Anna Brown, the 32-year-old London native who narrates Bagshawe's contrived latest chick-lit offering (after The Devil You Know
), is ugly. She describes her unfortunate traits (large nose, masculine build and extra weight) soon after the story begins and never lets the reader forget them. The novel plods along as self-loathing Anna is dumped by an acne-ridden boyfriend, argues with her thin, gorgeous roommates (they're models) and achieves some small successes as an underpaid script reader for a film company. Despite Anna's low self-esteem, when she meets powerful film director Mark Swan, she manages to sabotage their budding friendship by tiresomely insisting that Swan help her sell her first attempt at a script, thus scuttling her best chance for romance. To make matters worse, she agrees to marry another man, super-rich—and super-unattractive—Charles. Few of Bagshawe's characters shrink from opportunism, and their eventual redemption may ring a little false after so much gleeful money-grubbing. Some readers will enjoy the bitchiness, but others may think that ugly is as ugly does, and that Anna deserves her big nose—though the inevitable makeover scene is good fun. Agent, Peter Matson at Sterling Lord Literistic. (Feb.)
