Girl Anatomy

August 19, 2002
Bloom's debut is an uninspired belated-coming-of-age story in which Lilly, 24, straddles the post-college, early-adult years in L.A. She's an "assistant, assistant, assistant editor" at Chick
magazine who is surprised to find envy lurking beneath her joyous facade when she receives news of her best friend's engagement. This provokes her to reexamine her romantic history so far, which consists of college hijinks and some insensitive ex-boyfriends. For a supposedly hip chick, Lilly resorts to outdated adolescent argot ("Do you think I would be able to deal with this scene sober? Not!") and has a "life-altering experience" at the all-girl alternative rock fest Lilith Fair, upon which she expounds for 10 pages. Bloom takes some promising chances, but fails to follow through on the opportunity to say something interesting about single 20-something women and the contemporary social whirl. Her clunky prose doesn't help: she describes the differences between men's relationships and women's relationships with, "There's a language that vaginas speak with a distinct accent that penises just can't nail down." Bloom's style may appeal more to teens (at one point, Lilly parenthetically refers to someone as a "Cheese ball!!"). Those 20-somethings still interested in reading about a party girl who loves shopping, is a little overweight, makes mistakes that she learns to laugh about later and pines over the perfect man who got away may find this a passable supplement to Cosmo.