The Used-to-be It Girl

Rating:
Summary: deep young adult tale
Review: For several seasons, Rhiannon Melissa Taylor was the star of the popular TV kid show Wing and a Prayer; last year she seemed to be on the cover of every magazine. However, at fifteen she gained teenage weight and recently was fired because with the loss of her cuteness her TV producer considers her as "Little Girl Lard". A humiliated Rhee returns to her family home in Queens.

Rhee must adjust from being the It girl to high school coed except she must elude the paparazzi, who enjoy snapping pictures of those who have fallen in where they are now milieu. She struggles with adjusting to being the ex cover girl princess and wonders if she is one of those child stars that never made it to adult status. While Rhee struggles with being a teen nobody, she fails to notice the conflicts at home. Instead Rhee remains buried in wallow that her life is yesterday's news, her present a disaster, and a future seems zeroed, but her family depends on her bringing in the income.

Rhee makes this young adult tale work as she seems so genuine struggling to adjust from the lights of Hollywood superstardom to borough amidst working class Queens. The story line is intriguing to follow as the weight of the world (or at least her family) is on Rhee's shoulders, but she sees no opportunity to regain all she lost when she fell from grace. Even adjusting to returning to the family fold is a trauma. Fans will enjoy "this rags to riches to rags" tale starring a wonderful teen facing demons and traumas in readapting to a totally new and what seems to her humiliatingly lesser life.

Harriet Klausner


Rating:
Summary: Original New Teen Fiction
Review: For years, Rhiannon Melissa Taylor, was the uber-adorable star of the Friday night kids sitcom, Wing and a Prayer, and she was everywhere you looked, magazines, TV, and more. Until, of course, 12 months ago when she gained a bit of teenage weight, and her TV Producer, who now refers to her as "Little Girl Lard," fired her, to bring on someone more cute. Rhee, utterly humiliated by her new nickname, and thoughts of being a child actor has-been, returns home to her family in Queens. Now Rhiannon is forced to face a sickening new truth, heading to a public high school. One that is co-ed. And being forced to allude the paparazzi at all costs, as they try to snap horrible pictures of her new fallen-personality, that will surely grace the covers of every tabloid. But as she's worried about her own problems, Rhee fails to see the fact that her family is falling apart now that she's not bringing home money to support them, which could lead to even bigger problems than being the used-to-be it girl.

As far as first impressions go, it was the magazine-esque cover of THE USED-TO-BE IT GIRL that captured my attention, but it was the plotline, and well-crafted story held within it's pages that kept me engrossed in Rhiannon's story until the very end. Amy Kaye has once again created an amazing teen novel, one that will have fans of teen celebrities the world over realizing what can really happen to their beloved stars once they disappear from the covers of magazines, and TV shows. Overall this was a fantastic novel, one that is sure to become a hit with teens, male or female, of all ages.

Erika Sorocco
Book Review Columnist for The Community Bugle Newspaper