Chick-lit fantasy at its most textbook, with a predictable but fun Hollywood plot.
A woman raised to believe that she’s an ugly duckling gets a life-changing makeover in this tale of beauty, both inside and out.
In this debut novel, Celeste McCawley is less than average. With her best friend, Trish, she’s bullied at school, teased mercilessly about her weight, and deeply unhappy. Even when Celeste enters the adult world, her woes only lessen somewhat. Her boyfriend, Matt, is moving away but hasn’t proposed, nor even said that he loves her. When Trish tricks Celeste into going to a live taping of a talk show, she winds up being one of the makeover contestants, and not just any contestant. Her transformation attracts the interest of producers, talent managers, and, of course, Matt. Buoyant with her new looks, she breaks up with Matt and tries to confront her father, who left her family long ago. A trip to Hollywood brings about more “Cinderella” fortunes: she meets Andy, a handsome helicopter operator. Andy woos Celeste while she’s swept up in a training program that’s part charm school, part talent agency. She aces every task and job she’s given while falling in love with Andy. But when an encounter with the paparazzi brings out Andy’s temper, his troubled past is revealed. Celeste will have to decide how to use her beauty, and her new power, to do what’s best for her and for those she loves. There’s terrific fantasy in Celeste’s story, from expensive perfume and fancy clothes to spa treatments, luxury hotels, and famous restaurants with breathtaking ocean views. The immediate flurry of characters is hard to keep up with, but the plot finds its way once Celeste undergoes her metamorphosis and embraces her new life in Hollywood (“She truly feels like royalty” in the midst of “lavish luxury, the world at her feet”). Description is not the novel’s strong suit: a passionate night with Andy includes the line “She feels a great satisfaction.” Topaz introduces a spiritual component toward the end of the tale, which tries to show personal growth beyond glamour, with mixed results.
Chick-lit fantasy at its most textbook, with a predictable but fun Hollywood plot.Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-919719-11-8
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Cube Tech
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
