Review: Spin by Catherine McKenzie

Publisher: Harper Collins

Pages: 448

Received: Received from publisher through Netgalley

Release Date: February 7, 2012

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Goodreads Synopsis:

Katie Sandford has just gotten an interview at her favourite music magazine, The Line. It's the chance of a lifetime. So what does she do? Goes out to celebrate - and shows up still drunk at the interview. No surprise, she doesn't get the job, but the folks at The Line think she might be perfect for another assignment for their sister gossip rag. All Katie has to do is follow It Girl Amber Sheppard into rehab. If she can get the inside scoop (and complete the 30-day program without getting kicked out), they'll reconsider her for the job at The Line.

Katie takes the job. But things get complicated when real friendships develop, a cute celebrity handler named Henry gets involved, and Katie begins to realize she may be in rehab for a reason. Katie has to make a decision -- is publishing the article worth everything she has to lose?

My Review:

I will start out by saying this book is a little predictable for the type of book it is, but with that aside it is definitely an enjoyable and quite an amusing read. The tagline for this book is absolutely perfect for what happens throughout the book. Katie will stop at nothing to get her dream job. There are a lot of laugh out loud moments throughout the book that I could just picture happening in life and I would not stop laughing, for one instance Amber comes into a group meeting dressed in a green tracksuit and basically acts like a frog.

I really enjoy how Catherine describes Katie's descend to hitting rock bottom (I mean really, showing up drunk to an interview! It's hilarious). Catherine does a great job of showing how being a celebrity in rehab can be such a joke to some people. The whole book was a nice comedy of being in rehab and yet Katie learns that maybe she did need to be there. It was comedic watching Katie grow and realize things while in rehab. There were quite a few times where I thought Katie was a little overly ridiculous and you want to yell at her, but yet that's what really brings you closer to understanding Katie.

The whole story is told through Katie's perspective. We really get to connect with Katie as a character, you get to see her have conversations with herself (which is funny in itself, but the way her conversations are make it even more amusing). I really love the ending how Katie manages to make up for everything that went wrong throughout the book.

I found myself yelling at the book because of how ridiculous Katie was at times. You know that "One more drink" line you hear from friends, yeah Katie uses that one a lot! And then there is this whole thing with her family, which was only slightly touched on, I wanted to know a little more about that aspect of her life (one of the only disappointing things of the story). They briefly introduce them while Katie is in rehab, but there is not an in-depth explanation as to why she has not had contact with them in the last few years, and there is not much of a resolution between Katie and her sister, which is something I think should have been noted especially as a part of 'graduating' rehab. Despite that tiny little problem in the plot I did enjoy the story. If you're a fan of contemporary novels I definitely recommend this cute and funny story.

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