Beware, beware

This is an interesting book with a tough, scarred heroine who at times seemed a little too typecast as "tough chick" - I don't mind her smoking and drinking, but mentioining it so often made it a bit of an annoying character trait, like someone who constantly tosses her hair over one shoulder, only not. The writing is very strong, the story is complicated, and the characters very well drawn. I became interested in them in spite of myself - I'm easily irritated by stories involving the rich and famous because they get a disproportionate share of their attention and are usually less interesting than the poor and complicated. I look forward to reading more by this author even though the toenail schtick in the first paragraphs seemed like some kind of flippant gross-out test: are you up for a story like this or are you gonna run away like a chickensh!t? It didn't tell me anything valuable about the character, really, and it would have been too easy to read a couple of paragraphs and put it down, which would have been a shame. Others may find it cute and funny but since i wouldn't typify this as a cute and funny book, it just didn't seem to fit. A minor thing. Overall, worth a read and promising.