Carrots %E2%80%98N' Cake: Healthy Living One Carrot and Cupcake at a Time

Blogger Haupert's approach to healthy living is a fascinating slow-motion train wreck. Eerily similar in tone and style to The Onion's fictional columnist Jean Teasdale, Haupert welcomes readers into her life, dishing out homey advice and recounting details both big (her marriage) and small (cereal eating habits), along with long-winded anecdotes on Christmas shopping, the gym ("Things I hate about strength training: the boredom, crowded gyms, feeling self-conscious around meatheads"), and other topics. All roads eventually lead to food; Haupert's stated goal is to help readers lose weight and keep it off, not with drastic measures, but moderation. While laudable, her advice is essentially common sense: pay closer attention to what you eat, watch portion size, avoid processed food, and so on. When she does offer recipes, many are standards, though her "Homemade Iced Coffee," which calls for refrigerating a pot of coffee overnight, then serving it over ice%E2%80%94that's it%E2%80%94is notable only for its inclusion. Best enjoyed for its Teasdale-like properties, with plenty of lines to remember ("I've been known to drink every now and then%E2%80%94and have the stories to prove it!"), this one has to be read to be believed%E2%80%94for all the wrong reasons. (May)