Ariel Horn, Help Wanted, Desperately

Help Wanted, Desperately

Ariel Horn

Avon, Sep 2004, $12.95, 342 pp.

ISBN: 0060589582

The countdown to employment has begun for New Jersey's Alexa Hoffman. The twenty-one year old knows she has seven months, three weeks, two days and a few nanoseconds to find a job that will enable her to enjoy Manhattan with her boyfriend Jared. If she fails to make it in Manhattan by the time her self imposed clock runs out, her next choice is teaching on some remote Pacific island Majuro.

Alexa is ready to shake the world or at least the Big Apple. Would you believe a run-down roach-infested apartment requires an advanced degree in higher math to calculate rent. She applies for an assortment of positions that run the gamut from deodorant sniffing to participating in a sleep test. Alexa feels depressed as she believes she must make it in Manhattan. As her frustrations and worries mount with one failure after another, Jared becomes irritated with his beloved and they squabble. Her desperation starts driving them apart as Alexa considers becoming a Majuro.

At times readers will commiserate with Jared as Alexa's shtick wears on the audience and her boyfriend. However, her antics in Manhattan as she jumps from one employment scenario to another turns amusing and raises the deep social issue of a lack of opportunities for recent graduates. Alexa's desperation to obtain gainful employment as she tries to take Manhattan by storm will leave fans laughing especially at her interviews and her fuddling thorough various work. Readers will enjoy this help wanted "lessons learned" (at the end of each chapter) chick lit tale.

Harriet Klausner