Run to the library, catch a better book and kiss this story line goodbye - “Run Catch Kiss” by Amy Sohn (Scribner Paperback Fiction, $12) falls far short of its potential.

Just out of college, Ariel Steiner, 22, is an aspiring actress in New York City who becomes discouraged after being cast in “fat-girl” roles and after going on countless letdown auditions.

The novel tells of a young woman with low self-esteem who essentially sells herself to the lowest bidder to make extra money.

Ariel finds her supposed niche in writing about her teenage experience with sex with an older man for material for her small role in a play. When the play is over, Ariel submits two of her manuscripts to an alternative publication known as the City Week.

Immediately, Ariel is hired to write a weekly column called “Run Catch Kiss” describing her real-life dating and sex experiences with an explicitness that is to be strictly non-fiction. Her columns have names such as “The Mammalian Come Hither,” “Smutlife,” “Pap’s Blue Ribbon” and “Stench of a Woman.”

Between bar-hopping and eagerly offering oral sex to any man who will throw a few words at her over a drink, Ariel’s dialogue is one continuous whine of indecision as to whether she should take the time to find a better job and a worthwhile mate, or continue to hop into bed with druggies and losers on a weekly basis to feed her column.

“Run Catch Kiss” consists mostly of play-by-plays of Ariel’s depressing sex trysts and bits of her column that have her largely male audience putting down Penthouse and reaching for the newspaper for a thrill.

Perhaps the book’s only saving grace is the realism of Ariel’s desperation to play the woman she wants men to think she is - a street-smart, independent, self-described “bad-ass” sex columnist who remains unaffected by love and is always the first one to say goodbye. But the real Ariel is an ardent, sensitive girl in pursuit of love (marriage to someone, anyone), happiness and recognition. Despite its graphic nature, “Run Catch Kiss” has its rare moments of insight that most anyone on the singles scene would be able to understand.

Writing about being the first to say “I love you,” Sohn describes a situation many romantics could relate to.

“Everyone knows that whoever reaches the Line of Seriousness first always winds up getting dumped in the end. Because when you start out with a gap in affection, the gap just grows and grows, until finally it’s unbearable for the less-feeling one to stand his lack of feeling any longer. Eventually he’s forced to end it, and the more-feeling one is forced to flee the state.”

“Run Catch Kiss” evokes humor, shock, pity and disgust. Yet Ariel’s determination to make it through the sludge that comes from being a lonely, single girl in a big city by dressing in her porn-star alter ego grudgingly pulls the reader through to the end.