Too many of these books are already in existence. Formulaic sex-scenes interspersed with witty, yet essentially meaningless dialogue, centred around a coterie of hip, modern, inner-city types with too much money and more affairs than you could poke a martini stick at, all narrated by a vain, effortlessly glamorous main character who goes to great pains to impress upon the reader what a beautiful, slim, attractive yet still disarmingly clever person she is. The blurb and pretty cover-art did nothing to dissuade me.

But it's easy to make assumptions. While the main character Nancy, was, as I had anticipated, the typically vain, beautiful protagonist popularized by this genre- “I removed my sunglasses and wriggled into position, feeling good about my size four tummy”- (does that quote not annoy anyone else?) there was certainly more substance in this novel than I had expected to find.

Such as the discourse on truth and lies. “...the person you tell the biggest lie to is the one who really matters. The man you're cheating on is the one you care about.” You see, Nancy believes its acceptable to work as a prostitute whilst being married to a man who has absolutely no idea. The novel gives no indication that she was forced into this situation, rather it suggests that she has made a conscious decision to live this way. She has consciously chosen to construct her life like “a house of cards”, constantly worrying if some tiny, revelatory detail will be the one that topples it. Constantly coming up with new lies to maintain the old ones. Even though she's a fictional character, you really have to wonder how anyone could live this way. And even as you're wondering this, you realize that of course some people must. And you wonder why.

But maybe its just my natural instinct of reading too deeply into things taking over again. I found it stressful to read of a woman embroiled in lies because I kept thinking of how stifling it would be for a person to actually live that way in real life. This isn't even supposed to be a serious book! It's called Diary of a Jetsetting Call Girl for goodness sake. Oh, and by the way, there's also this whole strange plot involving the relics of Mary Magdalen, a goat farm and deranged Christian feminists...

Image courtesy of Harper Collins.