The Next Best Thing by Jennifer Weiner

A car accident cost Ruth Sanders her parents and a normal childhood. Badly injured and requiring multiple surgeries, she is taken in by her loving grandmother, Rachel. Grandma gives Ruth a journal to help with her recuperation and so begins a lifelong love of writing. That leads to a Ruth writing a television show treatment about a woman and her beloved grandmother called The Next Best Thing. When the show is actually picked up, Ruth and Rachel move to Los Angeles--and get on a wilder roller coast ride than either of them could ever have imagined. Jennifer Weiner knows how to tell a good story, which this one is. You want Ruth to do well and for her and grandma to find love and happiness. There's a little humor (I didn't want to plant the idea in his head--though there was plenty of room in there) and a little romance (for both Ruth and Rachel). It wasn't my favorite Jennifer Weiner book but still a good summer read.