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Slacker Girl    by Alexandra Koslow Amazon.com order for
Slacker Girl
by Alexandra Koslow
Order:  USA  Can
Plume, 2007 (2007)
Softcover
* * *   Reviewed by Ricki Marking-Camuto

Alexandra Koslow's Slacker Girl is one of the most fun books I have read all year. Definitely written for female twenty- and early-thirty-somethings, Koslow's first novel will be a hit for anyone with even a little bit of slacker in them.

Jane Cooper would like nothing more out of life than to have the means to do nothing but slack all day. She loves her leisure time, but unfortunately, she has to work to afford it. Even though she has a job as a relationship manager for an investment firm, she still spends her mornings in her favorite café, drinking coffee, eating pastries, and asking the Universe for favors. Her nights are spent partying with her best friend Rebecka, a trust-fund baby with a very exclusive graphic design business. Things are going pretty well in Jane's life of leisure until her boss Ray puts himself on the line to save her job, only to be rewarded by her taking a vacation to South Beach to help Rebecka get over a bad break-up. Jane does not realize how much her slacking is hurting her until her whole world comes crashing down and she finds she will have to bust her butt to save everything she cares about.

Koslow has a very conversational writing style which really brings out Jane's personality. Within the first few pages, Jane seems like a friend – not an old friend, but the type of friend that so many young, single, just-starting-out-in-the-workplace women meet, who eventually turn into old friends. As Jane relates her many adventures, the reader will be smiling at what she gets away with and how she does it. Jane is the type of girl that many in her generation wish they could be.

The most interesting thing about Jane is that although she learns a lesson, she does not really change, but rather just finds ways to work around it - which is so true of that generation. It was very refreshing to read a well-written novel where the protagonist does not change, as is so often expected in literature. Even though Alexandra Koslow does not follow this accepted format in Slacker Girl, it is still a good read, perfect for younger book clubs.

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