Brooks Rattigan is a high school senior living in Pritchard, New Jersey, a backwater dead-end place. His mom ran off ages ago and his father is a post office worker who's fallen very far from the days when he went to Harvard and wrote a book (which Brooks hasn't read). Charlie spends all of his time wasted and dirty, so Brooks is pretty much raising himself at this point. As you can imagine, Brooks wants the hell out of this life, and he will move heaven and earth to get himself into Columbia so that he can. This is something that his best friend, The Murf, doesn't seem to quite understand--Murf sounds like a nice dude, but he's not planning beyond community college and working at the sub shop.
In between working on boosting his verbal score (ironic considering that we're reading a book narrated by this kid and he doesn't really seem to have issues with that at all) and attempting to write an essay that doesn't suck, Brooks ends up stumbling across an untapped market: rich parents who are willing to pay a dude to be their daughter's date to formal events. Hence the book's title. Brooks offers himself up as a date to a classmate's cousin and then the business, as it is, takes off. Brooks is nothing but nice to his dates, and in turn his dates are also (almost) very nice ladies that he seems to enjoy hanging out with. It's consenting one night, no-sex, fun for all that allows Brooks to quit the sub shop, invest in a nice suit, and save up for college.
However, you've gotta have the occasional unpleasant date, and Brooks's is Celia Lieberman (always referred to by him in full, "Celia Lieberman"), who has nerdy parents who want to force her into trying out a non-nerd's social life. Celia is so truly heinous on their first date--screaming at him a lot like she is totally psychotic, and that's even before she gets drunk and vomits everywhere--that I was all, "seriously, this girl?" However, Celia's parents ask Brooks for another date, AND Brooks met a hot girl in Celia's class, Shelby, who seems quite interested in him back despite her lunk boyfriend, so Brooks goes along. On date two, Brooks ends up telling Celia about how he wants to go to Columbia, and she's got an uncle who teaches there, and he's got a daughter he wants to send to winter formal.... anyway, suffice it to say that regardless of payment, Brooks and Celia end up spending more pleasant times together even as both of them are admittedly interested in other people (who coincidentally become more interested once they're taken).
There's also a makeover scene (Celia as dressed by her mother looks frightful) and since this keeps coming up as a theme in my reading lately for some reason, I really want to point out that Celia wears glasses and Brooks's idea of making her over is to get her a better looking set of frames. That's so excellent, I can't even tell you. Oh yeah, and he talks her into getting a bob haircut. As for the clothes, she hits the vintage stores of NYC and picks out her own wardrobe without taking any assistance from Brooks. I think the author handled that so well. I do have to give the author major points for improving Celia. While I can't say I'm in love with her as a character or that I am thinking she and Brooks are MFEO exactly, the two end up supporting each other very nicely and that is enjoyable. You also get why Celia is acting so nuts (those parents of hers, while well meaning, would get on anyone's nerves), even if I still think she was spectacularly awful beyond all reason in her first appearance. Likewise, by contrast Shelby looks lovely but turns out to be kinda spoiled and snotty--Brooks hides his Jersey life from her for good reason.
I'd like to point out that even though The Murf's frequently in the background of this story, I like that his life is quietly about improving--he gets a promotion at work, starts to really clean up the joint, works on dating the girl of his dreams, etc. Good job, Murf. Murf is quite right to get annoyed with Brooks' hellbent college pursuits after a while (especially in one scene, you'll know which one I mean when you read it) and to call him on his shit, leading them to become estranged. I...guess the guys make up at the end, but it seemed a bit out of "oh, so you're making up because it's the end of the year?" or something rather than an organic happening, since the previous scene between the two of them showed Murf quite mad. Should these guys make up? I'm not sure. I suspect they'll end up drifting apart in the future, but...that happens, sadly. Likewise, I don't necessarily think Celia and Brooks will be a forever pairing when they're going across the country from each other, but I think they could make a friendship last at least.
This book is also good at humbling the hero--by the end of the book Brooks realizes that he needs to rethink his life and his choices and his ego pops, in a good way.
On the other hand, there's a bit missing--we never do quite find out what the hell happened with Charlie that he devolved into the mess that he currently is (Celia reads his book and mentions something about the hell Charlie went through, but it's never spelled out), but I guess the important part is that he finally got at least motivated enough to start taking action, so there's something. I'm also still wondering why Shelby seemed to have some kind of odd fixation about Celia (regardless of wanting to date the guy Celia is dating), that was never spelled out and didn't seem to make any sense for the character.
But overall, I liked this book very much, thought the author did a good job, really enjoyed the narration, liked the setup---it's a fun read! Four stars.