Bad Behaviour (Sheila Flanagan)***

Bad Behaviour was difficult to read at first. Sheila O’Flanagan’s style of writing seemed clunky and her characters were horrible. But I stuck with it and I’m glad I did because despite a disappointing beginning, I ended up really liking it.

The clunkiness stopped bothering me after about five chapters and there were nearly forty chapters altogether. And O’Flanagan’s style probably isn’t that clunky really. All authors will have their own personal style, and when you come upon a writer with a new style or at least a style that’s different from the last few books you read, it can take you a while to get used to it. You could argue that I wasn’t so much getting used to the style as getting anaesthetised to it but anaesthetic really isn’t such a bad thing. My boyfriend had an anaesthetic when he had his operation and he actually ended up having quite a nice time during the operation and now he’s all better and much happier (and much better at football though he was brilliant to start with) and he probably wouldn’t be quite as happy if he had a memory of complete and total agony during the operation. So once I was anesthetised to the style I enjoyed reading the book and after a while the style just didn’t hurt me anymore. I actually liked it and a bit of clunkiness can actually add to the comedy scenes.

There was still a problem with the characters though. Most of them just weren’t very nice people, and that too can make a book difficult to read. Darcey, the heroine, comes across as completely cold and unfriendly. As you read the book, you learn that she isn’t like that really, and if she is occasionally a little bit reserved, you can kind of see why. For about the first third of the book, I really disliked Darcey. It’s great she’s so good at her job but she didn’t seem to care about people as human beings at all. Maybe it would have been better if O’Flanagan had made it clear earlier how nice Darcey really was. The book was mostly from her point of view. It’s possible to show a character behaving in a cold and unfriendly manner, whilst at the same time making it clear that she’s lovely and caring underneath it all. This was something that came across very strongly later on but I wish it had happened sooner.

Also, Darcey did come over as a bit of a slut. She travels to different countries as part of her job and she seems to have a shag buddy in every country. Darcey would prefer me to describe it as ‘sex with no strings attached’ but isn’t that exactly what a shag buddy is? I don’t think there’s anything wrong as such with wanting sex but not wanting a relationship – considering Darcey’s relationship experience, you can’t really blame her. But the problem I have it is that it does cast doubt on her ability to do her job. We’re supposed to believe she’s brilliant at her job, travelling to strange places and getting people to sign contracts. But when we find out she’s actually got a bloke in every country, you have to wonder, did she really get those contracts through her brilliant people skills, or was it more because of who she’s shagging?

There are also sections of the book which are from the point of view of her former best friend Nieve, who stole Darcey’s boyfriend Aidan the night he was going to propose to her. Nieve is just a totally self-centred cow who believes money is the root of all happiness. It’s just very difficult to like her at all. Maybe around the middle of the book you might develop some sympathy for her for being so clueless about what life should really be like, and definitely at the end it was impossible not to feel for her. But it’s a bit late by then. And it really annoyed me that the character of Mary, who wasn’t a big character at all but who did take care of Nieve when she needed someone, totally disappeared as soon as she’d played her role in the plot. If they’d at least stayed in contact, it would have helped me to think more positively of Nieve.

Aidan, like all fictional Aidans, is the unreliable type, but unlike the other Aidans I’ve read about he doesn’t have a very good reason for his behaviour towards Darcey. He didn’t seem that bad a person, he’s quite weak and useless and I usually really go for that a man. But things were never really quite resolved for him. There’s another main character called Neil who comes to work with Darcey, and she spends most of the book wondering whether she likes either of them, and if so, how much and in what way. Neil does at least seem a lot more reliable than Aidan, but likeable? He seems a bit boring to me but in some ways he was probably the most convincing character in the book. I’m sure there are loads of people around like Neil.

Darcey’s friend Anna was maybe the worst of the main characters. She’s very nice but she seemed to snap back and forth quite unconvincingly between being Darcey’s friend and Darcey’s HR manager. I’m sure in the job world that sort of relationship can be quite complicated, and it might have made an interesting story/subplot if O’Flanagan had tried to develop it. But she didn’t. And I have to say, I was actually on Darcey’s side when Darcey told her a secret about her past. Anna was hurt that Darcey hadn’t told her before. But why should she? Why should she tell her friend about everything that’s ever happened to her? Anna really seemed more like a plot device than a character most of the time but she did seem like a very likeable plot device.

The plot took a while to get going, but once it had, it was very satisfying and involving with all sorts of strange twists and turns. Parts of it were very exciting, and until very near the end, I not only had no idea how things were going to end up for Darcey and Nieve and the others, I wasn’t even sure how I wanted things to end up. Usually, when I read a book, I know pretty early on who I want the heroine to end up with (if anyone). But in this book, I just wasn’t sure. However, by the end, I was completely happy with how things turned out. I thought it was amazing the way O’Flanagan could have written so much about her characters, yet have given so little away. And it was all so compelling, wondering what was going to happen, and so convincing when it finally did. If O’Flanagan had cut the first few chapters, maybe I’d have given the book four stars. It’s all so cleverly done.

O’Flanagan chose to give quite a lot of detail about the work Darcey and Nieve do, which might have been interesting for some people, but I found it rather boring and I had trouble following it. I’m not an office person, I never will be an office person even if I do end up working in an office, and it just seemed like a totally alien world and a terminally dull one. I didn’t really care about Darcey’s and Nieve’s jobs. I was happy for them that they were doing something they loved but I don’t really care about what people are, I’m more interested in who they are. There’s a whole lot more to people than what they’re prepared to do for money. Well, unless you’re Nieve, that is.

We Need to Talk about Kevin Keegan (Giles Smith)****

(yes okay, my football references are slightly out of date, I did write this review months ago)

Giles Smith is a journalist who seems to have had a regular football column somewhere or other. In this book, he collected some of his best work from 2005-2007 and put them all together. None of the articles are particularly serious in style – even when Smith starts talking about something serious he soon meanders off-topic (like I do sometimes, only funnier) and starts examining the strangest situations, whatever pops into his head. The articles are all very funny but many of then do have an underlying seriousness. While Smith’s Guide to Tapping Up is a hilarious read, at the same time it does make you think about how serious a problem it is. I wonder if Smith, as a Chelsea fan, can still see the funny side.

Even if he can’t, at least Manchester City are still ripe for the (piss)-taking. Joleon Lescott, formerly of Everton, seemed more than happy with his current side until Moneybags Man Shitty took an interest. Suddenly Lescott was doing all he could to make sure Everton wanted to get rid of him - although he stopped short of taking the Darren Bent route of advertising his availability on Twitter.

Perhaps Smith could even make the Emmanuel Adebayor-goal celebration situation amusing. I admit, when he scored that goal, I wished he was still with Arsenal. Seconds later, when he arrived at the other end of the pitch having raced at a speed never before seen from him on a football pitch, I was so glad that the unsporting twat was nothing to do with my team anymore. Man Shitty – you’re welcome to him. And if you want to see him run even faster than that, get one of the other clubs to offer him higher wages than you’re giving him. Then watch him go.

On second thoughts, I’m not sure that even Giles Smith could make that sound funny.

Smith’s articles also include imaginary football-related documents such as what the Uefa Pro Licence course might consist of, an overview of the different seating arrangements that might exist at the new Wembley Stadium, and a list of hobbies footballers could take up if disaster struck and a power cut meant and they couldn’t use their games consoles anymore.

There is an equally imaginary letter from the FA to a rather depleted England squad, with details of the itinerary for their summer tour of the USA. We read the diary of Fabio Capello after he becomes England manager and the inner thoughts of currently injured Aston Villa winger Stewart Downing on being the only member of the England squad without a Wag (he makes up for it later by finding a double-barrelled one). There are also many discussions, written with great seriousness, of unlikely but intriguing situations such as what would happen if Alex Ferguson and Harry Redknapp had a fight. (As long as they didn’t make it a topless fight I’d be happy with either outcome.)

Reality TV also gets a regular mention – although any footballer who appears on I’m a Celebrity, Strictly Come Dancing or Dancing on Ice is just asking to be ridiculed. As for those who are desperate enough to appear on more than one of them… well, they make the Wags on Wags’ Boutique look camera shy. I would love to go on Wags’ Boutique. I wouldn’t recognise a hair extension if it slapped me round the face (my hair doesn’t need extending, it gets long all by itself) but I would have been a great help when they were wondering what the third letter of ‘silhouette’ was. And while my “What does ‘high street’ mean?” might have filled my fellow Wags with despair, at least I know how many players there are in a football team.

I wasn’t so keen on Craig Bellamy’s Guide to Hitting People with Golf Clubs (why mention his one non-redeeming feature and ignore all the good stuff, like… anyway, moving on) and there was rather too much about England and not enough about Wales, and Smith really doesn’t know a thing about opera.

In one article, he claims that the cheapest seats at the opera are £75. As someone who has never paid more than £30 for a ticket(and rarely pays more than £10) I have to wonder which opera houses he’s been going to. At many venues, even the maximum price is under £75. Could you see a Premiership football match for £10 a time? Even at Hull City it’s £15.

In some ways it was probably more fun to read the articles in their original format, rationing yourself to one a week or however often Smith published them, but even in the age of the Internet, it might be time-consuming – and expensive – to find all the archived versions. So it’s great to have such easy access to so many of them in this volume. It is not a good book to read in one sitting - in order to enjoy each article properly, you don’t want to read too many at a time. So maybe it’s not one to take to the beach but I found it ideal for reading in the bath.

A Wag's Tale: The Beautiful Game (Claire Challis and Fabulous)****

Ex-Wag Fabulous joins with writer Claire Challis to tell you what being a Wag is really like. Fabulous of course is a pseudonym (and for all I know Claire Challis is too) but the book doesn’t tell you who Fabulous is and unfortunately I can’t guess. I don’t think it’s even made clear that Fabulous is female. It’s certainly an adjective more often applied to themselves by men …

The Beautiful Game is inspired by real life, but the characters in it are fictional. So I can only assume the resemblance between protagonist Louise and Coleen Rooney; chief Wag Tara and Victoria Beckham, and glamour girl Pattii and Abi Clancy are purely coincidental. I’ve spoken to Abi and I think she’s at least a million times nicer than Pattii but Pattii is kind of like how I expected Abi would be like. I have no idea who the fourth Wag, former actress Jodie is. Possibly she’s Cheryl Cole, but Jodie wasn’t a singer and Gary is far too nice to be Cheryl’s husband (I won’t dignify him with a name but he knows who he is).

The title is quite clever – as well as being literally both a tale about a Wag and a tale that was partly written by a Wag, a wagtail is also a type of bird – and so is a Wag. The ‘Beautiful Game’ part is good too – not only is this one of the clichéd terms for football, it’s also about Wags playing their own game: the game of being beautiful. It’s a very clever title (so it was probably Claire Challis, not Fabulous, who thought of it).

The Beautiful Game is full of action all the way through with a few dull clothes bits. You see the girls going shopping, getting discounts and free clothes (completely ridiculous, I’d never let a shop give me free clothes especially not if I was filthy rich). You see them having to dress their best every time they leave the house (fuck that, why should I bother, it’s not even as though they don’t want to see me looking a mess). Then they wear high heels for football matches and I’ve said in another post what I think of that. The other side of things involves them getting photographed wherever they go and suffering the indignity of their husbands and boyfriends going out and getting drunk and being caught with other women… okay maybe Jodie is Cheryl Cole.

But whilst there was never a dull moment, everything went by a bit too quickly. All too often, Louise found herself in a horrible situation, not knowing what she’s going to do – which is something we really like to see in chick lit heroines – only for us to find in the next chapter that three months had passed and all we know is that ‘everything sorted itself out eventually’. Maybe this is a realistic interpretation of Wag life, if not any life – a lot of the time, when something horrible has happened and your boyfriend is no longer speaking to you (I can’t say I’ve ever had this problem, with me it’s the problem was when they were all trying to talk to me at the same time) the truth is, nothing else does happen except that you keep on trying to talk to each other, a little bit more each time, and eventually things do change from stony silence to being back to normal.

That’s the realistic way of doing it but it doesn’t work so well in fiction. I like my drama drawn out as long as possible (and actually now I think about it that does also apply to real life). If Challis and Fabulous had tried drawing out some of the drama, they could have ended up with several novels, one for each plotline. The first book would have been about Louise first becoming a Wag. It does start off very nicely, with Louise feeling very lost and unsure and alone, and having lots of trouble because people don’t believe she’s Adam Jones’ Wag. But by the next chapter, she seems completely comfortable with it. Maybe Wagicity is something you do adapt to quickly, but there is so much potential in the idea of a new Wag struggling to fit in with her new lifestyle.

Later on, there are issues with Adam going out with the lads and getting drunk. That could take up a whole book. Jodie’s fiancé Gary (as we find out on Page 1 for some reason, even though this doesn’t happen until near the end of the book) is arrested on the News hours before their wedding. It probably should have taken a whole novel for Jodie to agree to take him back. I won’t spoil the book by mentioning all the little storylines, but Challis and Fabulous could have made a whole series, and I am quite disappointed they didn’t. The dialogue is convincing with just enough conventional Wag/footballer talk to make you laugh without stopping you from taking the situation seriously. The characters too are as Waggish as could be, but apart from Pattii they are all clearly very nice people. And although everything that was in the book was very exciting and enthralling. I just wanted more detail.

And another thing. This actually annoyed me quite a lot. At the beginning of the book, Adam and Louise move from Cardiff to Leeds. They met at school. Louise’s family lives in Cardiff. So as far as I can see, Adam and Louise are Welsh. I can see why Louise might have wanted to move to Cardiff to be with Adam, but not why her parents would go too. Also, Adam is even called Adam Jones, and you don’t get more Welsh than that (except maybe if he was called Rhys Jones). Not that there are any players called Jones who play for Wales at the moment but… never mind. My point is, it sounds like they’re Welsh. Doesn’t it?

But then I started wondering: how come Adam isn’t a Welsh international? He’s good enough to join a Premiership side, so he must have been considered. At the very least, he must have played for the Under-21s (Louise is twenty, so I’m assuming Adam is about the same - about half the current Wales squad are twenty or under). There are some really crap players who get to play for the Under-21s like Wrexham players, so Adam ought to have played for them too. Then Adam got picked for England and I was so annoyed. Maybe he was born in England and then he moved to Wales, and he made the decision himself that he would rather represent England, which isn’t unreasonable I suppose. But this isn’t made clear and I was really really disappointed. And he was much sexier when I imagined him having a Welsh accent.

My Booky Wook (Russell Brand)****

Probably no book has given me quite so many mixed feelings as My Booky Wook. To his credit, Russell Brand did just about manage to succeed in making me like him as a person. He does have the ability to be extremely funny, and it’s very difficult not to admire his honesty. His fun-loving attitude is also likeable in general, although it undeniably needs a lot of restraining, and I like people with a bit of originality who don’t spend all their time pretending to be the non-existent normal person.

But then there are the problems. Some of the things he’s done, as a child and as an adult, really are despicable. Some are rather charming, in an insane sort of way. Recent events concerning Andrew Sachs suggest Brand is actually just a bit of a wanker. But that doesn’t mean My Booky Wook isn’t an extremely good read.

Unlike a lot of published writers, celebrity or otherwise, Russell Brand can actually write. He writes very well (his opening sentence would have been excellent in a work of fiction; in an autobiography it’s disturbing but good nonetheless) and his surreal sense of humour, which was so much a part of Big Brother’s Big Mouth (and seems also to be a big part of his stand-up routines) comes across in almost every line. He can be funny, disgusting, or terribly sad, sometimes all in the same paragraph. His descriptions of places and situations are particularly vivid. If the other people featured in the book don’t come across as strongly, this might be due to Russell himself being such a big character, rather than his writing style.

Just one of the things he describes incredibly well is the taking of drugs. I’m sure that everything he says is completely true. I’m sure taking heroin or acid would be an amazing, mind-blowing experience. Being drunk is an amazing, mind-blowing experience, or it is until you wake up the next day, remembering nothing at all or too much (not to mention the hangover). But while drugs can give you these highs that probably are a lot better than real life, it gives you lows as well. More lows than highs. And it ends up affecting other people too. I think I’ll just stick to real life. It might not give you that many highs but it’s worth it if it means avoiding all the lows.

Luckily, Brand describes his low moments very well too. The guy is a long way from being perfect and he probably isn’t all that nice but you do get the impression he’s very glad he’s not addicted to drugs anymore. Maybe he will cause people to take an interest in taking drugs but you can’t deny that, although he waits until the end of the book to do it, he also does a very good job of pointing out the downfalls.

Where Rainbows End (Cecelia Ahern)****

It’s probably not Cecelia Ahern’s fault I consider her a hit-and-miss author. Probably anyone who tried to turn such magical ideas as she has into a book would struggle because almost every one of her ideas is outside the realms of possibility (not including the one about invisible friends, If You Could See Me Now. Trust me, they are real).

Where Rainbows End is slightly more grounded in reality than most but it also includes the ‘magic’ of two people’s being soulmates. Ahern’s central characters Rosie and Alex (Alex is a guy) are meant for each other but they kind of keep missing each other. They arrange to go to the school Prom together despite the small inconvenience of Alex’s living in the USA at the time but Alex’s flight is cancelled and the only guy without a date is so awful Rosie has to get drunk. And she ends up having a baby. Then Rosie realises she likes Alex but Alex goes off and gets married. Then Alex realises he likes Rosie but she goes off and gets married. Then Alex… you get the idea. I don’t know why they do it really. Surely marriage is bad enough if you actually love the person you’re marrying.

Rainbows End, like the Holly’s Inbox books, is a novel in letters. It starts off with Alex and Rosie aged 7 writing each other notes in class (or from their bedrooms on the many occasions when they’ve been banned from seeing one another). They later graduate to Instant Messaging each other in class (which is a bit surprising, I’m ten years younger than them and I’m sure we never had Instant Messaging in class, I didn’t even know how to do Instant Messaging till I was twenty) before mostly e-mailing when they’re adults. Alex moves to America when he and Rosie are in their late teens, which ensures they have good reason to continue writing to one another.

The novel in letters can be alienating because you never find out anything until someone writes about it in a letter or e-mail. You don’t know anything until it’s happened, which kind of rules out the idea of them dying tragically in each other’s arms. In this case, we barely see the two main characters together because they’re mostly writing to each other (although they do get to meet up every so often, where they take turns at making fools of themselves).

But in this book, it isn’t a problem. If you think about it, all books (apart from the present tense ones I suppose) involve reporting events. Many books are written in the first person – just like letters and e-mails. Also, the letters and e-mails in this book tend to be quite long, so in some ways it’s not much different from a multi-viewpoint book, with several pages from one person’s point of view, followed by several pages from the point of view of another person. Most of the book is Rosie and Alex, but Rosie’s daughter Katie, Katie’s best friend Toby, Rosie’s new friend Ruby, Rosie’s sister Steph and their parents all make regular appearances.

And the Instant Messages are so much like conversations, they flow naturally too. True, as far as Instant Messages go, they’re not terribly realistic. Ahern uses a bit of poetic licence, allowing the characters to interrupt each other mid-sentence. As far as I know, Instant Messages aren’t that advanced yet – I don’t think you can see what the other person is writing until you’ve pressed Send, so while someone might only read the first sentence before writing back, they can’t really interrupt you mid-sentence. But Ahern gets away with it. And if there isn’t an Instant Messaging system like that now, there probably will be at some point. And maybe this book is set in the future.

Woody and Nord: A Football Friendship (Gareth Southgate and Andy Woodman)*****

I love football and I love Gareth Southgate, so I was always going to enjoy this book a lot. And I did, but not just for the reasons I was expecting to enjoy it. The book is about a friendship between two men, one who makes it as a Premiership and international star, and his friend who spends a lot of time sitting on the bench in the lower leagues.

The book offers a fascinating comparison not only between the two situations, but also between Then and Now. It is very difficult to imagine, for example, Aaron Ramsey of Arsenal cleaning his team-mate Andrei Arshavin’s boots, but this was an everyday occurrence when Gareth Southgate and Andy Woodman were young players. They had to clean mud-covered football boots, keep the changing rooms clean and tidy, do whatever other filthy and time-consuming jobs they were asked to do - and all for under £30 a week. There are rumours now of players of that age earning at least £45,000 a week.

But the book is so much more than that. The friendship between Gareth and Andy is the important thing, and it is exciting, interesting and also encouraging to read about two people who genuinely care for each other, and how it develops even though the two live very different lives (in the same profession, yes, but still very different). Many people have commented that Andy has been lucky to hang onto Gareth’s friendship – and to an extent, they’re right. Anyone who finds such a strong friendship as these two is lucky. But what they actually mean is that Andy is lucky to stay friends with someone who’s so rich. Anyone who reads this book will know that side of things never comes into it.

Gareth and Andy did have a sports writer to help them with the book, but the impression is that they wrote most of it themselves. And they can both write. Andy, as Gareth tells us many times, can be hilariously funny, and this is shown not only in his actions but in his writing style too. No matter what happens, he is always cheerful, and not in an annoying way either.

And although Gareth, in theory, has a much better life, you have no trouble at all understanding why it has often made him unhappy. Money does not make you happy and anyone who thinks it does is either mad or Scottish. How can money make you feel better if you think you’ve just let the country down? You can’t buy your team a trophy (this book was written before the invention of Manchester City. And if buying trophies were possible, I’d like to think Ryan Giggs would have bought one for Wales). And I’m not just talking about that penalty. Or any of the other three Gareth has missed. He’s a very sensitive man and a lot has happened to him. And he’s a brilliant writer too.

He’s also a really lovely man. I wrote to him a few months ago and he replied right in the middle of Middlesbrough’s relegation battle. Can you imagine Alex Ferguson or Chelsea’s latest manager (I know what his name is, Carlo Ancelotti, however there’s no guarantee he’ll still be there by the time I get around to posting my review) doing this? Well, I wouldn’t mind putting them into a relegation battle so we can find out…

And one more thing. The first two words of the book are ‘Mitcham Station’. Is there any better way to start a book than by naming a railway station that technically doesn’t exist anymore? The station has been rebuilt as a tram station, with two platforms served approximately every three minutes. Very different from the station described by Gareth and Andy, with its one platform and one train every half-hour. But it used to be a railway station and now it’s not a railway station, so it’s a disused railway station, isn’t it? And there is nothing in the world nicer than a book with two lovely protagonists (you know what I mean!) that’s all about football and disused railway stations. (Except maybe Pride and Prejudice, but I’m sure Jane Austen would have mentioned them if she could.)

The Secret Daughter (Catherine Spencer)**

Another day, another Mills & Boon. This is from the Presents series which I think is now called Modern Romance. In other words, non-explicit sex and not a lot of it.

There were things I loved about this book, but so many things that infuriated me. Firstly, most importantly, the big twist is not just revealed in the blurb, it’s revealed in the TITLE. It would have been so much more exciting if this hadn’t been given away before I’d even read the first sentence. It’s actually a really interesting story, weightier than a lot of Mills & Boons. So I feel a bit deprived really.

The plot was probably slightly wasted on Mills & Boon. I don’t really mean that in a snobby way, but there’s a lot going on with all the characters, not just the central couple Imogen and Joe, and a 50,000 word novel where the main focus has to be on the romance doesn’t really give Catherine Spencer the opportunity to explore all the stories in detail. There are lots of really interesting characters who barely feature, such as Joe’s family and Imogen’s old nanny. And Imogen’s horrible mother Suzanne is great. Her behaviour is despicable from the beginning to a page or two from the end, but it’s hard not to feel some sympathy for her. She seems so unhappy. And her views aren’t so much wrong as desperately old-fashioned. She’d have got on fine a century or two ago.

Joe, like a lot of M&B heroes, really annoys me. I can understand why he finds Imogen irritating, but the aggressive way he treats her is pretty disgusting. As usual, he expects all to be forgiven because he loves her, but I wouldn’t forgive that easily. Maybe he does love her (although I certainly wasn’t convinced), but that doesn’t change all the horrible things he said to her, and it also doesn’t change the fact that the same could happen again the next time he gets stressed about something.

A quickie wedding that certainly isn’t based on love is the last thing Imogen needs. The poor girl really has nothing on which to base her expectations for a happy marriage. Yes, she is irritating, and not very intelligent, and her sudden u-turn from being snobby about Joe to practically begging him to love her does seem rather pathetic. But no-one deserves to be treated like that. All I can say for Imogen is she’s very lucky she lives in a Mills & Boon. It’s her only hope of happily ever after.

Secrets in Texas (Carrie Weaver)**

I wouldn’t usually review a Mills and Boon. After all, they only seem to be available in the shops for a month or so, banished from the shelves once the new shipment comes in. But why not review it? They’re common enough in charity shops after all and the chance of finding this one will be marginally greater if I re-donate it.

Secrets in Texas comes from the Super Romance series. I haven’t read all that many of them, but as far as I can make out they form a series of books that place the hero and heroine in great danger, often with some sort of crime-based plot that to some extent takes precedence over the romance.

In this book, law enforcement officer Angel Harrison has to infiltrate a group of Mormons by marrying Matthew Stone, the son of the head Mormon who is returning to the fold out of concern for the family he left behind years ago, and pretending he wants to return to the Mormon ways. Angel comes with him as his wife – they’re legally married, but certainly to begin with neither of them are even thinking of consummation. Or that’s when they tell themselves anyway.

But Matt finds himself falling for Angel’s strength and free spirit, enjoying watching such a powerful woman and trained killer playing the role of the devoted, passive wife. And Angel discovers that, despite the abusive marriage that led her to train as a law enforcement officer in the first place, maybe it will be possible for her to love again.

The characters are rather nicely done. Angel is very funny, and she and Matt have a great rapport. Matt is often called Matthew (one of the common literary names for unfaithful wankers) in this book, but despite his Uncle Jonathon’s demands that he take a second wife, he is faithful to Angel. Jonathon himself is a real monster, but there is something vaguely sexy about him that probably attracted his many wives. His ‘favourite’ wife, Eleanor, is a fascinating character, such as is not often found in Mills & Boon. Carrie Weaver reveals her character gradually and cleverly.

But other parts of the book really bother me. I know a lot of people object to Mormons, and most readers will probably sympathise with Angel’s disgust – and certainly there is something very wrong in the particular sect she visits. But it is still a religion and a way of life which I’m sure makes some people very happy. If Weaver had written about an evil Catholic community, for example, I’m sure there would have been some very strong objections; if she had written about an evil Muslim community, she really would have been in trouble. So I don’t think she should be passing comments on Mormons like this. Just because the concepts are completely alien to our society, it doesn’t mean they are wrong in other people’s. It happens all the time in the Bible.

The plot is also a bit questionable. Weaver has some good ideas, and she certainly has a flair for creating tense drama, but I didn’t really understand what Jonathon was up to. He seemed to be committing so many crimes at once, it just became confusing. At best, he is completely and dangerously amoral, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to be committing every possible crime on offer to him.

I think really, I’d like to give it three stars. There were parts of the book I really enjoyed, such as when Angel and Matt decided to rattle the headboard in order to fool the bitch sleeping next door into thinking they were having passionate, enthusiastic sex. It’s almost a disappointment when they start doing it for real. And any scene with Eleanor in is great. But my reservations about the book are so strong, I’ll give it two.

Got You Back (Jane Fallon)**

I loved Jane Fallon’s first novel, Getting Rid of Matthew. I gave it three stars at the time but I think that was mean. It’s definitely a book I still enjoy thinking about months later. It’s very funny, with three love triangle characters who are engaging, if not technically likeable. But it’s also a clever novel that turns a clichéd situation into something a bit different.

So when I saw Got You Back in the shops, I was expecting more of the same from Fallon. No matter that the plot had a similar-sounding love triangle. It was hilarious last time, so I didn’t mind having the same plot rehashed with a few differences. Not if it was funny.

It wasn’t funny. It started really well, with Stephanie finding texts from a mysterious K on her husband James’ mobile (yes, it’s two-timing James again). She discovers they’re from a woman called Katie, and she phones her, introducing herself as James’ wife – not ex-wife, as Katie thought. Katie is all for telling James she knows straight away but Stephanie decides it might be more fun to make him suffer a bit first. So when Katie dyes and styles her hair like Stephanie’s, and when both women buy identical tops, comedy does seem imminent.

But the comedy soon disappears, and it becomes yet another story about a two-timing husband who’s more in love with himself than his women, a wife who jumps straight into a new relationship the first chance she gets, and a girlfriend who would certainly have boiled the guy’s bunny if he happened to bring one home from the surgery where he works as a vet. It’s not deep enough or moving enough to be a serious dramatic story, but it’s not funny enough to be anything else.

Without all the humour, the story falls flat. Neither James, his girlfriend Katie, nor his wife Stephanie are particularly engaging characters. I didn’t like them or care what happened to him. There are some vaguely amusing moments at Stephanie’s work, where she tries to persuade various wannabes not to go to an awards ceremony with their naughty bits on show. But I wasn’t that interested, and while I could understand why Stephanie was feeling upset and stressed, the unkind and unprofessional manner in which she treated her clients was really worrying. Stephanie was extremely lucky they all happened to be nice people.

Stephanie’s workmate Natasha is my favourite character but even she’s inconsistent. One minute, she’s trying to think up an appropriate punishment for James that doesn’t involve causing GBH. The next, she’s hiding from one of her clients because she’s frightened of them. It doesn’t quite make sense. And as for Stephanie’s son Finn, I can fully understand her concerns that he might be psychotic. Given his propensity for drawing mutilated animals, perhaps it would be better if he didn’t take after James and become a vet.

Also, I find the book difficult to read. A lot of it is written in the pluperfect tense, which is quite alienating. I used to loathe books in the present tense with a passion and I’d rather have died than actually written one myself. But now I love the present tense best because everything seems so immediate. And if you do want to do a flashback you can put it into the past tense and you hardly notice the difference.

Got You Back is in the past tense which can have the advantage of sounding more literary than the present tense but it means you have to use the pluperfect if you want to make it clear something has happened before the events that have just been described. Usually this is fine as there will usually be only a couple of uses of the pluperfect - enough to get your attention - before it switches back to the preterite. But when just about every verb is preceded by ‘had’, as happens all the time in this book, it can sound really clunky.

It also really brings home to you the fact that things have already happened. The characters/author are only keeping you up to date of happenings in their life in a second-hand sort of way. Even in real life it’s not unknown for people to start talking about past events in the present tense (“So I’m standing there, then suddenly I hear this voice behind me so I turn around and there he is, and he’s looking at me, and I’m looking at him, and I’m just like in shock…”) or something like that. Then in one chapter a character might be worrying about a problem they have, and by the next chapter they’ll have moved on to a different problem, and you won’t here anything about the first problem until it’s casually mentioned later on it’s been solved. I felt a bit shut out from it all.

The Chocolate Lovers' Club (Carole Matthews)****

I read The Chocolate Lovers’ Diet first and really enjoyed it. Then I read the first in the series, The Chocolate Lovers’ Club and I really enjoyed that too. Both are really great comedies, with some really amusing characters and situations, as well as some more serious storylines that nevertheless fit into the book well. There’s just one problem. The two books are pretty much the same.

Yes, the characters and storylines have moved on a little bit between one book and the next and there are differences, but they mostly have exactly the same problem. It’s true that the same problems can hang around for years and it’s not unusual to think you’ve solved one problem, only for it to come back again. In that sense, it’s a realistic book. But you don’t want two stories about the same set of characters to be that much alike.

There are parts of the book that aren’t funny at all. Lucy’s complete and total inability to cope with any kind of job is terrifying. Even I’d have done better than her. I’d have done better with driving that van and I don’t even have a driving licence for a car. And if I’d trashed that bookshop – which I never would have done, at least not to that extent – I wouldn’t run away and leave the whole mess behind for my elderly boss to find when he got back from his hospital appointment. I’d want to, I really would. But you can’t do things like that.

But Lucy is mostly an adorable character. Once the incidents mentioned above are over with and she’s back to her old job and back to sitting at her desk, doing no work at all (she’s much less trouble when she’s doing nothing), you can put your reservations about her out of your mind, and start loving her again.

Then there’s the sex-mad Chantal. Yes, she is incredibly stupid and I wouldn’t blame anyone for calling her a slag. She does have a bit of an obsession. But she too is a very nice person. Nadia is amazing the way she deals with her young son and her husband’s gambling addiction and their money worries, not to mention the fact she still has some strength to spare for providing support for her friends.

Autumn is perhaps a bit too nice but I also think she’s shockingly unprofessional. She runs a craft class to support young people who have been in trouble with the law. It’s very commendable but when Autumn decides to turn to a bit of criminality herself, I can’t help questioning her integrity. Yes, it was in order to help Chantal who had got herself into trouble and was herself the victim of a crime. But that doesn’t make it okay that Autumn should either a) break the law herself or b) let the former criminals she’s supposed to be helping think there are times when it’s okay to do things like that.

The law-breaking section is brilliant though. Very funny and I did kind of wish I was there with them. But it doesn’t make it right.

The Outlaw Varjak Paw (S F Said)***

I hadn’t read the sequel before, but I thought I had a pretty good idea of what it was about from the opera. I didn’t. The opera only really shows the very end and the book has different characters in.

The problem with sequels is that they can be disappointing. Even the most brilliant characters can have their limits, and only so many stories can be told about them. Also, Varjak has learned all the Seven Skills of the Way in the last book, Varjak Paw. So where could the character go from here?

But S. F. Said seems to have thought about this. Sally Bones makes only a fleeting – although very memorable – appearance in Varjak Paw but she’s someone who stays in your mind. She’s not the sort of character you’d create, only to limit her to one appearance. And in The Outlaw Varjak Paw, the character is given the story she deserves. She’s one of the most chilling villains I’ve ever read about and remains so even now I’ve read the book, and I know all her secrets. (Or I think I do.)

Varjak defeated The Gentlemen at the end of Varjak Paw, and has now returned to life on the streets. However, he’s not out of danger as cats are still disappearing – or worse. In a way, it surprises me this is a children’s book, as a lot of it is terrifying. But I don’t think I was scared of anything much as a child. Now, I’ve realised the world is dangerous and there are people out there who want to hurt you. In some ways, I haven’t grown up at all, and some people would say I’m quite babyish in the things I’ve scared of. But I do think adults have a more developed sense of fear.

Jalal no longer needs to teach Varjak The Way – although his powers have conveniently and rather inexplicably deserted him. I never quite understand why Varjak lost his powers or how he got them back, but it did give the situation an extra sense of urgency. Jalal teaches Varjak other things instead – and, as in the earlier book, Jalal’s teachings help Varjak as he progresses through the story.

Said is great at creating strong characters and there are lots of new ones to enjoy here. The Scratch Sisters (for some reason I keep calling them The Snatch Sisters), a trio of kung-fu Siamese cats, are my favourites. Then there are a couple of Sally Bones’ minions who change side, Omar and Ossie, who seem rather more cuddly. I loved the way such different individuals – mostly cats, but with Cludge the dog, of course - were bonding together in order to fight Sally Bones.

But the veiled sex references didn’t seem quite appropriate. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen the opera, where Holly is presented as being around sixteen, with Varjak no more than ten. So when Said starts hinting that there might be Holljak kittens before too long, it’s a little bit disturbing. Maybe if I hadn’t seen the opera, I’d think it was sweet, but I have, so I don’t.

Varjak Paw (S F Said)****

I wasn’t going to review this because it’s a children’s book.

But I’m not sure that’s any reason not to review it.

It’s still a book and I’m sure I’m not the only adult in the world who would find this book enjoyable. Not every adult will enjoy it, but not every adult will enjoy the other books I’ve reviewed. Even I didn’t enjoy a lot of them. Varjak Paw is written in quite a literary style but it’s easy to understand. I’m not sure what age group it’s aimed at but I never felt it was babyish in any way. Varjak and his friends are in many ways a lot more grown up than the adult characters I’ve written about on this blog.

Some people might choose not to read the book because it’s about cats rather than humans. But animals can make fascinating protagonists. And a cat with super powers makes a nice change from all the superhumans. I kind of kept imagining Varjak as a human in this book because the book Varjak Paw is very like Act One of the opera Varjak Paw, and they were dressed as humans. My friend Barry did a really nice review of the opera, so go and read that if you want to.

I first read this book a couple of years ago. I picked it up because I wanted something to read and I got into it really quickly. Then I went to see the Varjak Paw opera, and I loved it so much, I decided to read the book again – and also the sequel, which I didn’t know about before.

The characters are really lovely, especially Varjak. The basic plot isn’t anything new: there have been lots of stories about scared, physically weak characters who become heroes – but it’s a plotline I really like to read because I would quite like it if one day I became a hero. Everyone thought I was brave when I went on the Underground two days after the terrorist attacks (even though I never went on the Underground normally because I was scared it would make me sick), but mostly people think I’m quite pathetic. I think it all depends on how you view bravery – I do things that scare me all the time – but a character like Varjak is almost always going to be appealing.

I wasn’t sure about his friend Holly at first – she is described as spiky-looking, and the word ‘spiky’ suits her personality as well. But I warmed to her once I could see her relationship with her friend Tam. Tam isn’t very clever but she is very sweet – and it’s good to have such a loveable character who’s a bit fat and is happy to stay that way. I wish they were more human characters like that. A lot of outwardly abrasive people like Holly wouldn’t show such patience with people who are slower than them – Holly is very bright – but Holly is lovely to Tam and also their dog friend Cludge, who makes Tam look like a candidate for Mensa. Cludge is a great character too - fiercely loyal, like a lot of fictional dogs, but quite original I think.

Another thing I really like about the characters is that it’s not just a matter of Varjak the SuperCat and his three sidekicks. Varjak would really struggle without Cludge’s strength and Holly’s intelligence, and I like that because it makes Varjak less like a god, and makes his friends a really important part of the story.

It was also really interesting the way Varjak learns a little bit more about the Way as he goes through the book. The Seven Skills of the Way help cats with things like hunting and fighting, as well as helping them to know themselves and others. It would have been too much to take in all at one go – although Said does give us a tantalising glimpse at the beginning, when the Elder Paw, Varjak’s grandfather, tells Varjak the names of three of the seven skills. Slow Time, Moving Circles and Shadow Walking do sound very intriguing.

The book is fast-paced and full of action. When I heard there was going to be an opera, I knew that would work really well – the coming of age theme happens a lot in opera as well. There’s also a lot of humour – such as Varjak’s attempts to find a dog to talk to – and the character of Sally Bones is truly terrifying. Sally Bones is hardly in the book at all, but she makes a really strong impression. I could complain that her story has no real ending in Varjak Paw, but in a way her scene is a prequel to the next book, where she becomes a major character. There’s a really scary picture of her as well. Dave McKean has done some great illustrations all the way through. Occasionally they make the text difficult to read but I really like them. Adult books don’t have enough pictures. A good illustrator can add a lot to a story.

Holly's Inbox: Scandal in the City (Holly Denham)****

Holly’s Inbox (which can be viewed on the Internet) is a great idea that probably worked really well online, but Holly’s Inbox the book didn’t quite work. For Holly’s Inbox: Scandal in the City, most of the difficulties have been completely ironed out. Perhaps the reason why Holly’s Inbox didn’t quite work as a book was because it hadn’t been conceived as one. It was more of a soap opera online. In soap operas, it’s just one incident after another, and very few long-term storylines. But presumably when Holly Denham started work on her next lot of fictional e-mails, she knew another book was a strong possibility – and Holly’s Inbox: Scandal in the City does feel like a novel.

The fact that it’s more like a novel does in some ways make it seem less like a series of e-mails. A lot of the e-mails read a lot more like instant messages or spoken conversations. But the characters do have an amazing amount of time each day in which to send e-mails. I don’t have that amount of time and I don’t have a job. And all e-mails take place at work! If I ever get a job I’ll never spend all that time e-mailing. It’s not even as though their jobs are easy. Somehow, none of them seem to have e-mail at home and it’s also surprising that close friends would e-mail one another the juicy details at work rather than catching up at the weekend. And there’s also the problem that anything not described in an e-mail is not seen by the reader.

But you can’t have everything, and it’s difficult to see how Denham – or anyone – could have done it any better. Besides. I’d rather have dramatic e-mails like these that make a great novel than e-mails that sound like e-mails but don’t really work in a book. I bought Scandal in the City because I wanted to read a book, and a book is exactly what I got.

Maybe Denham could have varied things a bit as the scene where Trisha writes e-mails about Holly’s being absent from work due to a broken heart is almost exactly like the scene in Holly’s Inbox where Trisha writes e-mails about Holly’s being absent from work due to a broken heart. But at least this guy was vaguely worth it.

I didn’t like Holly in Holly’s Inbox, but I liked her a lot in this book. It annoyed me slightly (and okay yes I was jealous) that everyone clearly adored Holly but I was agreeing with them before too long. She is very funny and the insanity of her day-to-day life contrasts surprisingly well with her considerable abilities at work. Holly is amazing at her job. Funny, friendly – and a real professional. Despite the amount of time she spends e-mailing.

The other characters are brilliantly done too. Trisha didn’t feature a lot during the early part of the book, and I missed her dry sarcasm, but she was in it more later on. The adorably dippy Claire and the calm and apparently conservative Marie are a great addition to the team. The wonderfully filthy yet wonderfully innocent Aisha returns, along with flamboyant Jason, who is trying desperately to make his boyfriend dump him. Then there are asides from Holly’s mad family, and the one everyone thinks is mad, Holly’s delightfully intrepid Granny.

There are two great villains too. One just pops up occasionally and gives you a good laugh; the other is very cleverly written: a total bitch who is really nice to Holly in a way that doesn’t quite disguise her bitchiness.

There was a rather unrealistic bit at the end – which stood out mostly because I could imagine the rest of the book happening to real people. Even the mad bits. Not only is this moment unrealistic, it’s also not the sort of thing I’d have expected the company directors to put up with for a minute. But it was so much fun, I think Denham gets away with it.

Second Chance (Jane Green)**

I only read this because my friend offered it to me cheap. She hadn’t been able to finish it, and there were several moments – maybe one on every page – where I wondered if I was going to give up on it too. But it did pick up a bit in the middle, and it is a lot better than the other Jane Green book I read, Straight Talking.

Second Chance begins when a group of old schoolfriends get together for the first time for years following the death of Tom, another member of their group. He died in a terrorist attack. This annoyed me a bit as a lot of people really did lose friends and family in this way and it somehow seems a bit too close to the events to start making money out of it by writing a book. I don’t mind stories set in the Second World War though, so maybe I’ll get used to terrorist stories.

They sit around the table and talk about their lives, all displaying an irritating characteristic of talking about themselves without the use of a first person subject pronoun. (“Am this. Did that. Married X.”) Just don’t hear this very often, so was surprised when this large-ish group of people who have had completely different lives all start doing it at once. Didn’t find it very realistic. Am not however accustomed to sitting round in large groups.

The characters are a lot stronger than this opening suggests. The main character, Holly, drives me mad – like most fictional Hollys, she is one of the most miserable creations in fiction. We’re all supposed to love her, but I just wanted her to shut up and go away somewhere where I didn’t have to read about her. Then there’s the allegedly sweet, gentle Olivia, who somehow has the filthiest mouth of all of them. Paul, the organiser, somehow fades into the background, but Anna and Saffron between them make the book worthwhile.

Anna is bossy Paul’s wife. She unable to get pregnant and not very happy, but manages to push this aside in order to help a group of people she hardly knows. Maybe part of the reason I find it difficult to admire Holly for this characteristic is because Anna had it in shitloads.

Saffron is an actress who has been touted as the Next Best Thing for years, but hasn’t yet made it. Saffron has done a number of stupid things in her time, and has a bad habit of saying the first thing that comes into her head, but there’s something very endearing about her: something very normal, even though her life isn’t the sort of thing most people can imagine.

But Green makes it very difficult for us to form our own opinions of her characters. All the way through, she keeps telling us what to think. She stops the narrative in order to give us some anecdote that apparently proves her point. But I don’t want her telling me all this. I prefer to be able to form my own opinions – and there are much more subtle ways for an author to make a character’s personality clear. Maybe I’m less likely to pick up on subtle things but I don’t want any author beating it into my head with a rolling pin either.

She tells us how horrible Marcus is to Holly right from the start – which left me wanting to defend the poor guy. He’s obviously a total prat but he's also very insecure. He isn’t a completely unsympathetic character although I did go off him later. I sympathised with him a lot more than Holly because Holly had the author bigging her up at every opportunity, whereas poor Marcus is constantly put down. No wonder he wants to show how good he is all the time. I wouldn’t want to marry him though!

There are good bits in this book. You could just read the Saffron bits and ignore the rest. It would be quite a good book then. But it would also be a very short book.

The Wag's Diary (Alison Kervin)****

I know I’m supposed to admire Wags for being so well-dressed but I’m really not sure if they’re the ideal role models. Just because Victoria Beckham can cope with being Size 0 when she has three young boys, a ‘busy life’ as the wife of a footballer and a career as a fashion designer (and sometimes a ‘singer’) – not to mention the fact she seems to spend half her life shopping, which is exhausting – it doesn’t mean everyone in the world can cope with being Size 0, and it certainly doesn’t mean people ought to try.

Your health is a million times more important than how you look, and you certainly shouldn’t risk your health just because some footballer’s wife is skinny enough to fit down a drainpipe. I’m Size 0 because I have problems with my stomach, but if anyone decided to start copying me I’d be horrified. It really isn’t that good being thin. I’ve probably only got my stomach condition in the first place because I didn’t have the life skills to feed myself properly when I went to study away from home. Now I can’t eat enough to get myself up to a healthy weight, and I have dizzy spells all the time. People who try to get this thin on purpose are morons. And Louise Redknapp (who is kind of a Wag and isn’t Size 0) would agree with me.

As for the clothes thing, I’m just not interested, and if I do ever marry Gareth Southgate, which I won’t because he’s already married and there’s NO WAY I’m moving to Middlesbrough (it looks like a lovely place, but it doesn’t have the West End, and no I’m NOT talking about shops). But anyway even if Middlesbrough was relocated to London and I did somehow end up being a Wag (according to this book, football managers have Wags too), I WOULD NOT start wearing short skirts and little tops and high heels to football matches. I’d rather DIE. There’s only one kind of top you should wear to football matches (and no I am NOT giving you fashion advice) and that’s a shirt featuring the team you most want to win. High heels are stupid because there’s a million steps to go up and I fall over when I’m wearing them on flat ground and how are you supposed to jump up and down when your team scores if you’re wearing heels? Skirts are okay, but not without underwear. It’s too cold, and if I want to relax and sit with my legs open like my guy mates, I’d like to be able to do that without being indecent. And if you think it’s indecent for me to have my legs open under any circumstances – well, all your idols do it! That’s how we know they’re wearing no knickers.

Tracie Martin, the fictional Wag in this novel, is the Waggiest Wag in the universe. She spends most of her time thinking about hair extensions (I’ve never knowingly even seen a hair extension: if you want long hair, just grow it, that’s what I say) and what she’s going to wear to her husband Dean’s next match. So it should really be the most boring book in the universe for me. And some of the time, it is. But it’s also really funny because (I hope) Tracie is an exaggerated version of a Wag, and the way she worries about things I’ve never even heard of is hysterical. And her driving is worse than mine, which is always nice to see.

Tracie is completely ridiculous – but she is a very nice person, and that’s part of what makes the book really fun. We’re not just reading about some bitch we’re expected to admire for her dress sense. We’re reading about a not particularly intelligent but really lovely person who happens to care very much about clothes. I can put up with the clothes business and the hair business and the makeup business (although I’d rather die than go shopping with her) because it’s great to read about such a likeable character. A lot of the time, we’re laughing at her for being so stupid, but always in a very sympathetic way. Tracie always means well. And it’s not like I’ve never done something stupid. Maybe not in the last half-hour or so, but certainly in the last hour.

Alison Kervin clearly knows both football and Wags very well, which makes the book even better. Tracie’s daughter is named Paskia Rose, which is somehow the most perfectly Waggish name I can think of. I’ve never heard of anything called Paskia (maybe she was born at Easter?), but it’s not a real name, and that’s all that matters. Tracie wants Paskia to grow up to be a Wag like her, but unfortunately she takes after her father, Dean, and is a very gifted footballer. The only difference between Dean and Paskia is that Paskia always scores into the right net. (I do find it a bit hard to swallow that Dean once played for Arsenal, but I suppose even Ashley Cole played for Arsenal.)

The only thing I don’t like about this book is that Tracie becomes a hugely famous blogger. Apart from the fact I don’t like reading about writers, and I especially don’t want to have to read samples of their work (it does seem a bit like Kervin is congratulating herself on her own writing ability every time a character says how great Tracie’s writing is). But Tracie’s blogs are hysterically funny. And they really are great and it's not surprising everyone loves them. And yes, I am jealous!

There is a serious storyline in this book but it’s really a bit weak. It is interesting but it’s a lot less original than the rest of the book and I don’t think even mild child abuse really fits in with a comedy. Also, some parts of the story are left unresolved at the end as Tracie seems to have forgotten about them. But perhaps we’ll find out more in Kervin’s sequel – which I’m really looking forward to reading.

My Best Friend's Girl (Dorothy Koomson)***

I nearly didn’t read this. Dorothy Koomson’s The Chocolate Run was such a disappointment, I probably wouldn’t have read this if it hadn’t been from the library. But luckily it was from the library, so I did read it.

At first, I was a bit worried that I wasn’t going to like it. All this soppy clichéd deathbed forgiveness stuff is bad for my emetophobia, and cute precocious little kids aren’t that much better. Kamryn, the main character, really did seem to be a bit of a bitch, although at least I preferred her to her friend Adele, who slept with Kamryn’s fiancé. The fact that Adele was dying of cancer when the book began didn’t really make her actions any more forgiveable. She doesn’t deserve to die – but Kamryn does not deserve to be betrayed by her fiancé and her best friend like that, no matter how much of a bitch she is.

But that, in a way, is what this book’s all about – and quite possibly what parts of The Chocolate Run were about as well. Most people aren’t perfect.

Kamryn isn’t always a particularly nice person to read about. This put me off at first, but I ended up liking her in the end. She can be very nasty, but so can everyone. She can also be very nice. She just makes a very bad first impression on the people she meets in real life, and so in a way it’s only natural that readers should experience some of the same misgivings.

The danger with writing about a character like this is that some people will give up on the book because they don’t want to read about such horrible people. I was very tempted to give up. It’s possible I would have done if I didn’t have a book blog to slag it off in. But I did kind of want to know what was going to happen. Or not so much what was going to happen – the book was quite predictable - it was more that I wanted to know how it was going to happen.

Sometimes, when you’re reading a book, you can tell what’s going to happen – but you can’t think how the author is going to reach this conclusion in a convincing way. Or also, as in the case of Marian Keyes’ Angels, you can see that something is causing a character to behave very badly, and you want to know the reason for this. The explanation, when it comes, might be a very good explanation in theory, but (especially when we don’t find out until near the end of the book) it’s not always quite enough to make me like the character. So Koomson really had a very difficult job on her hands: she had to evoke the change in Kamryn convincingly, and in such a way that her readers ended up liking her despite everything.

Koomson did this really well. She moved from one situation to another very neatly. In some ways, it would have been nice if the story hadn’t suddenly jumped forward a year just before the end of the book, as quite a lot happened, and I’d have liked to read about it. (So by then, I must have liked Kamryn a lot – if I don’t like a character, the last thing I want is to read more about her than I have to!) But the parts of Kamryn’s story Koomson did tell showed her to be a fascinating character.

My Best Friend’s Girl is also a very moving book, but anyone who can write reasonably well and treat this sort of subject matter with sensitivity would have struggled not to make the book moving. The things that make the book impressive is that Koomson has created a horrible yet compelling and eventually likeable main character – and that some of the book is really funny.

She also creates a gorgeous hero. There are two men in the book. One is really gorgeous and sweet; the other one is a bit of a wanker (in my opinion), but does have a really good rapport with Kamryn. For most of the book, I was horribly afraid Kamryn was going to end up with the horrible one. (Yes, I cared about her enough to worry about that.) Luckily, she ended up with the one I liked. But it wouldn’t surprise me if some people preferred the other one.

Shopaholic & Sister (Sophie Kinsella)***

I love Sophie Kinsella, so maybe this book is only disappointing because I know she can be brilliant. My expectations are really high where Kinsella is concerned, and it’s possible this book would have got four stars if it had been written by someone who’s a bit hit and miss for me like Cecelia Ahern (she’s on 2 hits and 2 misses so far). Or if someone to whom I reluctantly gave a second chance wrote it, like Jane Green anything even halfway good is a nice surprise because my expectations aren’t that high. But anything less than perfect from Kinsella is going to be a disappointment.

No, that probably isn’t fair! But who said I had to be objective?

The fourth Shopaholic book has lots of humour. Becky is really sweet and lovely, and Luke is a sex god, and some of their exchanges are just delightful. But I kind of got the feeling all the good bits had been done before. It was still fun when Becky realised she’d bought far more stuff on honeymoon than she’d realised, and no surprise that she would rather look a bit deranged than miss out on the chance of the hottest handbag on the market – okay, it is a handbag with an angel on it, but even so, making deals with random strangers thus ensuring that other shoppers unfairly miss out on the bag does seem to be going a bit far. It was still quite funny though.

But surely there was no need for Becky to get Luke’s business in trouble yet again. Becky is so much funnier when the situations she gets into aren’t so horribly serious.

The idea of Becky’s sister Jess who hates shopping was wonderful in theory, but didn’t quite work for me in practice because I didn’t like Jess. There’s nothing wrong with not liking shopping. I hate it. I don’t mind going into bookshops and buying books, and if Waterstones or Blackwall’s or something like that started selling clothes as well, maybe I wouldn’t mind buying clothes in there. But Becky is a lovely person. The idea of going shopping with Becky does make me want to scream, although maybe we could turn it into a fair exchange whereby I go shopping with her, and she gives me Luke. I could certainly bring myself to go along with that.

Jess seemed to be set up as the complete opposite of Becky, and that was quite funny at first. But she didn’t seem to be nearly so rounded a character as most of those in Kinsella’s books. Also, she’s really rude. It’s not an accidental rudeness, which would have been fine. You never get the impression Jess is being rude because she’s stressed or scared or because she simply has no idea what she’s saying. She just seems to say whatever would discomfit Becky the most – which would be fine if Kinsella wrote light, frothy, on-the-surface slapsticky books with shallow characterisation. But she doesn’t.

The ending was also very predictable. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of predictability at times: we do always know that things will turn out okay for Becky. But the ending to Shopaholic & Sister was the most clichéd ending imaginable, and I know Kinsella is capable of better.

A Place Called Here (Cecelia Ahern)**

Not another therapy story! This time it’s Sandy – a tall, brunette named Sandy Shortt: is it just me who didn’t find that funny? – who sees the school counsellor about her obsessive habit of looking for everything she’s lost. Of course, Sandy is so wonderful, the counsellor ends up falling in love with her, and, once she’s left school, she ends up ‘seeing’ him in a completely different sense. I prefer Sandy and Gregory to Tasia and Louise in Straight Talking, but it still doesn’t quite work because there doesn’t seem to be any point to it.

As usual, Cecelia Ahern has had a wonderful idea for a story: that all missing things and people go to another world, and that’s why some things will just never be found, like my copy of Rubber Rabbit. Sandy became interested in missing people as a child when the school bully Jenny-May went missing. As an adult, Sandy runs a missing persons agency. But there are some people who can’t be found – until Sandy suddenly ends up in the missing persons world herself.

We’ve all heard a lot about children going missing lately. One thing I really did like about this book was that Jenny-May wasn’t made out to be perfect. She wasn’t a nice person at all, and I respect Sandy for being able to admit that. I also respect Ahern for not making Jenny-May into the cutest little girl who ever existed. When kids go missing, it annoys me so much when people go on about how they must be found because they’re so beautiful, friendly, intelligent etc. So, if they are ugly, anti-social and stupid we shouldn’t look for then? Of course we should. Don’t look for them because they’re cute. Look for them because they’re someone’s baby.

Jenny-May was a bitch. She was horrible to Sandy. But she was still someone’s baby and Sandy still wanted to find her.

Unfortunately, this is Sandy’s only redeeming characteristic. I do sympathise with Sandy’s need to get away from people, and to spend most of her time on her own, but I’m sure it would have been possible for Ahern to make her seem a bit nicer. She doesn’t seem to care about anyone except herself and the missing people.

The book has some great moments. Some of it’s funny. But some parts just don’t work. Like when Sandy, on arriving in the missing persons world, pretends she runs an acting agency instead of a missing persons agency. This was to give her the chance to meet people she’s searched for, and tell them about their families during their ‘audition’, without them knowing her real job. When she suddenly finds herself putting on a play, it’s the perfect opportunity for her to learn something about the value of human companionship. But Sandy mostly pretends the play doesn’t exist. She’s not interested, so she lets everyone else do the work. Total unfairness. It’s very easy to lose interest in her after that.

Straight Talking (Jane Green)*

I love reading. I really do. But every so often, I come across a book that makes me wonder why the f*** it was published. So I keep on reading, hoping I can find the answer. Sometimes the problem is that I just don’t appreciate the book myself, but I can understand why other people would. Other times, I just don’t get it.

I don’t get Straight Talking.

It’s all about a girl called Tasha who sleeps around a lot. Well, her name is really Anastasia, but she’s Tasha for short. Except, the first time she tells us her nickname, she says it’s ‘Tasia, pronounced Tasha’. But from that point on it’s never Tasia, always Tasha. Okay, I would never have guessed that Tasia could be pronounced Tasha if she hadn’t told us. But she did tell us once, and as my IQ is not in single figures, I’m more than happy to read Tasia as Tasha for the rest of the book. What I am not willing is for Jane Green (or Tasha: maybe this is a character thing) to assume I’m so stupid, she needs to spell it Tasha all the way through. That’s just insulting.

I also hates the way Tasia (yes, that’s how I’m going to spell it) talks to me all the way through. Quite apart from the fact that I would rather turn bulimic than listen to her for any length of time (and I say that as a raging emetophobic), she keeps telling me what I’m thinking. NO-ONE tells me what I’m thinking. Or rather, most people learn not to do it because they don’t get it right. But as Tasia is a character in a book, I can’t say, ‘no, you’re wrong, I’m not thinking you can’t possibly fall in love after ‘only’ nine months. Of course you can! Is there a legal limit or something? Thou shalt not declare thineself in love until ten months have passed? No, there isn’t. Not that I’m saying I believe you were in love with Simon – you weren’t. I’m just saying you can’t read my mind, Tasia, so stop trying!

And don’t even get me started on the sex. At the start of the book, she seems to be averaging about one bloke per chapter – it seems to add up to several a week. I’m sure there are some perfectly nice people in the world who genuinely enjoy sex as a regular activity, and like a bit of variation where the partner is concerned. But Tasia isn’t a nice girl. She just isn’t. She treats her friends like dog poo. There’s one bit where she’s absolutely devastated and she wants her friends to come round and look after her a bit. Not unreasonable. But then she says she wants Mel and Andy (two of the members of her gang of four), but she doesn’t want the other one, Emma. Of course, I do think Emma’s much better off not hanging around with this cow who sneers at her for being rich, but I just felt, poor Emma. Isn’t she going to feel just a little bit hurt about being left out like that?

Then there’s another time when she’s called the girls together so they can make a fuss of her, and Andy says something about herself. Shock, horror, crime of the century! How DARE Andy make herself the centre of attention when they’re supposed to be talking about Tasia? Okay, yes, I do agree that Andy likes to talk about herself, and, yes, maybe it is a bit annoying sometimes. But that part was actually hilarious because Tasia is by far the worst offender in that regard.

Tasia is supposed to be insecure. At least, I’m pretty sure she is. But she keeps banging on about how beautiful and successful she is, and how she’s superior to everyone in the world. Um, not the best way to get sympathy, Tasia. Although actually, I have to say, I did start feeling some sympathy for her about halfway through. Not because poor Tasia is so insecure. Not because poor Tasia was dumped by the man she thought she loved. Certainly not because poor Tasia’s best mate has the audacity to be in love with her. My sympathy for Tasia was because she was a deluded, horrible cow, and she just had no idea. It was the saddest thing I’ve ever seen, and it was such a relief to remember she isn’t real.

Maybe this was all a clever ploy on Green’s part. Maybe we were supposed to see Tasia for what she was, but end up liking her for it. But I didn’t. Part of the problem is probably that I did not find Green’s writing style very readable – and this might well be a personal thing. Green would probably hate my writing (and if she is reading this, she’s probably thinking I’m the deluded, horrible cow, and unfortunately not even a fictional one). But some of her storytelling methods are just bizarre.

Large chunks of it take place in therapy. I really don’t see the point. Especially when Tasia blurts out everything to her readers anyway. Louise, the therapist, has one of the loveliest names in the world, but she doesn’t seem to be very good at her job. The idea of making therapy sessions into an important part of the story is an interesting one, but, if the therapist is doing his or her job right, it’s almost always going to be an impersonal relationship: not someone the character or the reader can make any real connection to. If there is going to be something deeper than usual between them, we need to see it in their interactions. It has to be clear that the therapist, as a real character, is affected by their relationship in some way. An impersonal sounding board might be very helpful for people in real life, but it falls a bit flat in a story. If a character is going to come to some pretty huge revelations, it’s best if there’s an element of drama about it. A person who sits there calmly and asks questions isn’t really dramatic. And once you’ve sat through a certain amount of therapy sessions where nothing has really happened, it just gets boring.

Forbidden Places (Penny Vincenzi)*****

The first Penny Vincenzi book I read, An Absolute Scandal, was an absolute struggle. There were just too many characters for me to keep up with them all. At least fifteen with their own storylines, all of them having similar experiences with subtle differences. But the writing was excellent, and Blue was one of the most gorgeous men who ever existed in fiction. So I thought Forbidden Places, with its much shorter Dramatis Personnae, was worth a try.

I’m so glad I read it. Once again, the protagonists have similar experiences, but there are really only four of them to keep up with, and one of them is killed off halfway through. This is very sad, of course, but it makes things easie, and it paves the way for something really sweet so I forgive Vincenzi for that. There's so much to enjoy: the writing, the story, the characters, and especially Ben. Blue has officially been surpassed in my affections, something which I never thought would happen. Ben is sweet, emotional, a bit pathetic, very kind, and very thoughtful. I just wanted to tear him out of the book, and marry him immediately. But I don’t think he’d like it if I did that. He’s too committed to everything and everyone I’d be making him leave behind. Come to think of it, my boyfriend might be a bit pissed off too.

Now I’ve just got to read the rest of Vincenzi’s books. If each of them has a character as half as wonderful as Ben and Blue, I know it’s going to be worth reading every word of the 900 pages.

Vincenzi has also created some great female characters. I absolutely adore the tactless Florence. I think she might be slightly autistic, as she is always offending people, apparently by accident. I think she’s actually really nice and although I understood why people were offended, most of what she said wouldn’t offend me. Then there’s Clarissa, who is very sexy, raunchy and naughty and undeniably a bit of a slut, but she’s so brave and funny and affectionate and loving to everyone, it’s very difficult not to love her. Linda is feisty, sexy, and rather witty. She wouldn’t take any crap off anyone, but she has a gentle side. She’s someone who would very easily fit into the world now.

The main character, Grace, is slightly more of a problem. She can be the nicest person in the world. She’s very kind to Ben when he shows up at her house unexpectedly and very distraught. She probably did do rather well to put up with all Florence’s insults when Florence was giving birth to Imogen, but I think a lot of women in labour get a bit like that. Grace is very tolerant of her unreasonable husband Charles and the way his family and friends treat her, and she’s very brave and determined during the challenges of the Second World War.

But she does seem to spend a lot of time hating people. Most of the time, it’s clear why she might be a little bit annoyed, but sometimes she really seems to be going completely over the top. She quite rightly finds the class structure a bit unfair – she marries the upper-class Charles, but is probably only middle class herself and a lot of people look down on her. But Grace has a horrible habit of thinking she’s superior to other people, and most of the time, she’s not. She can be extremely nosy and interfering, and she’s very lucky most of the people in the book end up liking her. Grace’s sweetness makes up for a lot.

But she hits two people. Yes, one of them had behaved badly (if in very difficult circumstances), and the other was being a pompous twat (and I can understand why Grace might think about hitting him), but it just didn’t seem right. If she’d hit the wanker who attacked her, I would have applauded her (even though that’s a bit dodgy too), but she doesn’t. The violence is partly a shock because Grace’s behaviour is usually very gentle, so it seemed very out of character. But it also puts her quite severely into the wrong where she had been in the right, and that was disappointing. There is no need for Grace to be perfect, but I don’t think she needs to be violent.

In some ways, Forbidden Places is a violent book. Most of the men in the book go away to fight in the war, and come back injured. Some of it is quite horrible to read about, but it’s very compellingly written. It’s an inspiring book in some ways because all the characters have to be brave in all kinds of circumstances, yet there is a slight distancing effect because things such as the class structure don’t really belong to our world now. But all the emotions experienced by the characters are very real, and Vincenzi explains the realities of the situation in a thoroughly informative way without taking you away from the story.

The book tells the story of the war, but also the story of people making mistakes but making the best of horrible situations, and working towards being happy. I suppose all books are like that really. But this one hits you hard.

The Undonestic Goddess (Sophie Kinsella)*****

I’m not interested in the law and I’m not interested in cooking. So how come a book that has so much of both in it is one of the best books I’ve ever read? It’s probably because Sophie Kinsella can make anything interesting. After all, all the other books of hers I’ve read were all about shopping.

The Undomestic Goddess isn’t about the loveable Becky Bloomwood/Brandon in the Shopaholic series, but the equally alliterative Samantha Sweeting is no less adorable. Samantha is amazingly clever – she’s a hotshot lawyer who can do maths in her head (I can barely do it on paper, you should have seen what a mess I get in adding up the values of my fantasy football players) with an IQ of 158 (mine usually comes out a bit higher, but I probably added that up wrong too). Samantha could probably draw up legal contracts in her sleep (if she had time to sleep), and now she has the opportunity to become a senior partner, despite being only twenty-nine.

But Samantha can’t cook, or clean, or make beds – which turns out to be a bit of a problem when she suddenly finds herself working as a housekeeper in the middle of nowhere.

It sounds mad, but Kinsella can make anything seem perfectly reasonable. Whether she’s describing the legal world or housekeeping, everything seems realistic. Of course, as I don’t actually know anything about the legal world or housekeeping, I might not notice if there was something wrong with it. But a lot of books about specialist subjects can be completely unconvincing even when I don’t know anything about the subject.

The events that lead Samantha to abandon her highly-paid job and jump on the nearest train are surprisingly convincing. Her sudden jump from being cool and competent to horror-struck seems completely natural. Some people (like me) might have trouble identifying with a highly intelligent workaholic for the first chapter or so of the book, but stick with it. The shocked, appalled Samantha is much easier to relate to.

Her decision to become housekeeper to the delightfully bonkers couple Trish and Eddie requires some salt-pinching, and I personally was very uncomfortable at times with the fact that Samantha got the job under false pretences, and told some very elaborate lies. But it’s easy to forget about that because the book is so much fun. Samantha is convincingly intelligent - I have no trouble believing she has a first-class degree from Cambridge (contrast this with GP Katie in How to be Good who probably isn’t intelligent enough to write her name). I also have no trouble believing that a lawyer might not be able to cook. If you had a schedule like Samantha’s, you would never find the time either. (I don’t have a schedule like Samantha’s and I haven’t found the time to learn to cook, even though I have cooking GCSE. But I did cook my boyfriend a Welsh dinner for Valentine’s Day and he hasn’t died yet.)

Unfortunately, Samantha’s love interest isn’t nearly as gorgeous as Becky’s Luke – but perhaps I’d feel that way about anyone unfortunate enough to be called Nathaniel (if there are any nice Nathaniels out there, I’m sure I’d change my mind if I happened to meet you. Why couldn’t he have a nice name like Gareth? I don’t think I’ve ever read a book about a sexy guy called Gareth.) Nathaniel is an okay sort of guy. He’s just rather overshadowed by Samantha. They’re a good couple, but not a double act.

But the thing that really annoyed me was when Trish and Eddie found out Samantha could do sums in her head, and Trish thought she might be autistic. I didn’t find this very amusing, and I don’t understand why it would be so scandalous if Samantha did turn out to be autistic. It doesn’t make her a bad person. And I’m autistic and I definitely can’t do sums in my head. I wish I could. Then maybe I’d give people the right money when I buy things.

But it’s very rare for Kinsella to make a joke I don’t appreciate. And when she does, it’s probably says more about me than her. But I do appreciate some jokes that are aimed at people like me. I think viola jokes are hilarious. Not that I’m saying I am a viola, I’d never be that self-critical. I just play one.

Two's Company (Jill Mansell)****

Two’s Company follows a celebrity family (don’t worry, they’re nothing like the Osbournes, they’re all interesting and talented people) and their numerous partners. Parents Jack and Cass have a very strong marriage that suddenly falls apart as soon as Jack meets tarty journalist Imogen. Their son Sean manages to impregnate a girl he doesn’t actually care about (well, one of the many girls he doesn’t care about) while their elder daughter Cleo (a model but quite an intelligent one) insists she’s not going to fall in love, but isn’t going to let that stop her from having fun. Their youngest daughter Sophie, by contrast, goes through the whole book without having sex once - the only men she’s interested in are the ones dying from AIDS in Africa - although she does develop a slight affection for an escaped prisoner.

It actually sounds like unoriginal trash when I put it like that – and perhaps it is. But it’s a lot of fun. The clichés are amazingly funny, and Sophie is the only major character in the large cast who doesn’t come over strongly and amusingly (too many archaeological digs and not enough character development, but she’s an isolated incident). Cass is lovely, and it’s completely understandable why all the men want to drop their trousers at the sight of her. Jack is inadequate in a surprisingly likeable way, he usually means well and he copes with Imogen admirably in the end – although I have to say I’d have admired him even more if he hadn’t got involved with her in the first place. Sean is much more of a lad than his father but even he turns out to be quite a sympathetic character because he’s so totally useless you just have to pity the poor boy - although perhaps not as much as you pity his sweet girlfriend Pandora, who has enough to worry about with that Christian name.

The bits on the side are also rather nicely done. The fact that Sean’s girlfriends don’t have a lot of character only makes it funnier, as personality clearly isn’t that important to him. Cleo meets all manner of men in her quest not to fall in love and Imogen is a pathetic bitch who is unintentionally funny. One thing I love about this book is that the celebrity status of the characters is treated quite matter-of-factly, and Mansell certainly doesn’t try to suggest that they’re any more perfect than – and certainly not that different from - their non-celebrity friends.

The only thing that really disappointed me about this book – apart from Sophie, what a waste of a lovely name – was that so much of their lives was glossed over. The book probably covers around three years, but there are long gaps where the characters change and move on, and that was a shame as I’d really have liked to know what happened to the characters in that time. At one point, Pandora’s baby jumps from being not much more than newborn to being sixteen months old – and so much must have happened in this time, not only with Pandora and Sean, but also with Cass, who has just started sleeping with her old friend Rory – and then suddenly they’ve been together for more than a year.

The book is 438 pages long, so it’s not short, but I could imagine it being twice as long and even more riveting. It could probably be stretched to the length of Penny Vincenzi’s An Absolute Scandal, which spans around two years. Long books can sometimes be a bit of a slog, but Two’s Company goes too quickly, and Mansell’s wonderful gift for comedy probably couldn’t make any book seem slow. (There was no need for the very minor character Donna to throw up into someone’s makeup box but that was about the only joke I didn’t appreciate. Pandora, with her morning sickness and appendicitis, I will forgive.)

Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)*****

I’m quite tempted to give this review just two words – ‘read’ and ‘it’. But that would be a bit of a rubbish review, and I’m not sure this book would appeal to most people - although in theory it wouldn’t appeal to me, and I loved it. It is extremely sentimental, and there’s lots of discussion of things I’d usually not want to read about like bottom-wiping. But it was easy to make an exception for Tuesdays with Morrie.

It’s a true story about Mitch Albom and his old college professor, Morrie Schwarz. They were good friends at college, but then they lost touch. Then Mitch hears on the news that Morrie is dying, and he goes to see him, and the two become friends all over again.

Morrie is a lovely, wonderful, amazing, inspiring man, and it’s easy to see why Mitch loves him so much. It’s almost a romantic book. There’s never any suggestion of sex, but there’s a very strong closeness between the characters. Morrie teaches Mitch about life and death, and they clearly see themselves as teacher and student, as it was when they were at college. Yet at the same time, as Morrie’s illness takes hold, he needs more and more help from the people around him, including Mitch. That would usually seem almost like a parent and child relationship, with Mitch as the parent. But it’s not.

I’m not going to say this is a life-changing book. That’s just a total cliché, and I imagine the books that have changed people’s lives are probably completely different books for each person. And, much as I’d like to say it has, Tuesdays with Morrie hasn’t really changed my life. Even though Morrie has some wonderful things to say about the world that made me feel as though I ought to appreciate it a lot more, it’s not a feeling that’s going to last. I’m too lazy and self-obsessed.

But in a way this book has changed my life because it is a book I think about a lot. I think about Morrie and Mitch, and about how lucky they were to know each other, both because they’re really lovely people and because they had such a special relationship. Mitch makes it very clear how much he loves Morrie, but he also makes it clear he’s pretty wonderful himself, although without giving the impression that he knows it. It’s really heartening – and amazing - to know that people like Morrie existed in the world. Maybe there are more people like that: Mitch Albom could certainly be one of them. Maybe there are also people who could learn to be like that.

This book might well have been published whether Albom could write or not – Morrie’s story was featured on national television, and it seems as though he became a bit of a celebrity. But Albom is a brilliant writer. I haven’t read any of his other books, so I’m not that sure what he’s like as a writer of fiction, but Tuesdays with Morrie is wonderfully written. Albom’s writing style is quite simple, but he puts a lot across in few words.

There was a small example of what I presume to be Albom’s fiction at the end of the book. I didn’t enjoy it, as I felt it was completely inappropriate that there should be a completely different story to read after Morrie’s story had come to an end. Maybe I should have stopped reading, but I wanted to know if there was some connection between this and the main story – I wanted to read more about Morrie! There didn’t seem to be any connection, but Tuesdays with Morrie is the sort of book that can leave you stunned. I probably wasn’t in the right state of mind for working out what a new story might mean.

I finished reading Tuesdays with Morrie on a Tuesday. I like coincidences like that.

How to Be Good (Nick Hornby)**

Nick Hornby is a brilliant writer. I enjoyed High Fidelity and About a Boy, and Fever Pitch is probably one of the greatest books ever written and I’m not just saying that because I support Arsenal. Supporters of other teams love it too. Even people who hate football enjoy it. And, as Fever Pitch is pretty much all about football, I think that’s a pretty strong sign that Hornby is an excellent writer.

This only made How to be Good even more disappointing. The protagonist, Katie, is a stupid bitch (yet another of these characters who are supposed to be doctors, but don’t seem to be intelligent enough to graduate from primary school), and her husband David is just annoying. Not quite annoying enough to make Katie’s nastiness reasonable, but annoying enough to make me want to stop reading about him. I didn’t stop, I stuck with this to the end, and it was a total waste of time. The only reason why Hornby merits a second star is because some of the descriptive passages are extremely well done. It’s the plot, characters and dialogue that are the problem.

The plot idea is very interesting at first glance. Katie has just started an affair because her husband is so horrible to her (not nearly as horrible as she is to him, but never mind that for the moment). Her husband is on the point of throwing her out (if I were him I’d be delighted to have such a good excuse for getting rid of her) but then he goes to see a man called GoodNews who has the gift of healing. GoodNews at first heals David’s backache, then he heals his mind. From that moment on, David is nice. He blames himself for the affair, and does all he can to make Katie happy.

Some of his attempts are amusing, it has to be said. And I suppose it is not unrealistic that Katie, after years of wishing her husband would be nice to her, discovers it’s not what she wants after all. But I do wish she’d appreciated it to begin with, and tried a bit harder to go on appreciating it. He’s trying to be nice, for God’s sake. She goes on all the time about how miserable David is, but she’s actually a lot worse.

One problem with a plot like this is you have to wonder, where’s it all going to go from here? Theoretically, there’s no reason why GoodNews can’t cure everyone in the world and make it a happier place. But once you’ve changed the whole world, how is the book going to end? ‘And they all lived happily ever after’? Fortunately, Hornby doesn’t take this route, but then he doesn’t really take any route at all. The story just meanders on and on, Katie becomes more and more annoying, until suddenly – to my great relief – the book comes to an end.

I hate the way Katie keeps saying ‘I’m a good person, I’m a doctor’. Okay, she’s not strictly a bad person. She doesn’t kill anyone. But neither she nor the new, nice David consider for a moment that some of the problems between them might have been her fault. Even if she had been a nice person, she’s unlikely to be blameless. No-one ever really seems to realise this.

Hornby is still one of my favourite writers ever though. Without him, I might not have ended up supporting Arsenal. I might have stayed supporting Millwall like my dad – who is certainly not one of those Millwall thugs you read about, but his football team seldom makes him happy. Millwall got into the play-offs last season, but he was miserable because they only finished fifth instead of third. But I can talk, the prospect of Arsenal’s qualifying for the Europa League instead of the Champions’ League fills me with dread. And probably Hornby too.