Spoiled

April 11, 2011
Fashion bloggers Cocks and Morgan, best known for their Web site Go Fug Yourself, bring humor, heart, and formidable writing skills to this exuberant debut that finds 16-year-old Indiana native Molly having just learned that her father is movie star Brick Berlin. Molly's mother's dying wish was for her daughter to have a relationship with her father, so Molly departs for the City of Angels. Brick welcomes her with open arms, but his other daughter, Brooke, a pampered starlet-in-training, is much less enthusiastic, and immediately begins plotting to get her half-sister on the first plane back to middle America. The fashion knowledge, eye for Hollywood ridiculousness, and wicked humor that the authors are known for is on full display ("That family needs to buy another consonant," Brooke says, when she sees "one of the lesser Kardashians" at the boutique where she's shopping). And if the story's trajectory is familiar, as Molly finds romance and family, and Brooke learns to open her heart as fully as she opens her wallet, the wit and depth the authors bring to the project won't disappoint. Ages 15âup.

May 15, 2011

Brooke Berlin—accomplished power shopper, prima-donna–in-training and daughter of film megastar Brick Berlin—thought she was an only child. Now she's appalled to discover that she has a half sister, Molly.

Worse, her father's not only invited Molly to move in, he intends to introduce her to the world at Brooke's Sweet 16 party. Arriving from Indiana, shell-shocked by her mother's recent death, Molly makes an easy victim. Brooke, nursing her own mom issues, gets Molly drunk at the party and makes sure the tabloids notice. So does Brick, whose past films include Tequila Mockingbird and It Takes a Pillage (a Leif Ericson biopic)—he may be self-involved, but he's still a parent. Brick decrees the girls share a room and attend school together. There Brooke sabotages Molly; Teddy and Max befriend her; and Shelby, Brooke's nemesis, uses her. Finally, Molly fights back. Followers of the authors' take-no-prisoners, celebrity-fashion blog will expect the satire. What surprises are moments of emotional depth—Brooke and Molly especially are rounded individuals—in this obsessively readable, smartly subversive take on lifestyles of the rich and narcissistic and their many enablers, from top stars to trashy-tabloid bottom feeders.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

December 1, 2011

Gr 9 Up-Brooke Berlin is preparing for her 16th birthday party, which she intends to be the greatest night of her life. As the daughter of Hollywood's biggest movie star, Brick Berlin, she can handle the paparazzi with the same finesse that she and her BFF, Arugula, used to handle her archenemy at school. When Brooke finds out that Brick has another 16-year-old daughter, Molly, who will be coming to live with them, she determines to rid Los Angeles of this interloper, whatever it takes. Both girls resort to increasingly devious behavior in order to capture their father's attention, which causes a number of misunderstandings. Readers who know their popular culture and designers will be able to pick up on the many names integrated into the text. This book will appeal to readers who enjoyed James St. James's Freak Show (Dutton, 2007) or the movie Mean Girls.-Betsy Fraser, Calgary Public Library, Alberta, Canada

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 1, 2011
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* Brooke Berlindaughter of movie star Brick Berlinis eagerly anticipating her sixteenth birthday party when her famous dad reveals that he has a love child, Molly, who is also 16 and is moving to live with Brooke and Brick in L.A. following the death of her mother. To make matters worse, Brick is planning to introduce Molly to the public on Brooke's big birthday night. Mollywho grew up without a fatheris excited about starting a new life, but Brooke has no intention of sharing the spotlight, and she plans to make Molly so miserable that she'll return to Indiana. Then Brooke's nemesis, Shelby, the daughter of a tabloid publisher, befriends Molly, setting off a series of betrayals, both deliberate and unintended. As trouble escalates, Brooke and Molly learn more about themselves, each other, and the meaning of compassion, honesty, and the unique bonds of sisterhood, but can they repair the damage that's already been done? The authors, creators of the popular celebrity-fashion blog Go Fug Yourself, offer a pitch-perfect satire of the glitz-and-glam world of the rich and famous in their YA debut. Brooke and Molly are complex and sympathetically drawn, and their alternating narratives add dimension and resonance to universal dilemmas, from loneliness and longing for family connection to romance to unsettling issues of who to trust. With deftly interwoven humor, hyperbole, and poignant, authentic moments, this is a wholly entertaining, thought-provoking offering.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)