May 21, 2007
Dean, author of the popular A-List young adult series, graduates to big-girl chick lit with this hip remix of Cinderella
, The Ugly Duckling
and The Simple Life
. Megan Smith, unable to cut it in New York's cutthroat world of magazine publishing, snatches a lucrative offer to transform two pampered and scholastically challenged 17-year-old twins into scholars. Sage and Rose Baker, known mostly for majoring in “ennui and partying,” are heiresses to an $84 million fortune, but the money isn't theirs until they pass the SATs. Their grandmother, the fortune's overseer, pays Megan $1,500 a week to get the “Fabulous Baker Twins” up to snuff, and an additional $75,000 if they are accepted at Duke, their late parents' alma mater. But the transformation works both ways, as Megan learns she'll have to earn the twins' respect before they accept her tutelage. Megan, meanwhile, secretly intends to segue her time with the high-profile twins into a writing career. Things work out for everyone, but not in an expected fashion. Dean's writing is swift and the book is consistently funny, though her twin terrors aren't as nasty as they could be. Regardless, this is a great one to take to the beach.
June 1, 2007
Chick-lit lovers take note: Dean, writer of the popular teen series the A-List, is dipping her toe into the swimming pool of adult fiction. Yale graduate Megan Smith has recently moved to Manhattan, but nothing is going as planned. When her job at a tabloid magazine turns sour, she accepts a position working for the infamous Baker twins, Sage and Rose: 17, filthy rich, and unmarketable as far as their grandmother and upper-echelon colleges are concerned. Her challenge? Get them into Duke University. Her reward? Ample pay, plus a significant check that will wipe out her hefty college loans. But in addition to brushing up on her SAT-tutoring skills, she needs to gain a little empathy for her charges and learn a thing or two from the drag-queen estate-chef, Marco, and his style-consultant partner. Thrust into the conservative, money-dripping world of Palm Beach, Florida, Megan quickly learns that not everybody is as she first appears. Predictable? Yes, but Megan is quirky enough to keep the pages flipping, and the love story has a nice, made-for-the-movies ending.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)