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Synopsis:
Two woman on a train - Gresham, a film director, and her half-sister Eupheme, who works for charity, spot a man on the platform, filming a train as it pulls into the station. Gresham goes off on an immediate rant about train spotters and how pathetic they are. Eupheme, annoyed by her sister's habit of making snap judgements, is determined to prove her wrong, and bets her that she could change him into someone that Gresham would find fanciable, thereby proving that all the things her sister deems to be important (ie expensive clothes, manner of speech, pretty haircuts etc) mean nothing.
Review:
I didn't really want to like this book. For one thing, the basic concept ("Ooo, a makeover!") has been done to death, mainly in teen movies and romance novels.
Other bad things about this book - the 'celebrity cameos' (Craig Charles, Danny John-Jules, Eddie Izzard, Nigel Planer, Richard E. Grant), which are a bit "look at all the famous people I know"y. The story would certainly have worked just as well without most of them.
Also (although this is not necessarily a bad thing) the many references to up-to-the-minute technology mean the book is going to date quickly. The celebrity cameos will haev a similar effect, but currently computers are being replaced at a faster rate than celebrities.
Anyway, despite all the basics that made me want ot hate this book, it is actually quite enjoyable. The characters are nicely fleshed out, rather than resorting to the easy situational stereotypes ("she's cool, he isn't") and always act in a believable fashion. The plot is quite engrossing, the many many technological details are fairly accurate, and most of it is set a few miles from where I live, which is a bit scary.
One thing that did occur to me (not to spoil the plot or anything), it seemed a bit heavy-handed what happened to Ian's mum... She could have had a bit more to do. Mind you, that's life, I suppose...
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