A Stitch in Time: A Novel [Paperback]

Kathy Lette (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2, 2005

It's brains versus Botox

Lizzie's life is so perfect she has to look down to see cloud nine...until she realizes she's about to hit the dreaded four-oh. For most women, turning forty is more dangerous than wearing a bikini thong in a big surf. Not Lizzie. Until, that is, she loses her job to a younger, more telegenic journalist -- and her husband to a sex goddess who keeps fit by doing step aerobics off her ego. That's when she starts to wonder about brains versus Botox. For Lizzie's sister, beauty is one of the most natural and lovely things money can buy. But must Lizzie go under the knife to win back the man she loves? The answer is as obvious as a pre-1990s nose job. This book will have you in stitches...literally!

Love, adultery, death, and a disastrous bikini wax

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Beauty may only be skin deep, but there is no excuse for not having that skin look picture perfect. At least that's what Australian Lette (Dead Sexy, Fetal Attraction) leads you to believe in this largely uninspiring comedy. British television newsreader Lizzie McPhee is poised to enter a life of inevitable crow's feet and cellulite when, the night of her 39th birthday, she catches her surgeon husband Hugo lip-locked with a TV star. Soon, she loses her job to a handsome younger man and Hugo segues his practice from facial reconstruction to high-paying plastic surgery procedures. With her shallow - yet beautiful - older sister constantly nagging Lizzie about her looks, who can blame her for feeling threatened by younger women and, eventually, considering some permanent cosmetic alterations of her own? Not only would Lizzie feel better about herself, but she just might win back her husband's affections. Unfortunately, Lette's focus on the conundrums of female beauty is so narrow and unrelenting that her characters, varied as they are, exist entirely in service of this conceit and find themselves bumbling from one campy, melodramatic scene to another.
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Review

"Hilarious! This is one desperate housewife."

-- Janet Evanovich

"Forget all the pretenders to the chick-fic crown, the tiara belongs to Kathy Lette and she's got the novels to prove it."

-- Daily Mirror, U.K.

"Plastic surgery is no longer an exclusively Hollywood hobby...and here in this tragicomedy of aging angst, it's revealed in its full glory."

-- Daily Mail, U.K.

"Dorothy Parker-esque...A wisecracking caper with hidden depths."

-- Sunday Telegraph, U.K.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press (August 2, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743273249
• ISBN-13: 978-0743273244
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,481,853 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #18 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Women's Fiction > Sisters

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HILARIOUS (AND HONEST!), June 1, 2004

By 

Shashank Tripathi (Gadabout) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nip 'n' Tuck (Paperback)

What a find. Just a pulpy pick-up off a random book store, and I find myself devouring the novel from cover to cover. It recreates with fascinating honesty a world where bodily contours are critical; a world with an alternative reflection on the complexities of age, image and marriage in the twenty first century. Gruelling exercising regimes, plastic surgeons, ribald but rip-roaring one liners -- this is fast paced and a highly amusing read. Oh, and it's quite an insightful read too, well-rinsed in worldly ways.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is laugh-out-loud funny! Chick Lit at its best!, August 23, 2003

By 

Marchez Vite "marchezvite" (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nip 'n' Tuck (Paperback)

Please don't confuse this book with the new TV show "Nip/Tuck"! I like that show, too, but this book is decidedly, 100% comedy. Lette's writing is pure comic genius, with every sentence holding a zinger.

"Nip `n' Tuck" is told from inside the slightly neurotic mind of Lizzie, who's staring down age 40. She's being shoved over at her position as a news reporter by younger, perkier talking heads; and she's having severe doubts about the fidelity of her too-good-to-be-true plastic surgeon husband.

Although this falls squarely within the "chick lit" genre, this is TONS funnier than anything else I've read in years. Not only is Lizzie's inner dialogue hysterical, but the mental images Lette creates are uproarious, especially as she invokes the image of a hyperreal Pamela Anderson-type seducing Lizzie's husband. The story takes a completely unreal turn towards the end, but it makes for a delicious slapstick resolution. Please do not expect this to read like a novelization of "Extreme Makeovers"; it's so much more like the zany misadventures of Lucy Ricardo brought into the 21st century.

If you can get your hands on this novel, READ IT!! It's a wonderful comedic antidote to anything depressing (i.e., real life). Lette is here to stay, and I can't wait to read something else by her!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars BRILLIANT START THEN SLOWS audio 6cds, September 16, 2009

By 

Barbara Lane "Audio Books only" (Sydney Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nip 'n' Tuck (Paperback)

Read the other reviews for the story line. The start and the plot of this book is far better than MAD COWS by Cathy Lette.

The beginning is brilliant we really get involved in her life and what is happening. Then there is a huge change of pace. The author throws all these one line quips in there. I could imagine her at a dinner party they would be funny and everyone would laugh but this is in the middle of a great story and it falls apart for a while. One quip is her book Mad Cows also. the same quip is in the prologue then the same quip in the book.so that is 3 times I have heard it. Is this author one of those people at a dinner table who tell the same story over and over forgetting that she has already told these people that joke.

The story eventually picks up again and ends up well. I feel the editor could have suggested some cuts and this story would have been deserving a 5 star. But the way it is. Beginning to half way 5 star. After that 1 star then a 4 star ending.

So average 3 star. If you are used to heavy reads don't get this book if your a chic lit person maybe you can just glide over the block of quips and just ignor them.