** spoiler alert ** 
 I was so excited to read this story after having devoured Sarra Manning's later work, You Don't Have To Say You Love Me, in less than two days. However, I find myself conflicted about Unsticky. On the one hand, I'm like "Yeah, girl power, Grace, do what you gotta do to stay alive," but on the other hand I'm like, "This is gross and you deserve better. Why are you letting yourself get treated like trash?" 
 Grace is a complicated character. She is melodramatic and sulky with the general wayward malaise of most early twenty-somethings. She has accrued massive debt, feels overlooked and underpaid at her job in fashion, and can only afford to live in a moldy apartment (I too have lived in a moldy dwelling and wouldn't wish it on anyone); she always chooses the wrong guy, and also has a strained and nearly nonexistent relationship with her parents. Basically, she's drifting through life, like most young adults. 
 In the beginning of the book, Grace's boyfriend breaks up with her on her 23rd birthday while she's admiring a Marc Jacobs handbag. But before she can begin to cause a scene, she is quickly whisked away by a wealthy stranger. He absconds with her to a seemingly exclusive cafe (you have to enter a pin number to get in - what world is this?) where they eat cakes and drink champagne until their brief and awkward interaction is over. Days later she receives a package containing the Marc Jacobs bag, and discovers it is a gift from said stranger (henceforth known as Vaughn). Grace later treats Vaughn to a thank-you-for-the-thousand-pound-handbag cocktail, and he eventually determines that he would like to hire her to be his mistress. In exchange for PS7,000 a month, she is expected to play as a "companion" to Vaughn and also: host his fine dining parties, hobnob at gallery exhibitions with the rich and famous of the art world, and be his arm candy on frequent trips abroad. He claims he's offering her this opportunity in order to "nurture her talents" while simultaneously impressing party attendees as he conducts Very Important Art Business. Also he's sleeping with her. 
 Vaughn outright tells her that he may not treat her well at times, and he keeps that promise throughout most of the book. He has brief moments where he acts like a human being, but overall he is cold and distant, and buys his way out of their spats through gifts, trips, and dinners. He enters this arrangement with Grace fully knowing that she's got zero experience with his world, but berates her every time she doesn't live up to his extreme expectations, and although she argues with him and stands up for herself, ultimately she consents to his judgements. 
 Grace and Vaughn's relationship is weird to me - they are both emotionally screwed up individuals, and I got the impression that Vaughn is incapable of change. Even at the end of the book he couldn't tell Grace that he loves her, even though he is willing to marry her. Neither of them really grew, emotionally, throughout their time together. Grace only became happier, more confident, and less stressed at work and in her personal life because money was no longer an issue, at least not after Vaughn paid off her debts. Vaughn remained outwardly brusque and aloof, and we didn't learn how he actually felt until the last thirty pages or so. Sorry, but that is not romantic. 
 The biggest question I had after reading this book: how can you have a healthy affection and respect for one another when your "relationship" starts as business that's borderline prostitution? 
 I don't think it's possible.