The Booster by Jennifer Solow (2006, Hardcover)

This book is a plodder. I bought it for the shopping/shoplifting theme, and there hasn't been much of that in the first 88 pages. The two-page intro is promising, but Chapter 1 starts with an orgasm (or lack thereof) discussion, and the rest of her troubled life, and not much shopping or shoplifting at all: a tube of lip gloss, a scarf, a pair of pantyhose, a pair of socks. Okay, I realize that the reader needs a bit of Jillian's backstory and that shoplifting is just one piece of her character-flaws puzzle, but that's the part I want to read about. We've all got work trouble, partner trouble, family trouble, but we don't all shoplift. That's the interesting part, so I'm hoping the shopping/boosting will escalate to bigger and better things, and to increasing risks and danger, and that Jillian will get herself sorted out, but she has just been busted in a tacky souvenir shop for stealing a pair of socks. Are there designer boosts in her future? I guess I will never find out. I read to page 88, then tried to read 89, but there is no page 89. Page 88 is followed by page 121. Thumbing ahead, looking for my missing pages, instead I find after page 152, here come pages 121-152 again--same text. In short, I have no pages 89-120 and two sets of pages 121-152. I thought this might have been an ARC edition, with kinks to be ironed out before publishing, but there is no evidence on the dustjacket or book that this is an advance copy. A book with 30 pages missing is akin to tuning into a movie that's been on for 30 minutes--do you keep reading or watching, hoping to figure out what you've missed or do you think you've missed too much and toss the book or change the channel? This book hasn't really grabbed my interest a third of the way into it, so 30+ missing pages means I'll probably relist this on eBay as an unreadable, collectible book with printing errors.