Lisa Maria's Guide for the Perplexed (Red Dress Ink) - Softcover

Hubbard, Susan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0373250614 ISBN 13: 9780373250615

Publisher: Red Dress Ink, 2004

Synopsis

Lisa Maria's Guide for the Perplexed by Susan Hubbard released on May 25, 2004 is available now for purchase.

About this title

About the Author

Susan Hubbard is the author of Blue Money, winner of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, and Walking on Ice, winner of the Associated Writing Programs' Fiction Prize. She lives with her family in Cape Canaveral and teaches creative writing at the University of Central Florida, Orlando.

Reviews

A dust rag and Comet cleanser are 29-year-old Lisa Maria Marino's ticket to gainful employment and love in this strained chick-lit offering. When an office romance turns sour, Lisa Maria leaves her advertising job in New York and escapes to the dubious shelter of New Sparta, her upstate hometown. She hangs around with her meddlesome parents and her ultra-domestic sister, ultimately deciding to embark on a career as a personal household assistant (a.k.a. maid), figuring that she might fare better working only for women. Her one exception, the befuddled writer McAllister, turns out to be irresistible, but before their relationship can take more than a few wobbling steps, Lisa Maria discovers another woman in McAllister's apartment, and gives him the cold shoulder, not bothering to listen to his explanations or excuses. While he wilts without her attention, Lisa Maria cultivates a second career as an advice columnist for the local paper and scours an antiquated self-help guide, Live Alone and Like It. Even as Lisa Maria delves deeper into the personal lives of her fellow New Spartans, her dry and slightly vindictive sense of humor may deflect readers. Hubbard piles on catastrophic plot developments at the over-the-top ending, but even explosions and adultery provide scant fuel for the novel's sarcasm.
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For Lisa Maria, the decision to become a maid was simple: she was tired of nine-to-five office jobs and sick of falling for men she worked with. Performing manual labor for women seemed comparatively interesting and emotionally safe. Besides, wasn t there a certain intrinsic value in cleaning up other people s messes? Lisa Maria saw herself strolling into the lives of grateful strangers and making them over making them beautiful and efficient while turning a tidy profit for herself.

Edition details

• Publisher: Red Dress Ink
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0373250614
• ISBN 13: 9780373250615
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256