The Truth About My Success

Gr 9 Up—A Prince and the Pauper tale set in Hollywood. Paloma Rose is a 16-year-old starlet. Her television show, Angel in the House, has made her a household name. However, her increasingly scandalous behavior threatens to derail the path to stardom set out by her mother, Leone, and agent, Jack. In an act of desperation, Leone and Jack send Paloma off to a ranch for delinquents. In her place they hire Oona, a down-on-her-luck teenage waitress with looks remarkably similar to Paloma. While Oona learns to be Paloma and navigate the unexpectedly sad and stressful world of an actress, Paloma begins therapy and learns skills that she's never had to think about—cooking, cleaning, and controlling her temper. While the story line is very readable, this work is written in a detached, judgmental, third-person narrative, which hampers readers' ability to immerse themselves in the story. The characters are slow to develop, but the teens will eventually win over readers. The dialogue is occasionally unbelievable (a teen caught drinking and shoplifting uses "pig crap" as an expletive), though the plot is engaging and takes off quickly.