I'd been a fan of Millington from before his first book "Things my Girlfriend and I have argued about" and thoroughly enjoyed "Things ...", its humour and the details of the relationship between the narrator and his girlfriend. So I foolishly picked up "A Certain Chemistry" thinking it would contain similar levels of humour. It didn't.

A hack writer treats his partner off-handedly while falling in lust with a famous actress whose autobiography he is ghost-writing. Hijinks of a mild, not overly interesting, sort occur. Sadly, the lead character just isn't in the slightest bit interesting and the writing isn't up to the standard of "Things my Girlfriend ...". Combining this and Millington's third release, the equally turgid "Love and other near-death experiences", means I won't be returning for Millington's next release (if there is one). ( )

I picked this up because I'm a huge fan of Mil Millington's website, but the book was sort of devoid of humor even though the author is such a funny guy. Cliched, thin writing. ( )

I must have laughed loud and long a couple of dozen times or more while reading the first 100 pages of this 404-page book; and I must have laughed about three times all told, and then only in a charitable way, during the rest of it.

Tom Cartwright's a ghostwriter in Edinburgh, Scotland; he's a deft and willing hack and he lives with a girlfriend called Sara with whom I promptly fell in, and remained in, love. But, however skilled Tom is with the written word, he's an idiot. When the chance comes along to earn oodles of dosh ghosting the autobiography of TV soap star and public heart throb Georgina Nye -- "She's been voted the best arse in the UK by the readers of two major magazines" (quoted from memory) -- he grabs both chance and soon thereafter the admired arse with both hands.

Most of this refreshingly badly written novel thereafter is devoted to sexual rompery and Tom's difficulties in deceiving and later attempting to mollify Sara. The best character in the book is Tom's hard-drinking, hard-smoking, hard-swearing and all-round hard-as-nails agent Amy, who every time she appeared had me grinning (partly through recognition; I'm sure I've met her at BEA or the London Book Fair); unfortunately she didn't appear often enough.

I'm not sure quite why I became so irritated by this book. I think the reason might well be that Tom is such a depressingly nauseating, selfish, egocentric protagonist. Normally I like amoral protagonists, because they possess a certain detached wit; not so poor Tom. I imagine if you're 13 you'd love this book. ( )

Very funny. Excellent British humor. Especially liked the explanations from God. It was about time we got some. ( )

One long, angst-filled, self-pitying excuse for male infidelity. There are some really amusing moments but it was hard to stop rolling my eyes long enough to appreciate them. I thoroughly enjoy this author's website and mailing list but this book isn't staying in my library. ( )