I never thought I’d be the sort of person to have a midlife crisis. I’m not even sure I ever believed in such a thing! And I never thought I’d be the sort of person to give up on the dream of what I wanted.
Kate is about to turn 36 and suddenly she’s not so sure she’s where she wants to be. She has the husband and two children she’d always dreamed of, but her daughter is hitting teenager hood with a bang, and her son is having scary dreams. Then there’s her husband Matt, who is hardly ever home, and seems to have lost interest in intimacy, and her photography career – once very promising, now just a pile of old portfolios. So, when her friend Fern offers her three weeks work as a photography assistant for a classy magazine, Kate jumps at the chance to do something for herself and get her life back on track. Problem is, it might make her life spiral further out of control.
What Kate Did Next is a roller coaster ride through three crazy weeks in Kate’s life as she tries to juggle her own needs with the chaos of her two children, her troubled marriage, her pregnant sister and her parents, who are reconciling after being long divorced. Kate is a likeable, funny narrator who has a lot to deal with, and doesn’t always do the right thing – which makes her all the more believable.
This is an endearing new chick-lit offering.
What Kate Did Next, by Lisa Heidke
Allen & Unwin, 2010