Tausch's book reminds one that the good news is that because of advanced technology anyone can publish a book. But also that the bad news is that because of advanced technology anyone can publish a book. This tiny book is printed in miniscule type, virtually unreadable without magnification, while in the cover photo a muffin has been photographed to look like a rotting fish. The title is the sum of the story. It is the tale of a shockingly immature 21-year-old-going on-14 named Katy who, on the spur of the moment, moves from Toronto to Montreal, leaving behind an uninteresting boy named Brian. I think we've all been to readings where immature girls just have to read poems about their pathetic sex lives. Katy is one of those. When Brian later admits he had been cheating on her he seemingly becomes more desirable. So desirable she takes a trip back to Toronto (now get this!) because her guinea pig has died. She hunts down Brian, and is so self-absorbed she borrows the family car and fails to phone her parents or come home until the next morning.
Just because the author acknowledges that what she is writing is a huge clich, doesn't make it any less of a clich. This girl is so frightfully naive, (she goes to an older man's apartment and is totally amazed and insulted when he makes a pass) that she would benefit from being put in suspended animation until she turns, perhaps, forty. She gets a job in a coffee shop, makes a female friend, and takes an interest in an old man named John, a neighbor who disrupts life in the apartment building because of his Tourrette's Syndrome. She defends John against some tenants who want him evicted and this gesture is to be interpreted as a step toward a new life, but it is far too little too late.