Queen of trashy-lit, Louise Bagshawe, has done a big about turn in style with 'Monday's Child' the first of a series of books following the popular rhyme. Not so fair of face, Anna Brown is stuck with two glamourous, self-centred flatmates, a McJob as a scriptreader in a publishing house and a dream of scriptwriting that is going nowhere fast.
Then she finds the ultimate script and sets off on a scheme to persuade hot, unapproachable director, Mark Swan, to read and make it into a movie. Along the way, fed up of her less than desirable state compared to her successful friends, Anna gets a makeover over and sets about sorting out her life in order to realise her dream. Of course, Anna is now dating the wrong man and can't seem to get the right one, then she loses her job and everything seems lost. Will she succeed? Will Mark ever love her? Educated guess anyone?
My main problem with the story is that Anna spends an awful lot of time whining about how bad she looks to the point where I wondered if she was body dysmorphic. The BritLit style wasn't too bad and it did veer - slightly - from Bagshawe's usually formula, but it just wasn't as enjoyable as her (reliably formulaic) bonkbusters. [Camilla Chafer]
