Gorgeous

Title: Gorgeous
Author: Rachel Vail
Publisher: Harper Teen
Pages: 271
Source: CO Teen Literature Conference Bookstore







Back of Book Summary:
     Allison Avery's cell phone is possessed- literally. Maybe. Growing up between two sisters of blond beauty, fiery and sarcastic Allison is fed up with being invisible. When the devil appears in a dream and offers to trade Allison good looks for her cell phone, she makes the deal. How much damage can a little phone do anyway?

     Allison begins to get tons of attention: new friends, a boyfriend, a chance to win a modeling contest. Is it all the devil's work, or is something more mysterious happening?


My Review:
Characters:
    Allison Avery is a fun character, though not as fiery and sarcastic as the summary implies. As the novel progresses, she begins to stand up for herself, and becomes more and more fiery. I had a difficult time empathizing with Allison in the novel because she wasn't the character I had been introduced to in Rachel Vail's first novel, Lucky.
    The one character that I really enjoyed was Roxanne Greene. I enjoyed her character, finding her amusing and authentic. The other character that I found to be authentically crafted was Allison's ex-best friend Jade. There is always the one friend who thinks they know what is best for you, but what that is is usually what they think is best for THEM.

Plot/Conflict/Theme:
   When I first heard about this book, I just couldn't wait to read it. I thought that plot would be very clever and entertaining. I was sorely disappointed. The 1st half of the novel was telling Phoebe's story in Lucky from Allison's point of view. It felt like someone was summarizing what I had just read. I had expected the story to pick up where Phoebe's story ended. It did eventually, but it was so far into the book that there was little of the story left. Similar to Lucky, Gorgeous leaves its meaty and interesting plots/conflicts/and themes to the very end. The potential was there for Ms. Vail to burrow deep into the superficial world of money and modeling, and create well developed themes and conflicts to capture the heart of the reader, but she fell short.

Quality of Writing:
   The quality of writing was okay, but again, I felt like much of the story was spent summarizing what was happening instead of really delving in and creating a world for the reader to immerse themselves into. There were some clever lines and interesting word play, but for the most part it was only average.

Favorite Line: Allison is having an important conversation with Jade.

"[...] A person needs her friends to believe in her more than she believes in herself. Not less. A good friend sticks with you even wehn weird stuff happens- even when good stuff happens" (Vail 260).


Rating:
Book:  A for Average
Cover: A for Average