Title: Secrets of my Hollywood Life
Author: Jen Calonita
# of pages: 242

Summary:

Kaitlin Burke is a star of a popular nighttime soap opera, called Family Affair. She has worked in Hollywood since she was four, but as she copes with her overbooked calendar, she begins to realize how much she would like to become an "ordinary" teenager. A life without all of the rush, a chance to meet new friends who care about her for who she is.

After a discussion with her best friend, Liz, about their current lives, Kaitlin decides to go to high school with her at Clark Hall. She enrolls under an alias name, and forms a perfect disguise that fools the others into believing that she really is just like them. But if the press finds out that she has been trying to escape from Hollywood life, her career would be damaged...

Opinion:

I admire the fact that Jen Calonita's unique writing style is direct, but manages to match and blend in with the storyline. It seems as though each of the characters' personalities is plainly displayed for the reader to see, and the subtle foreshadowing leaves readers urging themselves to continue reading.

The ending of the story was superb and brought a suitable conclusion of Kaitlin's adventures of leading a double life. She learns an important lesson in life: that there are always rivals in life who try to make life more difficult for you, and that a happy, successful actor must have a life on both sides of the camera.

While reading a novel regarding Hollywood life would often seem drastically insignificant compared to the awareness of today's world issues, I thought it brought an interesting perspective on the lives of celebrities. As shown by the 18 "Hollywood Secrets" mentioned in the novel, there are many things that happen without us noticing, that are actually the foundation for many activities and functions in Hollywood. The first-person narrative adds to the effect, as if we were seeing the world with the eyes of an exhausted Hollywood star.

One similar series that immediately came to mind as I browsed through the pages, were the Gossip Girl novels by Cecily von Ziegesar. The world of Gossip Girl includes the socialites of New York City, celebrities in their own right. Though they probably wouldn't be as well known as any Hollywood star, they have always grown accustomed to luxurious lifestyles of glamour and fortune. However, significant differences in the setting, and the way Secrets of my Hollywood Life provides a solid ending of the storyline, set this novel, and the Gossip Girl series, apart.

Main themes:

• What happens on screen is often completely different from the reality
• There are people who mean ill will to you wherever you go
• One thing that happened in a minute can change an entire lifetime of effort

Subjects:

• Hollywood life
• Romance (between a few couples, notably Kaitlin and a student at Clark Hall)
• High schools (Clark Hall)

Target audience: teenage girls

Genre: Chick lit

Rating: 5/5 (thanks for pointing out the omission, Jessica!)

Book review by Fiona T.
* 6 hours so far
* Can be published in the Teen Newsletter