Book Review: Best Laid Plans by Kathy Lette

I read this book on holiday and it’s indeed ideal as a holiday read.

Best Laid Plans is a fun novel about a woman, Lucy, who is looking for a girlfriend for her autistic son. She becomes a known offender at the local police office after several illegal attempts at helping her son find a nice girl (including kerb-crawling). When Merlin finally finds a girlfriend (without his mother’s help), Lucy is less than thrilled as she suspects ulterior motives by the girl. She now needs to find a way to dump the girlfriend. And so the story moves on, from one somewhat (or very!) unlikely situation to the next.

I loved the fun twists in the story, but because of the improbably situations, I was always aware that this was just a story. A fun one, though. A light read that will keep you entertained. 4 stars

Publisher’s blurb:

TO DO LIST

1) Buy hummus
2) Pay Pilates teacher
3) Find prostitute for son…

When it comes to sex, even the best laid plans come unstuck – in the stickiest way possible

As a crossword-addicted English teacher, Lucy never expected to be arrested for kerb-crawling. But her autistic twenty-year-old son Merlin is desperate to lose his virginity, and a prostitute seems like the only option . . . only Lucy picks up an undercover policewoman instead.

Let off with a suspended sentence, Lucy resigns herself to the fact that her son will never have sex, let alone find love… until the morning she miraculously discovers Merlin in bed with a girl.

But is tough, tattooed Kayleigh just taking Merlin for a ride? If so, why? And what has brought Lucy’s snake of an ex-husband wriggling back into their lives?

As all her best laid plans for Merlin’s happiness chaotically unravel, will Lucy ever be able to cut her son’s psychological umbilical cord and start to live her own life? And will the funny, quirky and marvellously magical Merlin ever find real love?

With plenty of comic twists and emotional turns, Kathy Lette’s riotous yet heartrending novel tackles the taboo subject of sex for the ‘differently abled’ – and shows us that when it comes to sex, we all have special needs …