Publishers Weekly
In Carlson's (the Diary of a Teenage Girl series) latest, which launches the On the Runway series, 18-year old narrator Erin, who loves being behind the camera, and her 19-year old sister, Paige, who shines in front of one, land a contract to star in a fashion-focused TV show. Erin both admires her stunning, smooth-talking, fashion-expert sister, and cringes at Paige's manipulations and thoughtlessness, which Paige has ample opportunity to exhibit when the show's producers plug them into a popular teen reality show. While trying to maintain a critical distance from the glamour, staged intrigue, and cattiness of this new world, Erin seeks a moral compass as she wrestles with her ex-boyfriend's reappearance, and wonders how to reconcile her Christian values with her work and how to be a good sister. Fast-paced action, driven by the social media of cell phones, Facebook, and Twitter, highlights both the thrills and stressors of modern teenage life, where the private becomes instantly public, and the line between reality and acting is hard to find. Available simultaneously: Catwalk. Ages 13-16. (June)
Shauna Yusko
'Teen girls who enjoy fashion, reality television, and are looking for something less edgy than the Gossip Girl series will be rewarded with this title, which looks to be the first in a series.' — Shauna Yusko, Booklist, June 1, 2010
VOYA
- Christina Fairman
This new series follows the fortunes of Paige and Erin Forrester, sisters who have an affinity for the entertainment industry; Paige is a self-taught fashion expert, and Erin is training to go into film production. At the opening of the book, readers learn that their mother is a television producer who has inexplicably allowed her daughters to cover a local event for the evening news. The report is a disaster, but it catches the attention of another producer, who offers the girls a chance at their own fashion-oriented program. Paige is thrilled (Erin not so much) when their first assignment is to interview cast members of a popular teen reality series. The seemingly cushy job, however, drops them into a den of spoiled divas, orchestrated catfights, and drunken cast parties that test their social and ethical boundaries. This innocuous book will appeal to teens who seek realistic fiction without the graphic story lines that often define this genre. The reality show setting, though contrived and simplistic, may appeal to reluctant readers. The breezy dialogue is peppered with contemporary references from the entertainment world. Published by Zondervan, the book contains sporadic evangelical Christian references. Early on, for example, Erin decides that she must not give her impulsive sister a hard time because "that's not how Jesus would treat her." Twelve discussion questions follow the main text. This book is most suitable where there is a particular demand for Christian youth fiction. Reviewer: Christina Fairman
VOYA
- Emily Petite
Here is a novel full of plain characters and even plainer first-person prose. Paragraphs could have been cut or polished to achieve crisper, more powerful narration. When a new character is introduced, we receive few details to bring him or her to life. All in all, Carlson has given us a cheesy, lazy book not worth any young reader's time. Reviewer: Emily Petite, Teen Reviewer
School Library Journal
Gr 7–10—Christian values seem to be the antithesis of high-fashion consumerism and reality-show combativeness, but Premiere mixes these worlds with believability and appeal. Paige turns a report about a theme park that her mom is producing into a style critique. A reality-show producer sees the teen and her sister and asks that they work together on a project called "On the Runway." She promises Erin that she can work with the camera crew but Erin suspects she's really there to keep her sister from getting into trouble. When Paige falls for Benjamin, the lead's boyfriend, sparks fly. Erin has her own conundrum. She's just getting over breaking up with Blake, but now he wants to get back together. Meanwhile, Paige nearly loses her job when she sneaks off with Benjamin. Her impulsiveness contrasts nicely with the slow rebuilding of her sister and Blake's relationship, which is steeped in their religious beliefs. Those beliefs can seem heavy-handed but it's also nice to see Erin live them rather than having them tacked on. This book is worth adding whether you have a demand for Christian novels or not. The fashion and reality-show fireworks are enough to keep even reluctant readers coming back for more.—Tina Zubak, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, PA
Kirkus Reviews
In this not-so-frothy Christian chick-lit novel, two sisters, one a fashion-savvy clotheshorse who is beautiful, self-possessed and glib, the other a pretty, smart, sensible and low-key person, are hired to co-host a TV show about the world of fashion. The story is told in the first person from the point of view of Erin, the younger and more religious sister, who, in an understandable brew of sisterly feelings, loves, envies, admires and is annoyed by the more outgoing and (slightly) wilder Paige. In a public-relations ploy, the girls are invited to be guests on a reality-TV show, similar to MTV's Real World, where they encounter a universe of moral and emotional ambiguity, a place where it's hard to tell who is having real feelings and who is acting like it for the cameras. This is the most engaging part of this rather bland tale, as it gives the girls, and thus readers, a chance to see how reality TV goes about the business of manipulating its so-called actors for mass entertainment. Serviceable, but not much more. (Fiction. YA)
