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By this point my copy of This Book Will Save Your Life was a sea of rolling eyes. And I haven't even mentioned how Richard foils a kidnapper or the time he meets Gerald Ford. This is the kind of bunk we're used to in movies (This Book could pass for a loose novelization of the Haley Joel Osment confection Pay It Forward, without even the saving grace of an unhappy ending). But from you, literature, old friend? Novels are a place where we exfoliate our souls with the rough edges of life, not pamper ourselves with fantasies that don't seem to know they're fantasies or confuse ourselves with imitation insights ("That's the thing about L.A.--you can freeze to death under a rosebush") and limp stand-up gotchas ("Driving a Bentley to Target--only in L.A. does this make perfect sense"). This Book Will Save Your Life won't save your life--unless your life is dangerously unexciting and you suffer from a chronic treacle deficiency. But this review might save you $24.95.