Overview
Sara B. is losing her cool.
Not just in the momentary-meltdown kind of way—though there's that, too. At the helm of must-read Snap magazine, veteran style guru Sara B. has had the job—and joy—for the past fifteen years of eviscerating the city's fashion victims in her legendary DOs and DON'Ts photo spread.
But now on the unhip edge of forty, with ambitious hipster kids reinventing the style world, Sara's being spit out like an old Polaroid picture: blurry, undeveloped and obsolete.
Fueled by alcohol, nicotine and self-loathing, Sara launches into a cringeworthy but often comic series of blowups—personal, professional and private—that culminate in an epiphany. That she, the arbiter of taste, has made her living by cutting people down…and somehow she's got to make amends.
Synopsis
Sara B. is losing her cool.
Not just in the momentary-meltdown kind of way—though there's that, too. At the helm of must-read Snap magazine, veteran style guru Sara B. has had the job—and joy—for the past fifteen years of eviscerating the city's fashion victims in her legendary DOs and DON'Ts photo spread.
But now on the unhip edge of forty, with ambitious hipster kids reinventing the style world, Sara's being spit out like an old Polaroid picture: blurry, undeveloped and obsolete.
Fueled by alcohol, nicotine and self-loathing, Sara launches into a cringeworthy but often comic series of blowups—personal, professional and private—that culminate in an epiphany. That she, the arbiter of taste, has made her living by cutting people down…and somehow she's got to make amends.
Publishers Weekly
Former journalist Klaffke's debut is a delicious guilty pleasure full of hilarious, irreverent moments in the declining career of a glossy mag gal. Sixteen years after founding the snarky Snap magazine on a shoestring budget, editor Sara B. has grown the scrappy zine into one of Canada's biggest weekly glossies, spawning three boutiques, a “Trend Mecca Boot Camp Weekend” and a slew of imitators. Though Sara enjoys her role as arbiter of good taste—the mag's most popular feature is her Dos and Don'ts page—she's overwhelmed by the magazine's success and having suspicions that she may be a narcissistic jerk. Furthermore, at 39, she's beginning to question the validity of a career that involves making fun of people for a living, and she's even having trouble telling the Dos from the Don'ts—a fact hammered home by her stylish young assistant. Although Sara's runaway imagination takes a few turns for the disturbing and she lucks into too many fortunate turns, her character arc and eventual shot at redemption make for absorbing reading. A dark, comic absurdity peppers every page of this sarcastic romp. (Jan.)