[.ca] Pink Slip (ISBN 0385323638)

From Amazon.com:
New York editorial jobs, especially entry-level ones, can be a drag. Lisa Diodetto, the twentysomething narrator of Rita Ciresi's Pink Slip, is well aware of this, having had her fill of dismal manuscripts and pitiful paychecks. So Lisa gives up on the supposed romance of publishing, ditching her job for a corporate position in a leafy suburb somewhere along the Hudson, where she edits things such as brochures and correspondences for Boorman Pharmaceuticals. The problem is that Lisa is a hot-blooded Italian American girl whose best friend is her gay cousin, Dodie. Even as she wants to shed their old ways--pot smoking and a shared habit of dating no-good men--she doesn't exactly try to integrate into corporate culture. Lisa's skirts are on the too-short side, she uses office hours to work on a sex-filled novel about corporate life, and she starts dating someone in senior management. He, Eben Strauss, is Jewish and straight-laced--a foil to Lisa's naughty Catholic-girl persona. On a date to West Point, she notices that "Strauss wore a pair of tortoise shell prescription glasses that made me want to jump him. As he carefully inspected the foldout map of the grounds we picked up at the visitors' information center, I speculated whether he always took his glasses off before he moved in for the kill, or if he had even been so swept away he left them on through the entire act." Needless to say, Strauss wants to visit West Point's chapels while Lisa wants to view the cadets. Lisa likes to think that she doesn't want to be the baby-hungry wife that her older, married sister has become. But the fact is that she craves a husband and a home and eventually a kid as much as her ordinary Italian relatives do. What makes Pink Slip appealing is the way in which Rita Ciresi shows how Lisa juggles her modern aspirations and Old World desires. It's a tricky tightrope to walk. --Katherine Alberg

Ugh!:
I was extremely disappointed with this book. Not only did I find the characters completely unlikeable, but the situations they were involved in were also totally boring. I couldn't stand the main character and couldn't care less about what happened to her. This book dragged on forever and it wasn't worth finishing. Don't waste your time.

Pink Slip not worth the time:
The plot about Lisa and Strauss, her boss, is somewhat fun, but the way he's written I found him dull and unemotional. The rest of the plots aren't worth the time - why she is losing weight, the sexual energy with the brother-in-law, lashing out at her mother - except the relationship with her cousin, Dodie. It would have made for a much more succinct story to have the relationship with Lisa and Strauss be parallel to her relationship with Dodie. It was drawn out in many places and too in-depth about extraneous issues.

Dont' be turned off by the cover!:
What a shame that this book has such a clichéd, girly cover and silly title. Masquerading as chick lit, 'Pink Slip' is actually a genuinely funny and moving novel. No doubt, if it had been written by and/or for men, would have been an award-winner and book-club selection. Bravo to Ciresi as well for making me laugh out loud-I can't count how many bestsellers I've read recently that were skillfully done but suffocatingly serious. A worthy addition to the meager canon of non-Yale, New Haven-set literature, as well! The complicated, sexy and often painful courtship is one of the few modern fictional relationships I've encountered that really rang true. Lisa and Strauss aren't perfect for each other, hurt each other endlessly and have their share of annoying habits. The lingerie of the title comes into play as one of Strauss' less-than-politically-correct quirks, and you end up liking him more for it. I really hated to see these two go at the end of the book. The world Ciresi creates is compelling enough even to sustain subplots on AIDS and the Holocaust without too much strain. As much as I hate the "moaning married couples" genre, I'll definitely be reading the second book on Lisa and Strauss, and anything else I can find by Ciresi.

Book explores romance:
Six feet, 175 pounds of sexy, synthetic male flesh topped with glamorous red hair - the only man in Lisa's life is the one her mother bought her. In Rita Ciresi's Pink Slip, Lisa's mother tires of worrying about her single daughter and thus buys "Security Man," a convincing-looking blow-up doll, to ride in the front seat of Lisa's car, to ensure that no one will attack the seemingly solitary woman. "He looked just like Perry Como. I couldn't resist," says mom; Lisa decides to toss Red Rover (the dummy's) out onto the side of the highway. After a string of dead-end relationships and affairs, the only man who has any staying power in 25-year-old Lisa's life is her gay cousin, Dodie. After watching her cousin stride up the ladder of success on Wall Street and rack up one happy relationship after another, Lisa makes the move to the burbs to find her own money and love, in whichever order they happen upon her. As an editor at a medical company, Lisa finds herself surrounded by waspy, gossipy females and very few available men. Eventually, though, she finds romance with her boss, Strauss, a fellow Italian. The pair trade Italian names and attempt to one-up each other with mom stories. "My mother beats throw rugs - with a big wooden spoon - over the back porch railing to get the dust out." "My mother waxes the kitchen floor on her hands and knees." "Beats vacuuming the ceiling. Really. I kid you not. My mother vacuums the ceiling." Strauss and Lisa's office affair reads like a steamy harlequin romance novel, complete with the office security guard who discovers their relationship. Strauss and Lisa sneak out during lunch hour for a quickie at his house, only to find the cleaning lady. They end up taking a romantic stroll through the woods, tracking muddy prints all over the office upon their return. Dr. Peggy Shoenbarger, boss to both Lisa and Strauss, finds the muddy evidence - the standard chaos ensues. Ciresi keeps her readers' interest with the love story in Pink Slip, with the proper dash of sex scenes thrown in as added incentive. On the more serious side, Lisa's struggle with her mother and the constant memory of her deceased father are hauntingly believable. These family sentiments give the novel much of its charm. Glimpses into Lisa's Italian-Catholic family and Strauss' Italian-Jewish family give depth to the story, where there otherwise would be very little. A running subplot about Strauss' father's Holocaust experiences seems slightly out of place, but finally ties into the rest of the story in the last chapter. The main problem with Pink Slip involves Ciresi's bold attempts to flesh out her gay characters. She tries, but fails. Dodie struggles with his own identity during the AIDS scare of the '80s. Dr. Shoenbarger, meanwhile, is merely laughable as a stereotypical lesbian. Ironically, Lisa writes her own novel in Pink Slip - she admits her problem in character development is making her gay characters believable. Perhaps Ciresi realized her own weakness.

A brilliant book:
This was my first Rita Ciresi book, and it won't be my last. I opened this book with the best of intentions of only reading for a couple minutes, and ended up devouring it in two hours. The way Ciresi brings the characters to life, and weaves them into such an intricate and superb story line is pure magic. This was one book that ended way too soon.