On her 15th birthday, Scarlett Martin receives the key to one of the shabby-but-elegant suites in her eccentric family’s aging Manhattan hotel. This rite of passage carries the responsibility of taking care of both the room and guest who occupies it—a dubious honor already bestowed on her older sister Lola and on her brother Spencer, an aspiring actor. What initially seems like a symbolic gesture quickly becomes a full-time project when wealthy, flamboyant Mrs. Amberson moves into the hotel for the summer and firmly clamps Scarlett under her wing. Along the way, there is a show that must go on, the inevitable messy love interest for Scarlett and a younger sister who is a bratty, spoiled cancer survivor. There are a lot of pieces packed into Johnson’s caper comedy, and at times the fantastical plot feels a bit unwieldy. However, the authentic charm of the characters and the endearing sweetness of their odd familial relationships do, finally, make this light read worthwhile. (Fiction. YA)
