I'm definitely not the target audience for this book but, on the strength of the excerpt, I thought it was well-written, lively and engaging. The author's obviously made an effort to create a diverse group of characters although the chief protagonist having an absent dad and a hardworking mum seems to have become a regular feature of books like this. Not quite sure where it's supposed to be set. The mention of malls makes me think it's the US but then the British TV programme Antiques Roadshow gets mentioned...