Last Writes by Laura Levine

I was warned. She who gave me the book told me that Levine indulged in some rather irritating "tricks." One is the emails to our heroine from her parents in Florida inserted at intervals for no apparent reason, except perhaps as an attempt to distract the reader from the rather thin plot - somewhat like a sitcom that has used up its "situation."

Then there are the dialogue stunts: 'I said (yes, it is stark and unrelieved first person), "blah, blah, blah, blahblah." Well, no, I didn't really, I really said, "blabity, blah."' Like one of those pathetic sitcoms where there is a voice-over telling you what the character is supposedly thinking while he says something else entirely. Once or twice, maybe, but in this effort, she may have once or twice executed an entire page of text without one of those. By the way, the situation here is the production of a sitcom, hence all the sitcom analogies.

And finally, from page one to the very end, the main character (supplied with the incredibly cutesy name "Jaine Austen") never stops putting herself down - and deserving it. Really, a cat named Prozac? And that may be the best gag in the book.

For a two hundred page piece of fluff, I nearly didn't manage to finish it. The fact that I did finish it only serves to point up how desperately hard I am procrastinating getting to work on my next assignment - which is due tonight, like Cinderella, before midnight. Extremely forgettable - I hope I remember Levine's name well enough to not pick up any more of her work.