotte is 33 and living in New York when her mother, a famous artist, dies from a heart attack when a sculpture on which she is working topples on her. During the reading of her will, Charlotte finds out that her long-gone father is actually NOT dead, he is alive and in the room, and her mother has dictated that the two of them must live together for a year in her fancy Manhattan loft. After a year, they can move out and sell it. Charlotte is shocked and stunned by this revelation,a s well as the fact that her mother had hid her heart condition from her. Charlotte works in a medical library and takes an acting class at night, just for fun. She has a mad crush on the teaching assistant, Colin, a smooth talker from Ireland. You can tell Colin is going to quickly charm and disappoint Charlotte, but the extent and degree of his cruelty can't be guessed till you have read it. Charlotte also hears her mother's voice advising and admonishing her in a way that she never cared to in real life. Charlotte escapes by playing an online game called Covington, where she plays a character named Varlata who must figure out how to slay the evil queen. Rounding out the book is Charlotte's best friend Jules, and Sophie and Lauren, her twin stepsisters who are anything but evil. There is no high drama here, but an ordinary life written out in all its extraordinariness.
Rating:
Summary: Must Read
Review: I loved the author's humor, wit and sensitivity. She really captures the emotions of loss, betrayal and loneliness of the main character, Charlotte. A was glad the ending was top your typical happy ever after.
Rating:
Summary: good little story but not the plot I thought it was intended
Review: I picked this book up because I liked the author's previous book, THE PERFECT ELIZABETH. Well, this read is good but not as developed as the first and the story is more intense. Charlotte's mother, Corinne, dies and in the will, Charlotte is to live with her biological father, William, for a year in her mother's apartment. Charlotte and William had never met before this so it is a bit of a challenge at first. Charlotte dips into acting and the basis of the story revolves around the acting class and her flirt with another actor in the class, Irish Colin. I thought there was more focus on this fling rather than the premise of Charlotte and her father getting to know each other. While it did reveal their new relationship, it didn't develop it as much as I think it should have. Overall an ok read but not what I thought it would be.
Rating:
Summary: Read this Book!!!
Review: I really enjoyed this book. Ms. Schmais does a good job of inventing a very absorbing plot line, as well as characters that really drew me in. I found myself identifying with with Charlotte in a lot of ways. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: loved this book
Review: This is a wonderful quirky book about a woman who makes her own flower remedies - she also has a dead mother that talks to her, meets her father for the first time and falls in love with handsome Irish actor. If you want a great summer read, try The Essential Charlotte!
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