Wriggle into a bench on your favorite subway train or relax in your favorite sun chair with The Booster, by Jennifer Solow, but prepare to curl your toes and sweat a bit more than you would have as Jillian Seigal folds a Hermes scarf into her hand and exits a sensorless boutique while talking to the salesgirl. Oh yes, Jillian is a professional shoplifter. Sort of.
Hitting the bottom of the barrel of her high powered Manhattan ad agency job, Jillian doesn't do shopping therapy. She does shoplifting therapy. She's so good at it, you may actually steal something yourself just to see if it works. Jillian is one wacked out Manhattanite with a sexy photographer boyfriend, Alex, who can do nothing but love her while she squirms in her own confusion.
Solow does a heck of a job writing a torrent love affair with designer anything, like Louboutin boots, worshipping "deliberate colors like tobacco and pale lavender." And her obsessions don't stop there. Can we say "chin hairs" and a potty mouth? She’s a great writer, and a delight to read, especially for this genera, which I haven't read in a while. We also get a glimpse of carefully groomed shoplifting rings and meet interesting (and likable/nonlikable vs cardboard cutouts) characters along the way. If you want to take a designer jaunt around the city while Jillian figures out what to do with her life, read The Booster. It's a quick read, I promise.
But most importantly, Solow is a debut author, and she hit a bestseller list - in San Francisco - in June. Yay!!
Buy now from Amazon. It seems to be 35% off...
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