‘Refreshingly sharp and witty social satire… pacey, unabashedly reactionary fable, and the author’s astute observations are fleshed by plenty of insider know-how’.
Daily Mail
The New You Survival Kit
Harper Collins
2002
Welcome to the noughties. Can you take it?
She’s at the top of her profession, but Jo’s social life is as much a game of survival as her work. This is London in 2001, where if you call your boyfriend on his mobile, you have to disguise your number or he won’t pick up – he’s always expecting someone more important to ring. Where your best friends think nothing of cancelling at the last minute, ten times in a row. Where commitment is a ‘pencilled option on mutual time’. Where flexibility is the new etiquette that disguises plain rudeness. And success at work is everything. So it’s more than a little inconvenient when Jo falls for a gorgeous singer, an upperclass dropout with an unreasonable attachment to old-fashioned, human values. What is she thinking of, and how on earth will she explain him to her friends?
In Daisy Waugh’s sparkling satirical novel two worlds collide in a delightfully and hilariously messy fashion – but will true love prevail?
‘Funny, cynical, and genuinely knowing about media London… the most superbly reactionary fable.’
Evening Standard
‘A hilarious, witty comedy of modern manners.’
Adele Parks author of Game Over and Playing Away
‘Wicked modern satire.’
Daily Express
‘Funny and worth a read.’
Company