Spin: A Novel
When Katie Sanford blows an interview for her dream job as a music journalist by showing up drunk, the magazine gives her a surprising second offer. If she enters rehab and spies on a fallen starlet for a tell-all article, she’ll get another chance. But what starts as an unusual gig soon leads Katie into some surprising friendships, an attraction to a kindly but distant celebrity manager, and painful insights about her troubled family life and her long-denied alcoholism. While the ending is obvious from the first page, McKenzie endows what could have been a formulaic, tired plot with finely drawn characters, broad humor, and a sweet and satisfying romance between equals. Her descriptions of rehab are as candid as they are sympathetic. She laughs with her characters at the pain, frustration, and, at times, absurdity of the recovery process, which here includes a stint on a trapeze, without laughing at the misery and destructive behavior that bring people to treatment. Her relentless positivity is contagious. She is a writer to watch. --JoSelle Vanderhooft