There are a lot of Chick Lit books on the shelves these days and their quirky characters and snarky humor seem to really hit a chord with readers. I am always on the lookout for a good book, so I picked up On the Couch hoping for the satisfying and humorous read advertised on the cover. Unfortunately, instead of what was advertised, I found unlikable characters and poorly planned plot.

Psychologist Marlowe Riddle, who counsels clients out of her Manhattan apartment, seems to be somewhat less than successful in her endeavors, but she has family wealth, so it doesn’t really matter. When she doesn’t have a client to see, she fills her days with her own neuroses.

Joe Kain is a cop with problems of his own. Since he still has not fully recovered from his divorce and was recently demoted from a joint police/FBI task force, he, needless to say, does not have the most cheerful outlook on life. A social life revolving around time spent with his rather stereotypically portrayed Jewish family doesn’t help either. However, Joe is nothing if not a thorough officer, so when he finds a man who has apparently died of autoerotic asphyxiation, he is determined to investigate all the angles, right down to calling the escort services in the ads found near the body.

One of these calls leads Joe right to Marlowe. The phone number in the ad was apparently the wrong number, but Marlowe doesn’t tell Joe this. As a result, the phone call, coupled with the fact Marlowe sees “clients” in her apartment, leads Joe to think that Marlowe is a call girl, possibly a dangerous one.

Believe it or not, Marlowe allows Joe to continue in his misunderstanding. Apparently, she’s trying to spice up her sex life so that she will have all kinds of cool anecdotes to add to her dissertation so that she can publish it. The author does not go very far in developing this angle, so if it seems like this doesn’t make a lot of sense, it’s not just your imagination.

The plot from this point on seems to be intended as some sort of screwball romantic comedy. However, the plot twists are improbable and sometimes hard to follow and, on top of that, the hero and heroine are both afflicted with an unappealing combination of self-centeredness and whiny tendencies. They are supposedly professionals (a counselor and a cop), but neither acts in a particularly professional – or even generally pleasant – manner. Since the story is told in the first-person, alternating from Marlowe and Joe’s points of view, it is impossible to escape the main characters most of the time. There is a fantastic scene in the middle of the book involving a wedding, but it did not come close to making up for the rest of the book.

Despite quirky characters, some humorous touches and all kinds of over-the-top events, Kwitney justs does not succeed in pulling off a Jennifer Crusie-style humorous novel. Though the characters have a few good lines and there is that wedding, On the Couch is just too poorly put together to succeed.