"Shoes make excellent employees. They stand on their own two feet, ready to get to work at a moment's notice. After work, they kick up their heels, have a few laughs, and are ready to do it all over again the very next day." So begins the hilarious adventures of this heroine who thinks "out of the box" at every moment and because of that is absolutely intriguing, funny, and very smart!

Chloe Rose is a shoe addict but not just a compulsive buyer and dreamer of shoes. She's got a photographic memory, knows how to make her passion appealing, and gets the chance to do just that when she is accidentally hired as an assistant to the assistant of the promotions department at Issues magazine. But she's got some ordinary human beings to work with who find Chloe's imaginative approach to dress and life appealing but also very, very threatening or raising an attraction that haunts their days and makes their challenge to Chloe even more engaging and reflective of what most people are really about in our contemporary society.

Chloe's sister, Zoe, is determined to educate her sister about the "real" world and does so with no reserve in a caring, passionate way. She keeps Chloe on the edge with her keen insights about the real and the ideal, told in hilarious scenes that further stimulates Chloe's outrageous thinking.

Ruth, Chloe's boss, trying to appear distant and reserved, loves her assistant's ideas but spends most of her time negating Chloe's special qualities. For Ruth is unimaginative and deeply threatened by this young, perky, bright gal who lives for shoes and all they represent. Her marketing ideas for the projects that Ruth gets are dazzling to Ruth, who must find a way to make it seem they were her own ideas from the very beginning.

Finally Stan is the man who loves her advertising ideas but falls for the total person of Chloe in a way that amazes her - that is when she finally realizes what is going on and can get beyond her flustered reactions.

She's Got Issues is absolutely delightful chick lit that says so much about our orthodox society, which thinks itself quite revolutionary in liberal ideas, and the young, vivacious woman who add spice and a defying depth to its most ordinary qualities!

Wonderful, Ms. Lessing!

Reviewed by Viviane Crystal on August 12, 2005

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