Let Me Fix That For You by Janice Earlbaum - OPTIONAL

Let Me Fix That For You by Janice Earlbaum, 285 pages. Farrar, Straus, Giroux (Macmillan), 2019. $17

Language: PG (9 swears, 0 “f”); Mature Content: PG; Violence: G

BUYING ADVISORY: EL, MS - OPTIONAL

AUDIENCE APPEAL: LOW

Gladys aka “Glad” thought she could make friends by advertising her skills as a fixer. Instead she has lots of clients and is exiled to the loner table in the cafeteria, where she is frequently warned to quit her antics by the school’s principal.  But the “pops” all need her help with their latest drama.  And Glad keeps hoping that this time she might salvage a friendship out of helping someone.  And since her mother went away for a short retreat years ago and has never come back, maybe her own family needs some of her fixing too.

For me it was mostly sad to see Glad hard at work concocting lies for everyone around her and lying to herself to boot. There is lots of mutual “using” going on here.  The resolution to each of Glad’s drama points left me a little cold, too – 

(SPOILER ALERT) 

especially when the client who was using Glad the hardest winds up becoming her friend.  As a paperback it may hold value if someone can read this and see their own off-kilter behavior within. 

Cindy, Library Teacher, MLS