This book was a reread, obviously, and the little "Thank You" stamp inside makes me think that I bought it at a book fair in middle school. I bought a lot of books of this type when I was that old at book fairs, so it's not outside the realm of possibility. I reread it primarily because I couldn't remember a damn thing about it.
I read it pretty quickly in the past day or so because it was horrifically short in comparison to that thousand-page monster I had just gotten through. Only about two-hundred fifty pages. It is a YA novel after all, in the same vein as those Fear Streets I have sitting in my hallway bookshelf.
The basic plot is that Random Girl (a thin disguise for a Mary-Sue) wins a magazine contest where she gets to spend a week with her favorite celebrity, along with two other winners, vying to be the female lead in his next movie. Because that's totally how movie casting works. :p Anyway, turns out that the celebrity is being threatened by a crazy fan known as Starstruck and is causing all kinds of accidents at the celebrity's house in the whopping three days the girls stay there.
I was actually surprised with who the killer ended up being. Yes, it's a killer; a bodyguard is stabbed to death and the publicist is found dead in the hot tub after she spent the whole book being a raging bitch. I don't think you'll read it, but I still don't want to give it away. I thought throughout the whole book that it would be Jo, the nerdy magazine winner. She went out of her way to say that she didn't actually care for Byron Slater and had an elaborate alibi before something happened every time. It seemed like a really sloppy way to make you think it's not her only to find out that it is at the end. But she isn't. Huh.
Anyway, the main character, Miranda Peterson, is a Mary-Sue. No fucking doubt about it. Byron has a thing for her throughout the whole thing, and his buddy-driver Nick does too? And she's such a victim. All the bad stuff happens when she's around. Oh poor pitiful her. Fuckin' A.
Also, noticeably, there is the traditional "adults just don't understand" stuff when Miranda gets to the mansion. Do you guys remember The Dollhouse Murders? The main character there had a little sister that was just a little bit special, enough that she needed constant supervision, but her parents were always making her watch her and not let her have a social life? Remember? Of course you remember how frustrated you were with her parents for bitching at her for trying to do her own thing at the mall instead of bowing to every whim of her special sister. The same kind of thing happens with Miranda. She arrives in California late because planes get delayed, her suitcase is lost so she has no clothes, and the publicist is a total bitch to her and blames her for the airline's mistakes. And won't let up about it. All it does is serve to make Miranda seem like SUCH A VICTIM OMG.
A lot of stuff didn't make much sense either. If the tiger gets out, you don't go back to the party and let yourself get drugged. If you almost get crushed to death by a broken statue, and then almost have your car careen off a cliff, you don't then go out to have dinner and see a movie. And if a guy dies, you don't then go out shopping the very next fucking day. And of course the cops never get called about stalkers or death threats. It's "bad publicity". What about a dead guy, huh? Why do you lie to the media and say it was his heart? Yeah, it was his heart. It couldn't take a knife for some reason. The nerve of some people, huh?
Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is that the book is ridiculous. And not just because they constantly assume Byron is a rapist or that Miranda is trying to seduce him out of his fat stacks of cash. And also not just because the phrase "dark black" is literally written in there.
1.0/10
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