Angel (Katie Price)***

Not three but four books for the price of two should have been a real bargain. But, when the best of the bunch is Katie Price’s Angel (the others being Katie Price's Crystal, PS I Love You and Everyone Worth Knowing), something has gone very wrong.

Angel is not nearly as bad as you’d expect it to be. Maybe the dire Crystal had lowered my expectations; maybe, after three disappointments in a row, I was desperate for something even vaguely good. But Angel is actually not bad at all. The central character, Angel, is a nice person. She makes mistakes, but you don’t hate her for it – it’s easy to see why the mistakes happen, and it’s clear it’s not going to be easy for Angel to get out of them, but you know she’s going to do her best. She is a little bit shallow and more than a little bit ignorant, but she’s kind and well-meaning, and actually rather sweet.

The other characters are also well-written – Angel’s friend Gemma is supportive and funny, giving great advice without being a total know-it-all; Cal, the guy Angel really loves, is very attractive, but not one of those irritatingly perfect guys you wish the protagonist would strangle. As for the decadent Mickey, he’s obviously a wanker, but he does have the sort of compelling personality that would draw in vulnerable and innocent girls, including those, who, like Angel, are finding the demands of a glamour modelling career tough. Several of the characters who were in Crystal (Angel was written earlier, but I read Crystal first) also make an appearance – Angel and Crystal share the same tough and unyielding agent, and work with the same lovely pair of hairdressers. These three characters are probably three of Price’s best – or ghost writer Rebecca Farnworth’s best, as might be a more accurate statement.

Price has clearly drawn on her own experiences in order to tell the story of the busy and challenging world of glamour modelling. Her descriptions of Angel’s modelling assignments are a lot more interesting than I’d expected, and the book explores the necessary commitment and determination needed in order to become a glamour model, as well as the possible pitfalls in becoming involved with such a career. You can understand – just – why Angel enjoys stripping off for a camera, but Price makes it clear that glamour modelling often isn’t an easy job or a glamorous one.

The one thing that does let the book down is that Price has tried to cram too much into it. Angel’s difficulties in her new job and the effect it has on her personal life would have been enough to fill a book of its length. There was no real need for her to be adopted as well – and, if Price really felt this was important, she could have devoted more space to it. Angel’s meeting with her real mother, which should have been such a big event in her life, is squashed into a few pages. Angel’s reaction to the news that her mother had been traced, and had agreed to see her was not recorded – indeed, Price didn’t mention the meeting until the day when it was set to take place, and Angel only thinks about it occasionally afterwards. It was very disappointing to be left out of what should have been a really important event in the protagonist’s life.

The dialogue is sometimes cringe-makingly awful, where Price or Farnworth appears to have badly misjudged a particular phrase. But other times it’s quite good; even funny in places. And the cover’s nice too. It’s pink.