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Author Profile: Beth Orsoff

Author Name: Beth Orsoff

Website: http://bethorsoff.com/

Bio: Beth Orsoff did not always know she would one day want to be a writer. She graduated from the University of Florida with a B.A. in English/Film Studies, and then her plans stalled. Unsure what to do next, she got a job as a lifeguard. Though she enjoyed the tan and blonde hair from the career choice, her parents were not pleased. They paid Beth to take the LSAT prep class, and after she scored in the top 1% on the exam, she decided she needed to go into law. She moved to California, enrolled in USC Law School, and set out to be an entertainment lawyer. It was sometime into between there and taking the California Bar Exam that Beth decided she wasn’t meant to be a lawyer. She started attending the UCLA Extension Writers Program workshops, and decided to quit her job at Warner Bros. Theatrical Legal Department and work on writing a novel.
Current Titles: Romantically Challenged, Honeymoon for One, and How I Learned to Love the Walrus.
See my review of How I Learned to Love the Walrus
Bio Retrieved from teresamedeiros.com

How I Learned to Love the Walrus by Beth Orsoff

Los Angeles publicist Sydney Green needs to save her job. With a few recent flubs and a bitch in waiting to steal her clients, Sydney makes a desperate plea with her boss. She gets the go ahead to produce a documentary filmed in Alaska for the Save the Walrus Foundation. She figures she’ll head up to Alaska for a few weeks- a month tops, enjoy a vacation, save her job, and make her client/boyfriend look like a celebrity activist. Everyone wins. But when Sydney gets to Alaska and realizes it will be no vacation for her (sleeping in tents and no modern conveniences) she starts to doubt her project- and herself.
How I Learned to Love the Walrus by Beth Orsoff is a light chick lit novel. There are some funny scenes while Sydney is trying to survive in Alaska, and the romance between two characters can be captivating at times. Orsoff can definitely write, there is no question of that, but I wasn’t sure what the point of the story was. I never got invested in the characters or the plot, but I did laugh a few times. If you are looking for a light read, I would recommend How I Learned to Love the Walrus, but if you prefer books with a bit more substance, I would pass.
Rating: 3.5

In My Mailbox: Week of November 21

In My Mailbox: Week of November 21st

Title: Goodnight Tweetheart
Author: Teresa Medeiros
Received: From Ayelet Gruenspecht/Gallery Books
Synopsis: Abigail Donovan has a lot of stuff she should be doing. Namely writing her next novel. A bestselling author who is still recovering from a near Pulitzer Prize win and the heady success that follows Oprah’s stamp of approval, she is stuck at Chapter Five and losing confidence daily. But when her publicist signs her up for a Twitter account, she’s intrigued. What’s all the fuss? Taken under the wing of one of her Twitter followers, “MarkBaynard”—a quick witted, quick-typing professor on sabbatical—Abby finds it easy to put words out into the world 140 characters at a time. And once she gets a handle on tweets, retweets, direct messages, hashtags, and trends, she starts to feel unblocked in writing and in life. After all, why should she be spending hours in her apartment staring at her TweetDeck and fretting about her stalled career when Mark is out there traveling the world and living? Or is he? Told almost entirely in tweets and DMs, Goodnight Tweetheart is a truly modern take on a classic tale of love and loss—a Griffin and Sabine for the Twitter generation.

Title: The Hating Game
Author: Talli Roland
Received: From Talli Roland
Synopsis: When man-eater Mattie Johns agrees to star on a dating game show to save her ailing recruitment business, she’s confident she’ll sail through to the end without letting down the perma-guard she’s perfected from years of her love ’em and leave ’em dating strategy. After all, what can go wrong with dating a few losers and hanging out long enough to pick up a juicy £200,000 prize? Plenty, Mattie discovers, when it’s revealed that the contestants are four of her very unhappy exes. Can Mattie confront her past to get the prize money she so desperately needs, or will her exes finally wreak their long-awaited revenge? And what about the ambitious TV producer whose career depends on stopping her from making it to the end?

Title: How I Learned to Love the Walrus
Author: Beth Orsoff
Received: From Beth Orsoff
Synopsis: When Los Angeles publicist Sydney Green convinces her boss to let her produce a documentary for the Save the Walrus Foundation, the only one Sydney Green is interested in saving is herself. The walruses are merely a means to improving her career and her love life, and not necessarily in that order. Sydney would’ve killed the project the second she learned she’d be the one having to spend a month in rural Alaska if it had been for any other client. But for rising star and sometimes boyfriend Blake McKinley, no sacrifice is ever too great. Yet a funny thing happens on the way to the Arctic. A gregarious walrus pup, a cantankerous scientist, an Australian sex goddess, a Star Wars obsessed six-year-old, and friends and nemeses both past and present rock Sydney Green’s well-ordered world. Soon Sydney must choose between doing what’s easy and doing what’s right.