Bridget Jones's Diary meets Survival of the Thickest in Danielle Allen's CURVY GIRL SUMMER, a smoking-hot, hilarious novel about the perils of online dating. "There's got to be an easier way than dating. I want the shortcut. I just want to find my person and start our lives together." After a one-night stand with her clingy ex, Aaliyah James has an epiphany: this ain't it. She knows what she wants, and she's ready to move past casual hookups, flings, and situationships.But for her family, the clock is ticking—after all, she's almost thirty. And when they imply that her personality (and her body) might be too big to land a man, she lets them know they've gone too far—and her (nonexistent) man loves her curves, thank you very much. Now, she has seven weeks to find the perfect boyfriend to rub in their faces at the big, fancy birthday celebration she's been planning. After her first blind date goes...

I wasn’t looking for a man. I was looking for a mentor. When renowned photographer Luca Romano returned home to teach a Photo Storytelling workshop, Hamilton University was buzzing. But a campus wide email warned us not to approach Luca if we weren’t selected to participate—and I wasn’t selected. I wasn’t looking to break the rules. I was looking to break into the industry. I knew getting photographed by Luca Romano would catapult my career. I hoped he’d call, but I had no expectations. I wanted to converse with him, pick his brain, expand my portfolio. That’s all. Listen… I wasn’t looking to be his muse. But I wasn’t going to tell him no. Sweatpants Season Standalone Spin-Off

Disasters in Dating Dating is hard. Dating online is hard. Dating online in your thirties is hard. Dating online in your thirties after being in a ten-year relationship is hard. What’s not hard? Meeting men who aren’t really single.Having your time wasted.Receiving unsolicited pictures of genitalia.Said genitalia. When did dating become so complicated? I just want to find a nice, good looking man who replies to my entire text message and doesn’t text me “WYD” every hour. I just want to find a fun loving, intelligent man who doesn’t have a Master’s Degree in Cheating, Shenanigans and Tomfoolery and isn’t fluent in lies. I just want to find a man who is actually the height he listed in his dating profile. I jumped back into the dating scene with tempered expectations. I didn’t think all the men I would meet were going to be amazing, but I didn’t think so many of them were going to be disasters. **

Is it better to have loved and lost or to have never loved at all?Sexy, successful and stylish, Autumn Jones believes in love. She believes in the all-consuming, mind blowing enormity of love. She believes in the euphoric state of loving and being loved. She believes in it because she’s had it once. And when it was lost, she was devastated, but she never stopped believing in the existence of love. Unwilling to settle, she learned from the past and moved on with the expectation that she’ll love again. Beautiful, talented, and slightly jaded, Summer Wilson believes in sex. She believes in the all-consuming, mind blowing enormity of good sex. She believes that love exists, but Prince Charming does not. At least not for her. She’s seen the downside of love—insanity, heartbreak, infidelity, divorce—and she dates with the expectation that she won’t ever subject herself to that type of vulnerability. Instead, she chooses to love her family, her friends, and her work. And although she enjoys the company of men, her heart is hers and hers alone. Best friends since elementary school, Autumn and Summer kick off the summer by embarking on a dating experiment. Unfortunately, expecting the unexpected doesn’t prepare them for what the dating world has in store.

So tender yet courageous is this fierce family memoir that it ?makes mass incarceration nothing less than a new American tragedy.In a shattering work that shifts between a woman's private anguish over the loss of her beloved baby cousin and a scholar's fierce critique of the American prison system, Danielle Allen seeks answers to what, for many years, felt unanswerable. Why? Why did her cousin, a precocious young man who dreamed of being a firefighter and a writer, end up dead? Why did he languish in prison? And why, at the age of fifteen, was he in an alley in South Central Los Angeles, holding a gun while trying to steal someone's car?Cuz means both "cousin" and "because." In this searing memoir, Allen unfurls a "new American story" about a world tragically transformed by the sudden availability of narcotics and the rise of street gangs—a collision, followed by a reactionary War on Drugs, that would devastate not only South Central L.A. but virtually...

Sahara Lee has spent the last ten years living with the guilt of a tragic accident and its aftermath. That night irrevocably changed the outgoing, fun-loving college freshman into an introverted, workaholic with no social life. Sahara isolates herself from everyone and everything that reminds her of home in an effort to forget what happened. Using art as a substitute for love, Sahara throws herself into music and art as a way to feel something other than the guilt that haunts her. She accepts her lonely existence as penance for the role she played in the accident. That is, until she meets Tyree Barker, the good looking entrepreneur with baggage of his own. Blindsided by a legal loophole, Sahara is suddenly forced to confront the past she’s been running from. Juggling the guilty feelings of her past and the unexpected feelings of her present, Sahara’s future becomes complicated as she heads down a path of forgiveness, love, and heartbreak…and not in that particular order. Back to Life reminds you that living and existing are two completely different ways to go through life. Grief will break you but guilt, guilt will destroy you. And once that happens, what can bring you back to life?

Her past: Emanuel Mills was her first love. The guitar playing, adventure seeking, IT whiz was everything she ever wanted. Her present: Tyree Barker was her last love. The cultured, educated, successful entrepreneur was everything she needed. But when Sahara Lee’s past and present collided, a series of events occurred that changed her life forever, leaving her future up in the air. As a college freshman, a tragic accident changed the course of Sahara’s life. Ten years later, just when she started putting her life back together, Sahara’s world was rocked again due to a similar accident. Heartbroken and guilt ridden, Sahara fell into old, familiar habits before quickly realizing that she wasn’t the same Sahara Lee anymore. Unable to live a lonely, loveless, isolated life anymore, Sahara decided that the way she coped before wasn’t going to work this time around. Time didn’t heal her wounds, but forgiveness might.

The One The cattiness. The fights. The shaming. I don’t generally watch reality television, but I definitely don’t watch reality dating shows. Besides the fact that it’s completely staged, it’s a horrible depiction of people—women especially. Women are pitted against each other to compete for the affection of a man they “fall in love” with after a week or two. I call B.S. It is complete crap. So when my best friend, Koko, was hired as a makeup artist on the set of the most popular reality dating show, The One, I teased her mercilessly. She told me that if I didn’t stop teasing her, she would get me back. And she did… Which is how I ended up as a contestant on The One.**

Months after a secret admirer shook up his life, Roman Harper has found peace with the past that haunted him for eight years. He’s opened his heart to Bianca Baker. He's made a name for himself in the art world. Life is good… Until an anonymous package with a cryptic message changes everything. When it happened before, it ripped him apart. This time around, he has so much more to lose.

Roman Harper is known for being three things:A talented artist…A charismatic loner…And most notably, an unintentional heartbreaker.Even though he doesn’t mean for women to fall in love with him, Roman Harper has left a string of broken hearts in his wake. But after a lie tore his world apart eight years ago, Roman doesn’t let anyone get too close to him. Sex is sex and love is…completely out of the question.Using the past as motivation, Roman pours his heart out onto his canvas. His heartache inspires some of his best work. And at twenty-eight years old, his art is finally getting the recognition that he’s always desired. But when Roman wakes up on the morning after his successful event with no recollection of who left the cryptic message on his bathroom mirror, everything changes.

After The One (Part 2 of 2)The insta-love.The perfect couple.The enchanted fairy tale.The concept of ‘happily ever after’ on reality TV is beautiful, but it’s complete B.S.I mean, I get the appeal.The One is the most watched reality TV dating show because it sells the idea that two people “randomly” handpicked by producers will fall in love and ride off into the sunset. We are expected to believe that after having a group of women embarrass themselves for the affection of a man on national television, the bachelor and the chosen one fall in love and they live happily ever after.Let’s be honest.Shows like The One are really about fantasy romance and must-see entertainment—not happily ever afters. That’s why the creators and producers don’t show what happens after the exotic getaways, lavish lifestyles, and over-the-top proposals. Even though reality TV relationships never last, they want us to buy into the fairy tale.Truth is… when the cameras stop rolling, the number one killer of reality TV couples is real life.And life just got REAL.