Book Review: "Sunset Boulevard (The A-List Hollywood Royalty #2)"

Well, we're 2 down, 1 to go for the A-List: Hollywood Royalty trilogy! And I have to admit, I'm somewhat relieved that I'm nearly done with these. I was hoping that my lack of emotional connection to much of any of these characters was just the mark of it being a different series from the original and trying to get into the swing of something new. So far, that doesn't seem to be the case. The author is trying so hard to be hip that most of the characters sort of meld together in a kind of mismatched amalgam of the overly-trendy. Once again, the story mainly revolves around the characters' dating scene, and how they all trade lovers faster than square dance partners. There's also the topic of the filming of a movie taking place at the high school as well as...well, no. Everything else still classifies as relationship drama.

It's dry, kinda boring, and almost totally predictable. Yes, I say this as a 27-year-old reading this book, but at the same time, I can almost guarantee you that the average teen would say the same about this book and that it's not even with its price for the read. Ugh. Rating this one a generous 3 stars.

Book Review: "The A-List: Hollywood Royalty"

Like many a best-selling teen book series, Zoey Dean's The A-List has its own new spin-off: The A-List: Hollywood Royalty. Out with the old, in with the new as far as the cast of characters goes. There's very, *very* subtle references to old characters such as Sam Sharpe, but they are mentioned only in passing and as if you must know who they're speaking of.

The new cast of characters is almost befitting of any given group of Disney channel teen stars in the past decade. And almost all of them, you can practically tell what real celebrity they're based loosely off of. (The most obvious of these is Myla - the name practically heralding to Miley, and the family beckoning the the Brangelina pack.) Unlike the last cast of characters, who at least were a sophisticated sort of Hollywood overpampered teen jet-set, the new ones are just spoiled rotten brats with entitlement issues and nothing but teen dating angst problems.

The entire tone of the book is vastly different from that of the original series as well. (If I didn't know better, I would swear that this were ghost-written by somebody else.) I'm sure that the author was trying to go for something hip, fresh, and new, but it just comes off as typical run of the mill teen novel fodder. Where the original A-List books seemed to be a notch above the rest, bordering on being considered acceptable adult reading material, these are most definitely targeted towards a younger demographic. I'm not sure that I like that. Regardless, there only seems to be two more books in this series so far, and doesn't look like there will be more as far as I can tell as of yet. (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.) I think I can see why. I'm only rating this book a 3 out of 5 stars - not utterly unreadable, but far from a pleasurable read, I must admit.

Book Review: "California Dreaming (The A-List #10)"

So, we've come to the end of the line of the original A-List series. And it certainly does go out with a bang! A plane crash, the implosion of Ben and Cammie, a wedding, a breakup, family drama, a major medical emergency... you name it, it's in here. As we wave off these characters we've grown to know and love over the past ten books as they ride off into the proverbial sunset, there's a glimmer of sadness in realizing we won't get to see what exactly it is that they'll make of their lives. Or will we...? There's a second A-List series with an all new cast of characters that might just mention in passing the originals, for all we know. There is hope for the future!

I'm rating this book a 5 out of 5 stars. It has anything and everything you could want, from comedy, to romance, to drama, to angst, to...like I said. Everything. It's all in here. Very well written, and a very nice close to the series.

Book Review: "Beautiful Stranger (The A-List #9)

This ninth installment of the A-List series certainly seems to be starting to wind everything down now, now that it's approaching the end of the series.

This book is filled with all sorts of unpredictable twists and turns; Sam gets engaged, Sam falls out of engagement. Ben wants to start a club of his own with the aid of his father, who claims he'll back him in anything. (The dad backs out.) Cammie funds the project. Anna discovers that Yale might not be all that she'd always imagined it was going to be after all. Adam kicks Ben's ass. There's an impromptu trip to NY. And much, much more (you didn't expect me to give everything away, did you? ;)).

Still, you can't read this particular book in the series without that niggling little feeling in the back of your mind knowing that it's getting pretty near the end of the series, and there's a certain sadness that comes along with that. It took me a while to learn to take these characters under my wing, so to speak, but now that I finally have, it seems all too soon that it'll be time to let them go. (Isn't that always the way?) Still, rating this one a 4 out of 5 stars.

Book Review: "Heart Of Glass (The A-List #8)

Oh boy - Heart Of Glass, the 8th installment of Zoey Dean's The A-List is a juicy read if ever I've seen one! Buckle up, kids - it's a bumpy (but thrilling!) ride.

Sam is house-sitting for a famous friend of her family's and invites Cammie and Anna to come keep her company and to enjoy the luxuries of the place on the 4th of July. They decide to go for a walk down the beach behind the house, and they unknowingly trespass into the backyard of one of Cammie's father's worst enemies in the business, who ends up getting no greater joy than busting Cammie and Anna and having them arrested for something as petty as said-trespassing.

Luckily for the girls, they're able to get off fairly easily - no jail time, and the community service that they have to serve is the plushest ever in history: working on helping organize a fashion show that benefits at-risk girls. Not too shabby. They quickly befriend one of the main girls there, Champagne, whom they feel could quite easily have a future in modeling if she just knew the right people. This is where Anna and Cammie step in, and make it their mission to make this girl a something.

Meanwhile, there's plenty of drama in Sam's homestead. Sam suspects that Poppy is cheating on her father with her yoga instructor, which she refuses to tolerate, as she hates the woman to begin with. Knowing that her good friend Parker is an aspiring actor, and knowing full well that she could offer him the deal of the lifetime, she gives him the opportunity to appear in her father's newest big box office film if he'll agree to try to seduce her stepmother, just to test the waters and see how easily she'll stray, so she can get photos taken and leak them to the press. He has a lot of scruples about doing this, but agrees to help.

There's tons more drama in the book as well in the sub-storylines, but I don't want to give everything away as spoilers in this review. ;) All I can say is that this particular book in the series is exceptionally written, and I'm giving it a big 5 stars!

Book Review: "American Beauty (The A-List #7)

This seventh installation of The A-List brings our girls (and guys) to graduation night. They've waited their whole high school careers for this night; will it stand up to their expectations? Meanwhile, Cammie is pressing further in her own private investigation into the details about her mother's demise, and unearths some shockers along the way that rock her world - and not in a good way. But being the good-hearted person that Adam is, he stands by her through it all; the good, the bad, and the ugly. Cammie surmises that he may even be some sort of guardian angel sent to her by her mother, knowing full well that she's not deserving of such a wonderful guy when she behaves the way that she does, and yet he continues to stand by her. There's a few other surprises and another new face along the way too - you'll have to read for yourself to find out. ;)

Overall, this one was pretty well-written and pretty good. I'm rating it a 4 out of 5 stars.

Book Review: "Some Like It Hot (The A-List #6)"

Some Like It Hot, the 6th book in Zoey Dean's The A-List series, takes a little bit of a step down from all the glamourous traveling that takes place in the last two books. Instead, this time, the storyline revolves around the senior prom. ...Yes, you read that right. (Speaking as someone who didn't even both going to her own prom because she thought it sounded lame, I might be a little bit biased against this particular book.) Sam decides she's going to make a documentary about the patheticness of the girls who revolve their entire life around that one "magical" evening; Cammie finds the whole thing an embarassment and doesn't even want to go; Dee has to get a day pass from the mental institution she's still in to go to it at all; and Anna just wants to go with Ben. But alas, a new face has appearance on our horizons: enter Maddie; a longtime family friend of Ben's family who's living with him for the summer. After a stomach stapling operation, she's dropped hundreds of pounds, but still looks the ugly duckling, despite having curves in all the right places that make even Anna jealous. But she figures that since Maddie's going to her own prom with Ben's friend, it won't hurt anything if she and the girls give her a makeover. Except that what Ben hasn't told Anna yet is that he'll be taking Maddie to her prom as well...and Maddie isn't exactly subtle about her crush on him. Major jealousy issues ensue. There's also a bombshell concerning the case around Cammie's mother's death that finally comes to light that just might change everything.

This story wasn't awful, but it does feel that it was lacking something, even with as many different storylines all got packed into one book. I'll rate this book a 4 out of 5 stars.

Book Review: "Back In Black (The A-List #5)"

One would imagine that a book about Sin City, Las Vegas, wouldn't be anything but exciting. Much as the city is that of broken dreams, this book leaves much to be desired. Zoey Dean's 5th novel in the A-List series takes all her best well-known characters to Las Vegas for a little senior year debauchery. Most of the kids had either gone before or had been looking forward to this trip since their freshman year and all have high hopes for this trip. But just as in real life, things rarely go as planned. This becomes a real comedy of errors in which just about anything that could go wrong, does go wrong. Parker blows all his cash within the first few minutes of their trip on a slot machine and on the last pull, wins $20,000...only to find that his fake ID gets discovered and they fine him for having it. This is the first of increasingly worsening follies that happen across the board for the entire trip, which is declared a bust. The book does have a twist ending, and definitely leaves itself up in the air for the next book in the series to pick up from.

Still, this book just feels like something's missing. I can't put my finger on what, but the story itself isn't all that engaging this time around. Hopefully this is not a sign of how the rest of the series carries on. I'm going to only rate this book a 4 out of 5 stars.