THE QUALITY OF LIFE REPORT by Meghan Daum
When NYC lifestyle reporter Lucinda Trout travels to the midwest to produce a research piece on crystal-meth addicted housewives, she leaves behind a miniscule apartment and a DOA love life in search of what she deems The Quality of Life Report.
Her series of Little House on the Prairie meets Sex and the City-esque productions prove not only popular to her fellow New Yorkers but quickly turn her into something else as well. The never maudlin, ultimately determined Lucinda finds herself living in a barn with a local river-bathing, bearded, eccentric semi-mountain man and his children and, gasp, liking it.
With impeccable comic timing and incorrigable social criticism, QUALITY OF LIFE REPORT, pokes fun without harm and allows every reader to move with Lucinda to Prarie City and in short, convinces readers and viewwers to drink the kool-aid. When it comes to light that PC'ers have their own set of problems and issues, just like those in NYC, Lucinda is able to see them for who they are, and she for her true self. Whereas when she arrived, she believed some actions and reactions just didnt count, much like a trip to Vegas. The yankee smarty-pants gets a hard and fast lesson in lovin' leavin' and farm animals.
OVERALL Somewhat chick-lit-ish, QUALITY OF LIFE, is LOL funny and simultaneously satistfying. We all learn a lesson(s) , if anything, about ourselves while having a good laugh as well and cheering for our heroine at the end.