Published: 2011
It's about: Poor Tookie de la Crème is 15 and hideously ugly. She doesn't even hope for the same thing every other teenage girl wants: to be selected for celebrity training in a mysterious mountaintop kingdom called Modelland.
But then- shock of shocks!!!!! She IS selected! Tookie, of all people, learns the Ins and terrible Outs of the place where every girl's dreams are supposed to come true.
I thought: YOU GUYS!!!!!!! This book is INCREDIBLE!!!!!
Tookie, as a character, is like SUPER pathetic and sad, and she hates herself so OF COURSE every reader is going to love her and relate to her, especially teenage girls. She's so sad! She's even worse off than you! But even if you don't love Tookie, you'll LOVE all the super clever, alliterative names for everything in this book. It's like a marketing department was consulted for pretty much every sentence! Cray cray, right???? There's also LOTS of rhyming. And these really cool second-person interludes in which the reader is addressed as "dahling." It's kinda like a Greek chorus, only so much more adorable! And so endearing!!
I also LOVED that absolutely nothing is based in any kind of reality. It's like, you have to have faith in the mind of Tyra Banks to read this book. And if you don't believe in her AMAZING imagination, you just aren't going to be able to follow it!!! So BELIEVE. BELIEVE IN TYRA, PEOPLE. Believe in her ability to string together hundreds of incredibly stupid ideas into one really long book! (You can read this totally awesome review if you want more specifics about the bizarre plot.)
But it's not all fantasy and fun. Oh no no. There are some serious issues that we ALL should take to heart more often than we do. Here are the main issues:
- the perils of sharing makeup with your friends
- the moral inferiority of designer knock-off handbags
There are so many things that are really super great and awesome about Modelland, but you shouldn't just take my word for it: you've got to read it for yourself!!!!
Verdict: STICK IT ON THE SHELF!!!11!!!!!!!!
Reading Recommendations: This book will make you feel really pretty and happy about your life because at least you're not as ugly as Tookie. So read it when you need a little boost!
And you don't have to take my word for it. Peep the Goodreads reviews if you really want to know how FAB and FRESH this book is!!
Warnings: Swears and disturbing subject matter and crippling inanity but IT'S SO WORTH IT!!!!
Favorite excerpts: “The Land you thirst for has loomed at the top of the mountain in Metopia for as long as you can remember. But for most of the year it is covered in fog, its color changing with each passing day as if it were a gargantuan mood ring. You begin your mornings staring at the fog hoping for the fateful evening when it will turn a golden yellow and then, finally, like a push-up brassiere, lift.”
What I'm reading next: Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
Happy April Fools' Day!