PREMIERE

In this not-so-frothy Christian chick-lit novel, two sisters, one a fashion-savvy clotheshorse who is beautiful, self-possessed and glib, the other a pretty, smart, sensible and low-key person, are hired to co-host a TV show about the world of fashion. The story is told in the first person from the point of view of Erin, the younger and more religious sister, who, in an understandable brew of sisterly feelings, loves, envies, admires and is annoyed by the more outgoing and (slightly) wilder Paige. In a public-relations ploy, the girls are invited to be guests on a reality-TV show, similar to MTV’s Real World, where they encounter a universe of moral and emotional ambiguity, a place where it’s hard to tell who is having real feelings and who is acting like it for the cameras. This is the most engaging part of this rather bland tale, as it gives the girls, and thus readers, a chance to see how reality TV goes about the business of manipulating its so-called actors for mass entertainment. Serviceable, but not much more. (Fiction. YA)