So today I was feeling a little under the weather (read: hungover), and my poor dehydrated brain was not really up to Shannon Hale. So I picked up Louisa McCormack's Six Weeks to Toxic. I would just like to start off by saying that I adore the cover. In fact, I picked this book to read today because of the cover. And the fact that I love crazy tights, but have never felt like I am kooky enough to pull them off. I am more of a jeans and flip flops kind of girl. But I suppose I should talk about the content of the book, and not just the cover.

Bess is almost 35, and living in Toronto. She's a foley artist, which mean she does all the noises for movies (footsteps, car doors slamming, etc.). Her best friend of 16 years is Maxine. Now the book is billed as a friendship break-up novel, so its obvious from the get go that by the end of the book, Maxine and Bess won't be friends anymore. Here is the problem I had with this book: Maxine is a super bitch. She's terrible. And Bess doesn't seem like one of those people with no self-confidence who will put up with that kind of thing for 16 years. Why would anyone put up with someone like Maxine for 16 years? Beyond the fact that she's mean, she's also shallow, and totally OCD. She's boring! And the friendship breakup was very anticlimatic. I was all excited for the big screaming fight, but nada.

What McCormack is good at though, is detail. Bess' day to day life is brim full of all sorts of weird interactions with her friends and family that made me laugh. I think that maybe she was really trying to write a book for women that was Important, and was over ambitious. At any rate, though I wouldn't highly recommend this one, I'll be curious to see what she puts out in the future.

Six Weeks to Toxic by Louisa McCormack
ISBN 1552637654
271 pages