Kate's Escape from the Billable Hour by Petula Parker Pages: 200
Published by Bookbaby on May 12, 2014
Genres: adult, contemporary, Fiction, Holiday, Humor
Source: ecopy from Author
Kate Billings, a burnt-out, second-year attorney working in the dysfunctional world of Big Law, regains consciousness after a late night, career-ending meltdown at the office. Can she scramble to undo the damage? Or does she even want to?
Kate is a Red Bull-dependent, yoga-hating attorney at Krapp & Lipschitz, L.L.P., Arizona's largest and worst-dressed law firm. At first blush, Kate leads an enviable life. At only 26, she earns a six-figure salary, owns a quaint downtown bungalow, and has managed to shed the 80 pounds that have plagued her for most of her adulthood.
A devastating performance review by firm partners Krapp, Butts, and Waddleberger, however, calls Kate's chosen career into question. Her confusion is compounded by a stranger’s innocent inquiry: "Are you happy?" Finally, when Kate receives her annual bonus -- consisting of a smoked ham and skin concealer -- she cracks. Upon realizing that she has been passively allowing her life to unfold under the belief that at some point things would just click into being perfect, Kate ransacks the partners' offices, quits her job, and buys a one-way ticket to Barcelona, planning to stalk ("it's not 'stalking,' it's 'reconnaissance'") the Spanish exchange student she has been secretly in love with since high school.
Kate’s Escape from the Billable Hour is 4.5 non-billable hours of pure hilarity. I don’t even know where to begin with my review. Having been a law clerk at a “big law” firm while in law school, and watching some of my classmates go through the grind, I found this book to be extra humorous. I could not stop laughing. I’m at a smaller boutique law firm now, and I am happy to say it is NOTHING like Krapp & Lipschitz, LLP, but I still know a thing or two about billable hours. While I do believe that this book will hold an extra snicker or two for people in the legal profession, I think anyone will get a kick out Kate’s Escape. She is zany and kooky and her “sanity break” as her firm will call it, is such a fun journey. Where can I sign up for mine?
Kate is an ideal associate. She has virtually no life outside of the law firm, she bills hundreds of extra hours yearly, and she did such a great job on her pro bono case that she had multiple newspapers praising her and the firm. Sounds awesome, right? Well, her power hungry firm partners didn’t think so. They thought she wasted too many firm hours on pro bono work and they bashed just about everything that made up Kate. Instead of a nice fat bonus check, she got a ham and a tube of concealer. Cue scene to Kate’s “sanity break”.
Kate grabs a plane ticket and jets off to Barcelona. I really enjoyed Kate. I loved her tongue in cheek style and her witty and totally snarky mouth. I ate it all up. I loved that she thought about her vacation time in billable hour increments. I loved the law firm politics where an associate was praised as a creative thinker when he was able to bill a client for 27 hours in one day because he worked on a flight back to the west coast and cited the time change as the extra hours. I just want to hug this book. It made me laugh out loud more times than I can count. Kate is a mix between the personality of Bridget Jones and Stephanie Plum. I want to see more Petula Parker! I would love to see the stories of Kate’s fellow associates and friends. If you are looking for a light read that will have you laughing your butt off, check out Kate’s Escape from the Billable Hour.
Petula Parker has generously agreed to giveaway a copy of the book to one of my US blog followers.
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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
kindlemom1
You completely have me sold on this! I love a good humorous read and this sounds delightful!
kimbacaffeinate
Oh this sounds lovely and I immediately thought of you and your term doing this.I want to read it 🙂