This Is How It Happened (Not a Love Story) Review

The Verdict:  I absolutely loved this book and could not put it down!  If you're looking for some good summer chick lit, this could be the one.

Just the Facts:  I'm detecting a theme here - the last book I read had a picture of a pink cupcake (Devilish by Maureen Johnson) on the cover which caught my eye and turned out to be a good read.  During last week's trip to the Bookmobile another yummy looking book caught my eye. This Is How It Happened (Not a love story) by Jo Barrett features a delectable looking brownie on the front cover with a skull and crossbones flag stuck in the top.  Brownies, skulls and crossbones, what could be wrong about that?  Not a thing.  This Is How It Happened turned out to be a great book that I ripped thru in just a few hours.

The book is about marketing expert Madeline Piatro who gets totally screwed over by her ex-boyfriend, Carlton Connors.  The book begins with Maddy planning to kill him by making a batch of brownies with chemicals in them but realizes that someone else could inadvertently get hurt so she has to come up an alternate plan that involves a hit man, Maddy's younger brother, and a few friends. The short, attention-grabbing chapters alternate between current day plotting and events from the past which move the story along quickly so the reader understands just why Maddy is so angry and vengeful and wants to do Carlton in.  He did such rotten things to her that by the middle of the book *I* wanted to kill him and enjoyed plotting in my head with Maddy and cheering her along to victory.

Closing Argument: This Is How It Happened was so good I could barely put it down.  The storyline was good, the dialogue and thought process of the main character was witty and she was lovable.  Although she made some mistakes in the name of love, Maddy is a strong character who prevails in the end and I was sad when the book was finished as it was such a good story.   5 stars.