Set in Fulham, West London, Sharking is the memoir a group of neurotic twentysomethings plagued by feeling "weird and different". Their story is narrated by Tara, an anorexic would-be dancer, paying her way through college with bar work and topless waitressing. "Lacking in pride, futures, and self-respect, we were easy--some might say willing-victims", she says, after a stoned summer spent indoors, calling cabs to bring cigarettes, Rizlasand cream cakes. She could be describing their entire lives.Tara"s mates are a "bunch of losers". There"s shop-lifter Lilly; Seb, the rich boy with a Nazi-fetish; Ben, a paranoid dope dealer; genuine Cockney and pervert Dave Hardcore; Cindy, beautiful and successful, yet reliant on heroin; eczema-scarred Cassie; and Sarah, a bulimic, coke-addicted Sloane-turned-escort-girl. Their lives overlap in a chaotic conveyor of one-night stands and drugs. A British Generation X, they fund excess with dead end jobs, benefit scams, trust funds and dealing. While Eskimos have over 100 words for snow, this lot boast dozens for doing nothing: "idling, malingering, chilling, lurking, lounging, loitering..."At first the Fulham posse"s non-stop consumption of cocaine, E, weed and alcohol seems obscene, yet as the novel progresses you realise it"s not mere self indulgence--it"s a matter of survival. The characters share a common hopelessness: "We were all looking for some tangible escape from our angst". Between the binges, they flashback to the abuse and family tragedies that led them into this mess and struggle to find a way out.Like Irvine Welsh, Sophie Stewart homes in on the darkest aspects of humanity. Brimming with sick humour, squalor and garish reality, Sharking is long overdue. Although bleak, it"s surprisingly funny. It is a refreshing breath of halitosis in the face of girl novels about office politics and boyfriend troubles. --Sarah Champion