An unreliable narrator is at the heart of this extended monologue from Oprah debutante Mitchard (The Deep End of the Ocean, 1999). It opens in a deliberately confusing fashion, with teenage actress Hope Shay exiled to a therapeutic setting after purportedly being kidnapped. While Hope conveys some early career highlights in her journal, the story doesn’t get focused or really juicy until she goes away to a private dramatic-arts high school. At the aptly named Starwood Academy, the narcissistic thespian stars in a love affair of her own imagining, playing a freshman Juliet opposite a hot senior Romeo. While Mitchard drops clues that Hope is delusional (the object of her desire—Logan Rose—often looks askance at her), the facts aren’t explicated until the final chapter. In deus ex machina form, a therapist delivers the diagnosis—borderline personality disorder—and the reality of Hope’s existence. With plenty of kid speak and pop-culture references, this melodrama steeped (for better or worse) in our celebrity culture should fly off the shelves. (Fiction. YA)
