Spin
Written by Rebekah Benoit
Wednesday, 14 December 2011 12:14
SpinCatherine McKenzie’s Spin is, admittedly, not the sort of book I’m usually drawn to.
The author’s debut falls decidedly into the territory of “chick lit,” a genre I tend to shy away from due to the plethora of mediocre offerings which have flooded the market as publishers attempt to lure the younger female reader, piggybacking on the success of such novels as The Devil Wears Prada, the Shopaholic series, and the works of Jennifer Weiner and her contemporaries.
Still, I decided to give this one a try.
The story did call to me somewhat, being a hardluck tale of a freelance journalist trying to make it big, so I gave it a shot.
Frankly, I probably should have gone with my first instincts on this one.
While McKenzie’s story has moments of humour and is well-paced, the story overall is bland and unoriginal, the conclusion a little too trite and predictable. It’s typical of the formulaic books constantly being churned out by publishers hoping to cash in on the chick lit market.
Kate Sandford, struggling freelance journalist, seems to have stalled in life. Long finished college, she covers local bands and dreams of writing for a big-name magazine like The Line, the novel’s fictional version of Rolling Stone.
When Kate lands an interview for her dream job, she thinks she’s got it made, and heads out for a night of celebrating with friends.
Predictably, she shows up to the interview late, disheveled and reeking of alcohol.
While she doesn’t get the job, one of the editors also happens to be the editor of a popular tabloid gossip magazine.
He sees potential in Kate, a talented writer with an obvious drinking problem that everyone but her seems to recognize, and offers her a new assignment: to go undercover and spy on celebrity It Girl Amber Sheppard, a Britney Spears-type actress who has gone to rehab in the midst of a very public breakdown.
And here the story launches into an entirely predictable and formulaic plotline which sees Kate improbably becoming best friends with the much-misunderstood Amber Sheppard.
When Amber’s longtime love interest, fellow celebrity Connor Parks, shows up at the rehab facility to win back his girlfriend, Kate even more predictably begins to develop a love interest in his personal assistant, the generic Henry.
I probably don’t need to tell you how the rest of this goes—if you have the slightest spark of imagination (or you’ve read any chick lit before), you’ll know that Kate and Amber become close confidants, Kate falls ever more deeply in love with Henry, and through many a moment of self-reflection, comes to terms with the fact that she does, indeed, have a drinking problem.
Of course, at the end of her stay, she is required to write a 5,000 word expose on her new best friend, and she has to make the inevitable choice between what is right and what is easy.
While this book did have some laugh-out-loud moments, it was by and large a waste of time.
Kate’s gradual transformation from strung-out 30-something with no career and a social life that consists of one endless drinking binge into responsible, self-aware heroine with a rising career and perfect boyfriend is frankly hard to swallow.
The ending is contrived and left me with a “yeah, right…” feeling that was far from satisfactory.
I can’t even recommend this one for reading on an airplane or in a doctor’s office waiting room, because it’s too long for that.
I’d give this one a miss—there are plenty of other novels that fall within the chick lit category which are compelling, authentic and believeable —none of which apply to this book.