Cue Anxiety

Anxiety is actually a pretty good topic for a chick lit novel, as it Aurelie Sheehan's The Anxiety of Everyday Objects, which is almost not quite chick lit. But still is. I mean, it's important for the protagonist to be lovably neurotic, right? And what says lovable neurosis better than anxiety? (This is what I tell myself.)

Anyhow, TAOEO is the title of Winona's movie project, which she dreams about while working as a legal secretary. This is what it means: "Do you ever look at a sign and you think it says something different than it really does? Like the sign says TURN AHEAD and you read it as TURN AROUND, and you feel as if it's a personal message just for you?" [... questions from love interest, including whether this is magical realism or surrealism] "It doesn't have a name. That's part of the anxiety."

I liked this theme, but I never thought it got played to its full potential. I also never really understood Winona's infatuation with new attorney Sandy, who is beautiful and takes Winona out for a facial and as a result is somehow magical. Or something.

Perhaps the best way to put it is that I wanted to like this book more than I did. Which isn't exactly to say that I didn't like it. Maybe I just wanted a little more.