Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Bright yet anxious 24-year-old has a personality crisis just in time for her childhood best friend's lavish wedding. For Betsy Nilssen, the news that her longtime BFF Bridget is marrying a handsome doctor on a private South Pacific island should be cause for celebration, especially since she is the maid of honor. But for Betsy, the imminent loss of her closest confidante is just one more setback of what is shaping up to be a lousy year. A quirky style-averse would-be writer stuck in a silly job at a pointless fashion website, she is fixated on the upcoming millennium, for which she has stockpiled dehydrated food just in case the world ends. Dreading the Y2K bug almost as much as she dreads showing up solo for Bridget's big day, her fortunes change dramatically with the sudden reappearance of Ryan Wells, who has come back to work at her company after a Japanese sojourn. The newly single hunk crushes on her almost as much as she does on him, and they start a passionate relationship that certainly feels like the real thing. Her hope that he might be her "plus one" for the wedding is cruelly dashed, though, when she finds out that he has also been sleeping with her stunning, shallow boss Eva. Devastated and confused, she quits her job, moves out of her Manhattan apartment and into her parent's house in the suburbs and tries to figure out who she really is. She also neglects her responsibilities to Bridget, and their pent-up animosity all comes to a head in the tropics when Betsy realizes that Bridget's perfect wedding plan (and life) might not be so perfect. Full of sharp observations and deadpan wit, style blogger Vadino's debut makes up somewhat for its average plot by showing how breaking up with a friend can hurt just as much as being dumped by a guy. Slightly twisted chick lit bound to hit home with irreverent young women. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Blogger Vadino (bunnyshop.org) does a good job in her first novel of capturing the inner life of a chronic worrier as she navigates late '90s New York City. The reluctant assistant editor of a dot-com fashion magazine, Betsey Nilssen stocks up on freeze-dried foods, convinced the world is going to end on January 1, 2000. But Betsey's busy, pre-apocalypse best friend Bridget Callahan is planning her perfect wedding, and office crush Ryan Wells finally returns Betsey's affections. Though Betsey is crazy about him, and he seems devoted, his having just split with his longtime girlfriend causes some doubts that Bridget exploits. Bridget, meanwhile, is dispassionate about fiance James, which causes Betsey to wonder who has the right attitude when it comes to being in love. Vadino peppers her prose with unmistakable and convincing period references (the Discman, Zima, the X-Files), including a quick (and heartbreaking) line about being disoriented downtown until spotting the World Trade Center. Office politics at the scrappy e-mag run true, and while Betsey's neurotic obsessing could be pruned, Vadino gets into her head while still making her sympathetic, especially as her fixation on Ryan threatens to send her off the deep end. The novel's bittersweet tone carries through to a satisfying conclusion. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

It is 1999, and Betsy Nilssen, 24, lives in a walk-in closet in Brooklyn and works at a flailing dot-com, America's leading destination for the fashionista in us all, despite the fact that her daily look is more au naturale than fashionable. Betsy spends much of her time worrying about Y2K (she buys a 52-day supply of dehydrated meals to plan for potential chaos) and playing sidekick to her best friend, Bridget, tagging along while spouting sarcastic asides as Bridget plans a decadent tropical-island wedding. But even skeptics in romance get struck from time to time: Betsy falls in love with Ryan, a slacker-installation artist-coworker. Will Betsy's heart get broken? Will Bridget marry her doctor fiancé? Will the world end? As Betsy plods through such uncertainties, one thing is clear: debut novelist (and fashion blogger) Vadino ensures that readers will experience every awkward, beautiful, bumbling, and honest detail in the life of this 1990s pop-culture-referencing antiheroine and her quest for clarity on the brink of the new millennium.--Cook, Emily Copyright 2007 Booklist