Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Not Just a Daughter

The Daughters
So your parents are famous. So you can't go anywhere with your mom or dad without the paparazzi following you. So you struggle to hold onto that "normal life" you want so much... you should be happy, right? If that's what you think, then you clearly aren't a Daughter. Only the Daughters know what life is like as a Daughter, and there is no one better to tell the tale in The Daughters than Joanna Philbin, Regis Philbin's Daughter!


Lizzie's mother is the supermodel Katia Summers. Carina's father is one of the wealthiest men in the world. Hudson's mother Holla is a platinum record selling pop star (think Madonna!). Together, they are Daughters, and the Daughters have rules. First, only another Daughter understands what it is like to be a Daughter. Second, Daughters can only trust other Daughters. Finally, Daughters never talk to the press. It is hard living in the shadow of you parents, but life as a Daughter is more difficult than you could imagine. 


When Lizzie experiences a case of verbal diarrhea to a reporter and calls her mother's new clothing line "slutty", she is all over the papers... the last thing frizzy-haired, plain Lizzie wants. While this garners her a lot of unwanted attention, it also gets her noticed by some of the right people, in particular, a photographer who is labeled as the "ugly model" photographer. What she really likes are real people, people who aren't size 00, but in the fashion world, anyone who is larger than a size 2 and shorter than 6 feet tall is "ugly". At first, Lizzie isn't sure about going to the shoot, but eventually her curiosity wins the best of her.  She goes and something happens. Plain, forgettable Lizzie loves being photographed. She feels free, she feels beautiful, and it is amazing. Her photographs quickly catch the eye of many people and when she is named the newest, hottest young model in the business, Lizzie isn't quite ready for everything that entails. Luckily, she has the other Daughters to help her through.


This was a really fun story about how fame and fortune affect everyone, not just the person who is famous. It makes you think about all those children like the Osbournes, Drew Barrymore, Rumer Willis and other Daughters of famous people. How do they grow up with everything they do scrutinized and in the public spotlight? I can't imagine! Being a teenager is hard enough, but having to battle the paparazzi in the middle of puberty is simply evil!


The Daughters is a series about these daughters, and I am looking forward to the other books in the series. It is great for any middle reader girls inching their way to young adult novels. Any girl who liked Ally Carter's two series' Gallagher Girls and Heist Society would like these stories. I see them as books for the "Gossip Girl" circuit. They are fun and goofy, and really have some strong morals behind the glitz and glam. And for all those real girls and women out there, I can never hear enough "no more size zeroes"!

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