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| Perma-Bound Edition ©2004 | -- |
Actions and defenses. Fiction.
Newspaper publishing. Fiction.
Employees. Dismissal. Fiction.
Personnel departments. Employees. Fiction.
New York (N.Y.). Fiction.
Kate, an earnest young human resources representative at the New York Journal, must handle a dreadful case. Her evil boss, Amy, is forcing her to fire the beloved Ida Lopez, whose desserts are famous in the senior staff room, just because Ida refused a second dessert to the detestable Stuart Hertzog, Amy's beau and the paper's lawyer. When Ida Lopez sues the paper for wrongful termination, the case goes to Mitchell, Stuart's handsome, unconventional brother. Kate is charmed by Mitch, despite the fact that she is sure he is just like his brother. He is certainly nothing like her ex-boyfriend, Dale, who is still trying to get her back though he still doesn't want to get married. Despite the forces standing in their way, Mitch and Kate are falling for each other until Mitch tries to catch Amy in a lie during a deposition, which has disastrous consequences for Kate. Told in a series of e-mails, phone messages, instant messages, and journal entries, Cabot's novel is delightfully fun to read.
Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)This latest adult novel by the prolific Cabot (she's responsible for the über-popular Princess Diaries franchise) unfolds, like 2002's <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">The Boy Next Door, entirely through e-mails, journals, instant messages, phone mail, deposition transcripts, notes scribbled on menus, to-do lists and other hallmarks of a modern girl's life. Kate Mackenzie, an idealistic HR representative at the<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC""> New York Journal, has just been forced by her evil boss, Amy Jenkins, to fire Ida Lopez, the wildly popular dessert cart lady at the company cafeteria. Ida bakes delectable goodies, but she won't serve them to priggish Stuart Hertzog, the paper's legal counsel, who happens to be engaged to Amy, known as the T.O.D. (tyrannical office despot) to Kate and her best friend and co-worker Jen. Sweet Ida sues for wrongful termination, and Stuart charges his younger brother, Mitch, with handling this delicate matter. But Mitch actually cares about justice more than his brother's bitchy fiancée (he's only working at the family firm at his sick father's request), and he quickly confounds Kate's expectations with his Rocky and Bullwinkle tie and "tie-him-to-the-bed" good looks. When the T.O.D. tries to lay the blame for her HR blunder on Kate, Mitch goes to the furthest reaches of lawyerly chivalry to save his ladylove. Studded with humorous details poking fun at social climbers and corporate drones, this book is less a novel than a collection of lighthearted barbs, gleeful clichés and panicky (but comic and brief) freakouts. Cabot's 20-something fans will likely devour this fluffy, fun urban fairy tale. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Jan.)
Voice of Youth Advocates
ALA Booklist (Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 CST 2004)
Library Journal
Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)
The New York Journal
New York City's Leading Photo-NewspaperKathleen A. Mackenzie
Personnel Representative
Human Resources
The New York Journal
216 W. 57th Street
New York, NY 10019
212-555-6891
Ida D. Lopez
Craft Food Services
The New York Journal
216 W. 57th Street
New York, NY 10019
Dear Mrs. Lopez:
Last week, we met to address your continuing job-performance problems related to the giving out of dissemination of serving of items from the dessert cart you operate in the newspaper's senior staff dining room. These problems have persisted despite repeated counseling sessions with me my boss Amy Jenkins supervisors as well as staff training programs. Specifically, your refusal to give disseminate serve dessert to certain members of the senior staff has resulted in several written complaints from administrators at this establishment paper company.
Mrs. Lopez, your refusal to serve dessert to certain members of the paper's staff is disruptive to food service operations, and the explanations that you have provided for your behavior are not satisfactory wholly believable inexplicable acceptable. This letter is being issued as a written warning with the expectation that there will be an immediate and sustained improvement in your work attitude food service dissemination job performance. Failure to comply will result in further disciplinary action.
On a more personal note, Mrs. Lopez, please stop refusing to give senior staff members dessert, even if you feel, as you explained to me last week, that they don't "deserve it." Which members of the paper's staff do or do not deserve dessert is not your decision to make! And I would hate to see you asked to leave the food craft services department over something so silly! I would really miss you -- and your chocolate chip cookies!
Damn it.
From the Desk of
Kate Mackenzie
To do:
Kathleen A. Mackenzie
Personnel Representative, LZ
Human Resources
The New York Journal
216 W. 57th Street
New York, NY 10019
212-555-6891
kathleen.mackenzie@thenyjournal.com
Sleaterkinneyfan: What are you doing?
Katydid: WORKING. Stop IM-ing me, you know the T.O.D. doesn't like it when we IM during office hours.
Sleaterkinneyfan: The T.O.D. can bite me. And you are not working. I can see your desk from here. You're making another one of those To Do lists, aren't you?
Katydid: It may look like I'm making a To Do list, but really I am reflecting on the series of failures and bad judgment calls that have made up my life.
Sleaterkinneyfan: Oh my God, you are twenty-five years old. You have not even had a life yet.
Katydid: Then why am I in such mental and emotional anguish?
Sleaterkinneyfan: Because you stayed up too late last night watching Charmed reruns. Don't try to deny it, I heard you salivating over Cole.
Katydid: Oh my God, I'm so sorry!!!!!!!! Did I keep you and Craig awake?
Sleaterkinneyfan: Please. Craig would sleep through a nuclear blast. And I only heard you because I got up to use the bathroom. These hormones make me have to go every five minutes.
Katydid: I am so, so sorry. I swear I will be off your couch and out of your place just as soon as I get a line on a studio I can afford. Paula's taking me to look at one tomorrow night in Hoboken. $1100/month, third-floor walk-up.
Sleaterkinneyfan: Would you stop? I told you, we like having you stay with us.
Katydid: Jen, you and Craig are trying to have a BABY. You do not need an old college roommate sacking out on your living room couch while you are trying to procreate. You did enough just getting me this job in the first place.
Sleaterkinneyfan: You more than earn your keep with all the cleaning you do. Don't think I haven't noticed. Craig even pointed out this morning that you had dusted the top of the refrigerator. Obsessive much, by the way? Who even looks at the top of the refrigerator?
Katydid: Well, Craig, OBVIOUSLY.
Sleaterkinneyfan: Whatever. You can't afford $1100/month on your salary. I know how much you make, remember?
Katydid: It's the cheapest place Paula's found me so far. That isn't on the same block as a methadone clinic.
Sleaterkinneyfan: I don't understand why YOU are the one who had to move out. Why didn't you kick HIM out?
Katydid: I can't stay in that apartment. Not with the memories of all the happy times Dale and I shared.
Sleaterkinneyfan: Oh, you mean like all those times you came home from work to find that, like, one of his bandmates had mistaken the closet for the bathroom and peed on your suede boots?
Katydid: WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BRING THAT UP AT WORK? You know it always makes me want to cry. I really loved those boots. They were perfect Coach knockoffs.
Sleaterkinneyfan: You should have thrown his stuff out onto the fire escape and changed the locks. "I don't know if I can marry you after all, I have to take things one day at a time." I mean, what kind of thing is that for a guy to say?????
Katydid: Um, the kind of thing an ex-pothead who is about to land a million-dollar recording contract would say to the girl he has dated since high school. I mean, come on, Jen. Dale can get anyone now. Why would he stay with his girlfriend from high school?
Boy Meets Girl. Copyright © by Meg Cabot. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
Excerpted from Boy Meets Girl by Meg Cabot
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
Meet Kate Mackenzie. She:
- works for the T.O.D. (short for TyrannicalOffice Despot, also known as Amy Jenkins,Director of the Human Resources Divisionat the New York Journal)
- is sleeping on the couch because herboyfriend of ten years refuses to commit
- can't find an affordable studio apartmentanywhere in New York City
- thinks things can't get any worse.
They can. Because:
- the T.O.D. is making her fire the most popularemployee in the paper's senior staff dining room
- that employee is now suing Kate for wrongfultermination, and
- now Kate has to give a deposition in front ofMitch Hertzog, the scion of one of Manhattan's wealthiest law families,who embraces everything Kate most despises ... but also happens to have a nice smile and a killer bod.
The last thing anybody -- least of all Kate Mackenzie -- expects to findin a legal arbitration is love. But that's the kind of thing that canhappen when ... Boy Meets Girl.