Catching Alice by Clare Naylor

Book Details
Catching Alice by Clare Naylor
Paperback, 336 pages
2000, Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0449005577

Synopsis
Naylor's second novel reinvents Alice in Wonderland by plunking dumpy, brokenhearted Alice Lewis into the heart of the Los Angeles celebrity culture. When Alice flees London to escape the constant reminders of a broken relationship with an English heel, she finds L.A. a strange Wonderland indeed. Surrounded by a weird amalgam of lethally beautiful women and perverse men, Alice lands a job in a P.R. agency, and her coworkers add yet another dimension of lunacy to this Mad Hatter's tea party. This is a world populated with the ruthless, the mindless, and the physically flawless, and Naylor filters the triple obsessions of health, beauty, and sex through her heroine's somewhat phlegmatic sensibility. The sole even vaguely sensible character is Lysette Jackson, a southern transplant determined to find an English husband with a title and a castle. Naylor has fun in this send-up--surely only in Los Angeles would old-fashioned wooing with chocolates, flowers, and love notes be interpreted as stalking--and her readers will, too.

Review

Catching Alice was a light and fluffy story of  a British woman who heads for LA when she loses her house, man and job. The romance story line was kind of predictable. The job story line, focusing on public relations was really entertaining. I didn't like how unrealistically Alice came by the job though. Forty thousand dollar a year jobs in PR aren't often give to people with no experience or education simply because their not that powerful friend makes a call. It all seemed way too convenient. I was completely unaware, even after reading the book, that Catching Alice was supposed to be a re-invention of Alice Wonderland. I didn't see much comparison. Ultimately, Catching Alive was a breezy, although probably quite forgettable, chick lit novel.

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