A clever concept novel combining teen angst, social media and celebrity—a promising plot for a new YA series.
An 18-year-old associate producer of a website designed to revive a fading teen star’s career recalls its escalating, unintended consequences in this “behind-the-scenes” fiction debut.
Narrator Rhiannon Holte, who’s also listed as the author of this YA novel, meets Anya Allen, former child TV actress, while working at a Hooters-type place in New York. Both are 18, and Anya has been on the skids since Extra Points, a show about gymnasts—“like Glee but with uneven bars”—got cancelled four years ago. The girls quit waitressing to launch makemeover.us, Anya’s idea to recapture the spotlight. Each week, the site posts a new makeover category (clothing, hair, etc.), and fans have 24 hours to post suggestions, then 48 hours to vote on them. Anya will be filmed enacting the winning suggestions, and the site shuts down if she ever balks. Rhiannon “unfortunately” adds another rule—fans come up with the category every four weeks. The site begins nicely enough, with fans choosing an audition outfit, etc., but it soon attracts a huge following as the makeovers expand to plastic surgery. Rhiannon, who hints at her own troubles following the death of a sister, gets caught up in the frenzy. She helps Anya to negotiate a cool comeback part yet also launches a “makeover” campaign to dump Jake, the star’s on-again, off-again rehab boyfriend, who provides first-person commentary several times in this narrative. By novel’s end, a bomb literally goes off; Anya gets increasingly shaky, and the fans bray for actual blood, leaving Rhiannon to step up to fulfill the site’s guarantees. Author Holte (whomever she may be) has created a nifty “reality show” experience, including embedded links to pictures of her characters and to makemeover.us. The narrative is an entertaining, fast read, with Holte ably leveraging the suspense of her site’s countdown rules. This slim novel is a bit light on character development, however, although its somewhat open ending may signal more installments ahead for Rhiannon and crew.
A clever concept novel combining teen angst, social media and celebrity—a promising plot for a new YA series.Pub Date: May 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-0578144085
Page Count: 146
Publisher: Exposure Productions
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
In her first children's book, Parton (the country music star) turns one of her songs into a saccharine tale about a girl who is so poor that her mama has to sew her a patchwork coat when the weather turns cold. (Joseph and his coat of many colors are mentioned but never explained.) Despite the girl's love for her coat, she is teased in school, which she counters by trying to explain to her classmates ``that one is only poor/if they choose to be.'' The logic here is as flawed as the grammar, and Sutton's illustrations, while competent, show a well-dressed, happy rural family who look anything but poor. The text is both clumsy and irrelevent (it ends with ``Through life I've remained happy/and good luck is on my side./I have everything that anyone/could ever want from life.'') An apparently autobiographical song that has a hard time standing on its own as a compelling children's story. (Picture book. All ages)
Pub Date: Sept. 30, 1994
ISBN: 0-06-023413-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
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