CHLOE LEIBERMAN

The granddaughter of Leo Rosten and the great-niece of William Steig makes a modest but amusing contribution to chick lit as trendy as soy chai lattes. The half-Chinese, half-Jewish 17-year-old of the title lives in El Lay, has best friends who are WASP and Latina and a bad black boyfriend whose band is called The Mourned. What Chloe has is a fashion sense that won’t stop—she not only can’t help making her every outfit perfect (she takes Polaroids for recordkeeping), but she can’t help making over everyone she sees. She also has sort of forgotten to apply to college, breaking the hearts of her workaholic lawyer dad (the name of his firm is Schmukla, Schitty, and Schizer), her Pilates-obsessed and shopaholic mom, her Chinese cancer survivor grandmother and her velour-wrapped Yiddish grandpa. La Contessa, a fairy godmother of a neighbor, and a mix-up at school turn the whole story into a kind of application for the London art school she really wants to attend. A glossary of Chinese, Yiddish and fashion terms is appended, and it’s as funny as the rest of the bonbons in this verbal box of candy. (Fiction. YA)