In Maud Casey's debut novel, THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME, Isabelle
is a woman who falls into that female, single, 30-something,
mid-life crisis. Aiming high for hilarity, Casey introduces a
barrage of unusual characters meant to keep readers engaged.
There's Isabelle's date crazy mother Adeline; their very odd,
peeping Tom of a neighbor, Raymond; her self-help addicted boss
Marla; and Dennis, her bad boy ex-boyfriend from high school.

The novel starts off with Isabelle at work for a phone company in
San Francisco. Unhappy with her extremely boring job, Isabelle is
pondering her life and how unfulfilled and unimportant she is when
she begins to lose it. With no warning, she begins taking off her
clothes and is naked and making a copy of herself by the time her
boss arrives. Her reasoning is that she doesn't really need to be
there and that a copy of her will suffice. This scene happens on
the second page of the book, far too early in the novel for readers
to feel a connection with the despondent Isabelle. Needless to say,
she is fired on the spot and, without a job, must return to
Standardsville, the small Midwestern town where she grew up.
Isabelle moves in with her sexy single mother Adeline and, in a
role reversal, she spends her nights at home watching television
with Raymond while mom dates an endless stream of men met through
personal ads. Isabelle spends her days working for a temp agency,
where career counselor Marla sends her out as an elusive mystery
shopper. The temp job is the one exciting part of Isabelle's
otherwise dull life and one of the few exciting things in the
book.

On one of her first mystery shopping assignments, Isabelle comes
face to face with her old high school flame Dennis. Their once
tumultuous relationship seems to take off where it left off,
despite the fact that Dennis has a new girl. Just as Isabelle deals
with her feelings for Dennis, she also begins to have feelings for
her strange next door neighbor Raymond. While Dennis is wild,
exciting and forbidden, Raymond is quiet, mild mannered and seems
to be completely accessible. Isabelle finds herself drawn to Dennis
and their shared past but she is also charmed by the warmth and
comfort that Raymond offers. As fate would have it, Dennis is
interested and Raymond isn't, which leads Isabelle to wonder why
Raymond spies on her house if he isn't interested in her.

Things go from bad to worse for Isabelle as she begins to lose it
(once again) on the job. Her personal life isn't faring well either
--- she's been rebuffed by Raymond and has lured Dennis into
cheating on his new girlfriend. Her mother has finally found a
diamond in the rough so to speak and has little time to spend with
Isabelle. To make matters worse, Adeline tells Isabelle that she
must move out at the end of summer. Depressed with every aspect of
her life, Isabelle is cruising towards a mini-breakdown when the
sullen Raymond beats her to the punch and is rushed into a
psychiatric hospital.

Raymond's meltdown forces Isabelle to remain strong and reevaluate
her life. She learns some important truths about herself --- Dennis
isn't the man for her, temping isn't the job for her and, most
importantly, she needs to move away and create a life of her
own.

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME is one of those books that has an
interesting plot, but everything moves too fast for readers to
become fully engaged; Isabelle's outrageous behavior happens too
early in the book for us to understand her angst. The unusual and
refreshing characters keep the plot moving as does the temp job,
but in the end it isn't enough to keep this book afloat. It's a
given that Isabelle needs to move away from Standardsville, so when
this is her big realization the book falls flat. As readers, we
want Isabelle to make it through this bleak period and to have a
life-changing epiphany, but disappointingly it never quite
happens.