Confidence

by Ben Richards

Kerenza is a struggling actress: short of cash, short of self-confidence and short on generous feelings towards her far-more successful drama-school friend who is currently taking Hollywood by storm. This is a tale of cheats, conmen and doing the right thing.

Genres: Fiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Rachel Stevenson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read a couple of Ben Richards’ novels in the '90s and liked their zeitgeisty take on young life in London, Don’t Step On The Lines in particular felt like a true depiction of what it was like to be in one’s 20s at that time. Richards seems to have given up on novels nowadays for the more lucrative world of TV writing (parodied somewhat in this book as one of the characters switches from being in front of the camera to behind the scenes, trying to write a hackneyed cop drama) but this one felt again like a very familiar portrait of life in east London in the mid noughties (indeed, it felt as if Richards in DSotL was one of the first people to notice that nightlife was moving east) this time with 30-somethings, whose lives are going down the pan.

Richards is writing for a specific audience, he expects the reader to know who Gorky’s Zygotic Monkey are or who’s he referring to when a character mentions “the posh gay boy” who won the Booker instead of David Mitchell. He's also sensitive to way men treat women, Kerenza, our heroine, talks of how in the '90s it seemed OK to say sexist things as long as it was ironic, now the irony has been dropped, leaving just the sexism.

[Ryan Barretto · Rating 3 out of 5]

I purchased it because one of the reviewers on the back of the book said that it was a thriller. I think they need to upgrade their definition of the word, or read more books.

Characters who were mildly interesting doing cons of the average sort are in the book. Dialogues were average too.

I won't be in a hurry to pick another book by this author.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Odd