title: The List: A Love Story in 781 Chapters
author:  Aneva Stout 
description: Stout's debut novel is a clever hybrid of meta-fiction and gift book: this slim, illustrated hardcover is a love story composed entirely of second-person affirmation-style list entries, none more than two or three dozen words. The result offers all the guilty pleasures of chick litthe snarky humor of a good glossy magazine and the soothing cadences of a girl-loses-boy-girl-finds-boy-girl-dumps-boy plotwith a precise breakdown of the newest behemoth genre which, at its best, refines the form to poetic abstraction without sacrificing readability: "248. You'll wonder how he keeps his bathroom tile so sparkling. 249. He'll say, 'Are you okay?' 250. You'll say, 'Don't stop!' " It can grate when its heroine (you) hews too close to clich, but Stout generally avoids easy laughs at her character's/audience's expense. Though brief, the book has enough drama, emotional resonance and sharp throw-away lines ("333. You'll look in his closet. 334. You'll find something you wish you hadn't. <i>a. A closet that's neater than your living room. b. Twister. c. A videotape labeled: Aruba.</i>") to make it worth revisiting, either in part or whole. Simultaneously, the "high art" fiction conceit reinvigorates the "low-art" gift-book genre it appropriatesnot a major achievement ( la <i>The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay</i> or Lorrie Moore's <i>Self-Help</i>), but no small feat either. <i>(Apr.)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
zlib_text: ### Table of Contents
  
  
  
  
  
  [Kaye Blue’s Men Who Thrill](part0001.html)
  
  
  [Death is My Business. Is Love My Salvation?](part0002.html)
  
  
  [Chapter One](part0003.html)
  
  
  [Chapter Two](part0004.html)
  
  
  [Chapter Three](part0005.html)
  
  
  [Chapter Four](part0006.html)
  
  
  [Chapter Five](part0007.html)
  
  
  [Chapter Six](part0008.html)
  
  
  [Chapter Seven](part0009.html)
  
  
  [Chapter Eight](part0010.html)
  
  
  [Chapter Nine](part0011.html)
  
  
  [Chapter Ten](part0012.html)
  
  
  [Chapter Eleven](part0013.html)
  
  
  [Chapter Twelve](part0014.html)
  
  
  [Chapter Thirteen](part0015.html)
  
  
  [Chapter Fourteen](part0016.html)
  
  
  [Chapter Fifteen](part0017.html)
  
  
  [Epilogue](part0018.html)
  
  
  [Kaye’s Hot Reads](part0019.html)
  
  
  [Copyright](part0020.html)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Kaye Blue’s Men Who Thrill
  
  
  The Assassin
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Death is My Business. Is Love My Salvation?
  
  
  Death is my business.
  
  
  Give me a name—and my fee—and I’ll eliminate the target, no questions asked.
  Hundreds have fallen at my hand, and I’ve never given it a second th