From Publishers Weekly
Irish by birth but a trendy New Yorker for the past eight years, Rachel Walsh learns just what it means to have too much fun in this lively drama about addiction and recovery. Rachel enjoys cocaine, alcohol and meeting men in bars, especially men wearing tight leather pants. She can match anybody's hilarious anecdotes about a Catholic childhood, but recently her life's gone awry, and God has become "more like a celestial stand-up comic" than a "benign old guy with long hair." When she wakes up in a hospital emergency room and finds she's been diagnosed as a suicidal drug addict, she's enraged. She's also broke and unemployed, and her boyfriend has abandoned her. As a final indignity, her father takes her back home and books her into Dublin's Betty Ford-like clinic, the Cloisters. Famous for a clientele of rock stars, it should be a glamorous spa, but it isn't. Quarters are spartan, clients do housework and group therapy is humiliating. It could be worse, though, and there's one good-looking fellow-inmate who might, or might not, be a lifeline post-Cloisters. This novel isn't a how-to on overcoming addiction but an examination, often comic, of treatment that is expected to result in personality changes necessary for recovery. Smart-ass Rachel actually becomes a beguiling heroine after learning to wake up and cook eggs at about the same time in the morning she used to fall into somebody's bed in New York. Clever badinage ("the only way to get over one man is get under another") unfortunately sometimes gives way to phrases like "pantie-meltingly gorgeous." The narrative is overlong, and the characters rarely speakAthey yell or shriekAbut, overall, Keyes's stylish wit keeps readers attentive, and her take on addiction is insightful and compassionate. (Aug.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Irish author Keyes continues her pleasantly amusing storytelling, although this book has more of an edge than last year's Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married (LJ 4/15/99). Rachel Walsh is definitely not a drug addictDeveryone does cocaine every now and then, right? But her roommate, Brigit, and semi-boyfriend, Luke, see a problem. Simply to pacify her friends and family, Rachel checks into an Irish rehab center called the Cloisters, expecting daily massages and seaweed wraps. Rachel is devastated to learn that she is enrolled in a real drug treatment center! We follow Rachel as she confronts her addiction and learns a lot about herself. The story is funny, fast paced, and sometimes intense. It's also longDand while it is an enjoyable read, it would have been spunkier at half the size. FYI: the movie is already in development. Recommended for public libraries.DBeth Gibbs, formerly with P.L. of Charlotte & Mecklenburg Cty., NC
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
