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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"!
Break-ups are hard enough. Filled with cliches, hurt feelings, and resentment, they never turn out well. Now imagine your break-up becoming the source of a world-wide musical phenomenon where everyone knows what happens... from your ex-boyfriend's point of view- Ouch! That is exactly what happens to Audrey in Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway.
Audrey is your average girl. She had a crush, dated a guy who was all wrong for her (but was a musician, so it is forgivable), and broke up with him when it was clear it wasn't going to work. He was a nice enough guy, and she liked his band, but he just wasn't the right guy for her. What she didn't expect was that he would write a song about their break-up and that single song would get the band discovered. Almost overnight, the song was all over the radio and the internet and the band was leaving town to tour. In one brief moment, Audrey went from being a normal girl to being in the spotlight of a global musical sensation. It wasn't pretty.
It also didn't help that she was secretly video-taped making out with another musician from a different band backstage at their concert. Audrey was swept up in the fun of being backstage and being the focus of a pretty well-known music star, but she didn't expect his manager to photograph her from the bushes and sell the tape. Next thing she knows, paparazzi are following her to school and taking pictures of her sleeping in class, her principal keeps her in the main office "for her protection", and the ice cream shop where she works is flooded with people who want her autograph and pictures with the Audrey they listen about on the radio. All Audrey really wants to do, though, is go on a normal date with the guy she works with at the ice cream shop who is very different from any musician she has ever met. But it isn't easy when her past follows her everywhere she goes, in the form of screaming fans and crazy photographers!
It is hard to peg an age group for this book because while the dialogue was sometimes really "pre-teen" and hokey, it also was full of choice language and many sexual references. I think many high school students might think the book corny, but it might be too mature for the age group who the actual plot would appeal the most to. I suppose it would be best for those older girls who just want a fun, easy read, or that girl who is just a little too immature for her age.
The story does have some mature material, but it is actually a fun story. At times I wanted to strangle the main character because she just sounded too ridiculous (like straight off of one of those teen movies trying too hard to be more than a teen movie) and I couldn't imagine teenagers really talking like that or being that witty (and I am around a lot of teenagers, trust me!). But on the other hand, I thought her wittiness and spunk was pretty funny. The book left me unsure on a number of realms, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it. I thought it was a lot of fun, actually, and even though some of it is pretty campy, it still has a place in your reading list if you are like me and sometimes just need a little camp and cheese!
