The Continuity Girl

Leah McLaren
5 Spot (2007)
ISBN 0446699594
Reviewed by Stephanie Rollins for Reader Views (2/07)

Meredith is a continuity girl.  What is that?  She explains, “She was the error-catcher.  The needle-in-the-haystack finder.”  She made sure that movie clips flowed correctly.  Did he have ice in his glass in the last clip?  Did she have her hair up in the last scene?  These were the details Meredith fussed over. 

Meredith’s fertility is foremost on her mind.  She turns 35, and she thinks, “My eggs are thirty-five today.”  She even goes to prenatal yoga, and she is not pregnant.  She is not even having sex.  She does not even have a boyfriend.  However, she is on a mission to change all of that.

She has given up on love.  She just wants a baby; therefore, she starts to see men as sacks of sperm.  As her gynecologist explains, “Meredith, babies grow out of stem cells.  The love part comes later.”

Surely she can find a guy to have a one-night stand with.  The problem is that the guy has to have desirable DNA.  She is “gene shopping.”  Meredith’s friend describes a possible guy, “I mean, Mere, he seems perfect—tall, good skin, lots of hair.  He’s a doctor, so he can’t be dumb.”

So, does Meredith find the right sperm bag?  Does she end of pregnant?  You have to read “The Continuity Girl” to figure this out.  The answer will surprise you. 

“The Continuity Girl” is hilarious.  It is the kind of book you want to immediately tell your friends about.  McLaren writes scenes in a way that makes you think you are there with the characters. 

In one part of the book, Meredith’s mother pours Jack Daniel’s down her body and down her unmentionables in a dramatic act of foreplay.  She then jumps up.  She is in pain.  “Before she knew it she was up and running around the room, clutching her crotch and howling like a woman on fire (which in a sense, she was).”

The author’s style reminds me of “The Nanny Diaries” by Emma Mclaughlin and Nicola Kraus.  The humor reminds me of Janet Ivanovich, author of the “Stephanie Plum” novels.  I have already called my friends to tell them of “The Continuity Girl.”  Read and recommend to your friends.

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