Alexandra Koslow Slacker Girl

Slacker Girl

Alexandra Koslow

Plume, Jul 2007, $13.00

ISBN: 9780452288379

Everyone knows that to enjoy life in New York City, one needs plenty of money and 24/7 leisure time; at least that is the gospel according to Jane Cooper. She works (loosely defined as being paid for doing nothing but daydream) as a junior relationship manager at Leetsmann & Stone, an investment firm. Her job entails using business cards as coasters and carrying a briefcase to look professional when she schmooze clients at galas.

Her specialty is sitting at a Manhattan caf eating and daydreaming. Jane has a tendency to arrive late for work and leave early. She insures she will not be fired by bribing the office receptionist with muffins to keep her arrival time silent and flirting with her boss Ray. When she chooses vacationing in Palm Beach with her best friend Rebecka, she expects the firm to fire this SLACKER GIRL. However, when she returns Ray, who is attracted to her, but refuses to act on it, saves her job. She insists he is just a kind boss, but in her gut she knows she wants him too; as she learns she has placed the firm and some nice people in jeopardy of becoming unemployed because she failed to do her job with a key client.

The first half of SLACKER GIRL is a delightful amusing chick lit tale that pays homage to all the underachievers who have no ambition to do more than the minimum. However when Jane becomes motivated to become an un-slacker, the story line converts back to the sub-genre norm. Still Jane's reflection on work as a twenty-first century follower of Maynard G Krebs' theory is humorous. She lampoons the American lifestyle of work, work, and work until you drop until she sees the consequences of her actions, which in turn loses the uniqueness of this fun tale.

Harriet Klausner