Lisa Maria’s Guide For The Perplexed had the potential of being a fun, witty, and interesting Chick Lit book. Regretfully, though, the operative word here is “had.” Reading the blurb, the concept sounded amusing enough that I could imagine all the crazy events possible with the book’s scenario. Instead, the story ended up being rather boring, pathetically predicable, and with annoying characters that a reader couldn’t care less about.

At 29, Lisa Maria moves back home to live with her parents since she has no job, no home, no boyfriend, no children, and no prospects. What she does have is an interfering mother and a sister who is the ideal housewife. After losing her job because of a disastrous affair with a coworker, Lisa Maria does not try to get another job in her field, but instead moves back home to the town she rather despises and to a family that drives her insane. Of course, she must make money, so she gets a job that any person with a college degree would envy: She becomes a maid. Being a maid and working for other women is supposed to be the perfect job for a person who does not want to get involved with men or work the typical nine-to-five career. And besides, Lisa Maria wants to help make people’s lives more comfortable, organized, and beautiful.

When Lisa Maria does when she begins her new “career” she raids her employers’ possessions, eats their food, and even takes a bath in one woman’s tub – all the while cleaning as little as possible. Apparently helping out strangers is a concept that got lost somewhere in the walk from the car to her first house cleaning job. Even though she only pretends to clean, Lisa Maria somehow accumulates more jobs working for the wealthy and the messy. It is when she takes a job cleaning for author Robert McAllister that her life supposedly changes. She is immediately intrigued by the bizarre, absentminded man and starts to fall for him. He, too, supposedly falls for her.

They begin a relationship, but when Lisa Maria stops by McAllister’s place and finds another woman there, she immediately jumps to conclusions, throws a fit, and goes home, refusing to speak to the man. McAllister tries to explain, yet she will not listen. Lisa Maria pushes him from her life, instead focusing on her work, even taking her sister along to help clean. When she meets an old college friend, Lisa Maria is coerced into taking another job as an advice columnist for the local paper. It is while juggling her two careers that Lisa Maria realizes that what often appears to be perfect on the outside is really utter turmoil on the inside.

This book had troubles from the start. The writing style is very blah, with too much narrative at times and not enough emotion. Worse than that, Lisa Maria is incredibly annoying. Lazy and whiny, she jumps to conclusions, and other than that has no personality. She is probably the most mundane character in the book, which spells disaster as she is the protagonist. The other characters, though, aren’t much better since the whole town seems to be full of people with disastrous lives, mostly because of their own conduct. And no one, including Lisa Maria, seems capable of doing anything about their pathetic lives.

The relationship between Lisa Maria and McAllister seems nonexistent. There is no flirting and no real sign of passion whatsoever. In all honesty, I have no idea why McAllister was attracted to Lisa Maria in the first place though he seems more obsessed with her than in love. And just when you think it can’t get any more boring, it ends with a ridiculous, over-the-top conclusion involving a sink hole. I’m all for fun, dry, witty books and sadly assumed that this is what this story would be. In all, there was only one slightly amusing incident; it involved Lisa Maria’s mother and a baseball bat.

The book is far from witty, the characters aren’t anything to care about, and the writing is choppy. Yet, even with these major problems, there is something about the book that saves it from being a total failure: There is something pathetically normal and familiar about the many problems facing these characters. But that’s about it.