6 Super Summer Reads

Yesterday Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert announced their divorce. The country music superstars are calling it quits. 

Their marital bust up is sad news for them but good news for fans like guru girl. Because there’s nothing like a love-gone-wrong song. I predict they’ll both write many. And Miranda’s will have just the right mix of unhinged vengeance and regret.

Which is exactly how I felt today when I went to tell you all about my favorite new jacket from Boden only to find that it’s sold out. Sold out in less than a month!

So Miranda and I are both women scorned. Yearning for a future that will never be. Me with my Isla jacket. Miranda with Blake.

I’ll get over the Boden betrayal through escape. Into the arms of a good book. Or 10.

Miranda will probably get on with it too. Into the arms of a good boy-toy back up dancer. Or 10.

Here’s my wish list this summer. Please note none of them are named Casper.

Books I Want To Read This Summer*

(*because they're new releases & most reviews say they're good)

A Window Opens by Elisabeth Egan

Bradstreet Gate by Robin Kirman

Among The Ten Thousand Things by Julia Pierpont

Maybe In Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid

The Dismantling by Brian DeLeeus

Dietland by Sarai Walker

Happy reading, guru girls & guys!

Best Summer Top Ever: Mariella T From Boden

Sometimes it’s good to bust out of a rut. Yesterday, the guru crew did that by going on a mystery scavenger hunt.

We were locked in a room and given a bunch of clues to solve the mystery.

We were terrible detectives. It was the longest 60 minutes of a Saturday I’ve ever spent. Half the detectives – not naming names here– kept wearing the clues. The other half kept yelling,”Take those clues off. You could get lice.”

No one understood any of the clues. So forget about solving them. If guru guy and I want to stay married, we must never, ever open a detective agency together. It was that bad.

So I’m returning to the tried & true. In family activities. And in fashion.

My favorite tried & true look for summer is simple: white jeans and a basic t-shirt. But it’s got to be a t-shirt, of perfect material, cut so well it hangs just right.

Boden’s Mariella t-shirt is that shirt. It’s part linen so it hangs perfectly. It’s got a slight “v” cut in front and back which gives it more of a stylish edge. And it’s machine washable. (Plus, it’s only $38.88.)

I got mine in the pewter shade which is more versatile than the stripes.

I love this shirt as much as I hated the mystery scavenger hunt yesterday. Which says a lot. I may have failed at the mystery but this top will keep you far from failing summer fashion. (Click this link to go to www.bodenusa.com.)

Happy Sunday, guru girls & guys!

UnREAL: My New Favorite Show

All week my phone has been lighting up with texts regarding The News.

The break up of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner. 

Everyone knows how much I love Ben Affleck. Friends thought I might be taking it hard. Or planning to try to get him on the rebound. (Thanks for that text, Uncle Dan. Reminder: I am happily married to your bestie.)

And I am disappointed in Ben. Because Jen seemed really good for him. She’s always shopping at farmer’s markets for God’s sake. So I was rooting for their yin and yang to be the secret ingredient. They could be the celeb couple that makes it.

 I wanted to believe the fairy tale. Except there is no fairy tale. For a romantic like me that’s hard to take. Which is exactly why I stopped watching “The Bachelor” franchise last year. Because in its 15 year history, precisely two of the bachelors had true love on their minds. The rest were thinking about their upcoming gig on “Dancing With The Stars”.

The romantic in me is disappointed by Hollywood love stories. But the cynic in me is not. Which is why my favorite show this summer is “UnREAL”. It’s about the television crew that films a reality dating show suspiciously like “The Bachelor”. Only “UnREAL” shows the behind-the-scenes maneuvering responsible for all the meltdowns and fantasy suite action. 

There’s Rachel, the good-hearted producer coerced into making the unscrupulous show. There’s Adam, the prince allegedly looking for love but really looking for publicity and a paycheck. And then we have the cast of girls. All are competing for a fame that’ll let them write their own paychecks once the season’s done.

At one level the show’s a silly soap opera but at another it’s a morality tale. Which character’s choices are the most despicable? “UnREAL” actually asks some serious questions about the high price of getting ahead and our insta-fame culture.

Plus all the episodes are new this summer, which makes the series much more entertaining to watch than the re-runs everywhere else.

It seems true love can’t be manufactured. But a wicked satire about true love?

Absolutely. Check it out Monday nights on the Lifetime network.