Spin

December 5, 2011
In her charming debut, Québecoise litigator McKenzie introduces readers to Kate, a woman approaching 30 who still lives like a college student, complete with the binge drinking, and is still waiting for her life to begin. She gets an interview for her dream job as a music writer at the Line magazine, but it happens to coincide with her 30th birthday, and she shows up to the interview still drunk from the previous night’s festivities. Blowing her one shot at career success sends Kate into a spiral she’s only brought out of by a call from the Line’s sister publication, Gossip Central, with a gig that’s right up her alley: they want her to go to rehab and write an undercover expose on a Lindsay Lohan–like celebrity named Amber. Kate’s stoked to get a reprieve, and a promise that if she does well, they’ll find a position for her at the Line, post-rehab. However, complications arise when Kate befriends Amber and soon realizes that the celebrity may not be the only one who needs to get sober. With fresh, fast-paced storytelling and a personable, self-deprecating protagonist, McKenzie whirls a perfectly indulgent tale. Agent: Abigail Koons, Park Literary Group.

January 1, 2012
Sent to rehab incognito to get the scoop on a celebrity in distress, flaky Kate starts to clean up her own act, in a snappily phrased but mechanically composed entertainment. Kate Sandford, 30, an unattached underachieving music journalist, is offered an interview for the job of a lifetime at music magazine The Line, but her weakness for partying leads to a spectacular act of self-sabotage. Then comes a second chance: The Line's sister paper Gossip Central needs someone to go undercover for a month at the Cloudspin Oasis where self-destructive young actress Amber Sheppard is secretly undergoing rehab, and Kate gets the gig. McKenzie has a nice line in throwaway remarks and Jiminy Cricket inner voices, but her storytelling lacks crescendo and Kate has no back story until she starts to change under the effects of detox and therapy. Guilty about deceiving Amber, increasingly aware of past mistakes, reunited with her family and attracted to a sexy nonaddict, Kate looks to be growing a conscience. Once out in the world again, will she manage to live up to her new standards? Burdened by its length, downbeat scenario of deceit and addiction and feel of existing in a vacuum, this chick-lit tale fails to achieve lift off.

(COPYRIGHT (2012) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

February 1, 2012

Katie Sandford, a perpetually broke freelancer, completely botches the job interview of a lifetime by showing up halfway between being drunk and hungover. After a weeklong pity party (and lots more drinking), she's tentatively hired by the parent company of the magazine where she is dying to work. The catch: she has to go to rehab to get the dish on a young actress also working the 12 steps. There are a few minor plot inconsistencies, but McKenzie's descriptive prose flows so smoothly that it's easy for readers to get drawn into her story. The characters are easily imagined and well thought out. Watching Katie realize she has a drinking problem will make her seem quite real to readers, and she's a sufficiently self-aware heroine to comment wryly on her life's likeness to a romantic comedy without seeming overly ridiculous. VERDICT Making her U.S. debut, Canadian author McKenzie introduces a modern literary heroine who will remind readers of Sophie Kinsella's "Shopaholic" protagonist: flawed but compelling. Buy this slightly uneven but compulsively readable novel for your contemporary fiction fans who might enjoy a slice of chick lit.--Stacey Comfort, Dexter Dist. Lib., MI

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2012
When Katie Sanford blows an interview for her dream job as a music journalist by showing up drunk, the magazine gives her a surprising second offer. If she enters rehab and spies on a fallen starlet for a tell-all article, she'll get another chance. But what starts as an unusual gig soon leads Katie into some surprising friendships, an attraction to a kindly but distant celebrity manager, and painful insights about her troubled family life and her long-denied alcoholism. While the ending is obvious from the first page, McKenzie endows what could have been a formulaic, tired plot with finely drawn characters, broad humor, and a sweet and satisfying romance between equals. Her descriptions of rehab are as candid as they are sympathetic. She laughs with her characters at the pain, frustration, and, at times, absurdity of the recovery process, which here includes a stint on a trapeze, without laughing at the misery and destructive behavior that bring people to treatment. Her relentless positivity is contagious. She is a writer to watch.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)