Cute story! This book was a refreshing read, especially when so many books are filled with filth these days. If you were an 80s girl and loved Pretty in Pink, Can't Buy Me Love, etc, you will enjoy this book. I love the idea of the jar and the impact it made on her adult life. The characters were believable and likeable, especially Hollis. ( )

In The Someday Jar by Allison Morgan, Lanie Howard, when she was a child, is given glass jar that to keep the fortunes from the Chinese fortune cookies that she received when eating at the restaurants. Her dad told her to write on the back of the fortune message, something that she would like to do some day. Her dad left her family and she was heartbroken. After a few years, she no longer had any contact with her father but she didn't why. But she hung onto the jar.

OK, here is the odd thing when I first starting reading this book, I thought Lanie Howard was an odd person. She was sent to the airport to pick up an architect for her fiance. She sees that the flight has been delayed and gives into the temptation to watch a football game in the airport bar. Because she has to buy a drink to be able to sit down, she gets drunk on lemon martinis and tells some of her deepest secrets to a total stranger. But I kept reading and reading.

I received a finished copy of this book from the author who signed it as a win from FirstReads but that in no way influenced the thoughts or feelings in my review.

The more I read the more involved I became with this book. It does have a predictable ending but I remember myself willing that same ending! There is so much humor and love in this book. Also, there is a caution for people are contemplating marriage. Is this the right one for me. So, I ended up hugging the book. Any book that gets hugs from me gets five stars.

I received a finished copy of this book from the author signed it as a win from FirstReads but that in no way influenced the thoughts or feelings in my review. ( )

I really enjoyed this even though it is very similar in tone to books by Sophie Kinsella. In fact, the plot of this story is remarkably close to that of Kinsella’s I’ve Got Your Number. But no matter; it had enough differences to be entertaining, if, of course, quite predictable. And the differences add a lot of fun to the plot; it is set in the U.S. for one thing, and in Arizona, with the protagonist, Lanie Howard, being a rabid fan of the Arizona Cardinals. Receiver Larry Fitzgerald even gets a cameo role, and it involves a hilarious episode with Lanie. But on the whole, it’s almost a “retelling” of I’ve Got Your Number.

Lanie, 27, is a realtor, and about to get married to an “ideal” man, her boss, Evan Carter. That is, she thinks he’s ideal, but we readers (and Lanie’s friends) all know he is far from it. Into the picture enters Wes Campbell, who is an architect and friend of Evan’s parents. Immediately we can see Wes would be a more simpatico mate for Lanie. We only have to wait for the story to play out to see if and when she will realize it as well.

There is the usual supportive BFF and in this case the complication of the “Someday Jar,” a jar Lanie started long ago containing folded up slips of papers with a “bucket list” of things to do before she got married.

It’s a cute story, even if I felt I knew its parameters well. It has a number of laugh-out-loud moments, and is the perfect read for an interlude between heavier books. ( )