Isabel, a promising and dedicated medical student, is intent on becoming a heart surgeon, but she takes a detour when she meets Al, a washed-up movie director who now clerks at a video store. The two meet at a midnight showing of his one and only film (a cult hit) and embark on an intense, sexually driven relationship. They soon realize they bring out the worst in each other ("dysfunctional, whipped idiots," according to Al), but after every breakup, they get back together, prompting Isabel to concoct a scheme to finally break it off: they are to go on 10 ideal dates with each other, and then "part amicably." As they work through the list, each begins to see the other differently and the list gets extended. The date ideas get more involved (group sex, going to the planetarium after eating psychedelic mushrooms) and the charged sexual chemistry between Isabel and Al morphs into abusiveness. Despite the satisfyingly dark buildup, Ison (A Child Out of Alcatraz) only partially succeeds in constructing her characters' psychological underpinnings, which shortchanges the climax's intensity. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Angelenos Isabel and Al are far from a perfect match. She's a model medical student with a bright future as a heart surgeon. He's a lumbering video-store clerk who enjoyed a flash of fame when the one and only film he directed became a cult hit. Beleaguered by the nature of their on-again, off-again relationship, the pair devises a list of 10 things to do before they split up for good. (Among the tasks to be ticked off: roll around in baby oil in a cheesy motel.) When the list is completed, they're still unable to let go, and their once-amicable--if somewhat uneasy--alliance becomes progressively more deranged. This is the second novel for short story and screenwriter Ison, whose 1997 debut, A Child out of Alcatraz, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Best First Fiction. Though her play-by-plays of romantic dysfunction get tedious at times, Ison shrewdly sizes up the many challenges of cohabitation: At six months, they were still pretty good at not saying the italics out loud. --Allison Block Copyright 2006 Booklist