Back Talk »

Alex Richards has always been a writer, but this her first published work. She's written everything from novels, to short stories, to plays, to an adaptation of Grease performed by her 6th grade class. Having grown up in Santa Fe, New Mexico where it's beautiful but there's nothing to do, Alex moved to New York to pursue short-lived careers in photography, film, and television production. She lives in Manhattan with a physicist and two cats, and makes no-budget horror flicks in her spare time.

Goodbye small town hell . . . hello Big Apple!

Sixteen-year-old Gemma Winters couldn't be more ecstatic-and terrified-about scoring a summer internship at one of the hippest daytime TV talk shows, Back Talk with Kate Morgan. To top it off, she's staying in a palatial brownstone in Manhattan with celebutante Dana Cox (a virtual E! True Hollywood Story in the making) and world-weary millionheiress America Vanderbilt. Gemma's corn-fed naiveté melts away as she gets a taste of designer clothes, underage clubbing . . . and a cute Johnny Depp look-a-like.

The glamour fades by nine a.m. when Gemma becomes slave labor for harried producers. Not even her borrowed Manolo Blahniks can shield her from an office romance turned ugly and backstabbing fellow interns. When someone is unfairly fired and a show is at risk, Gemma goes out of her way to prove this small-town girl is more than just a "photocopy bitch."

VOYA

Back Talk is an uptown New York City thrill. The main character Gemma is a little unrealistic because she lives with a couple of other girls in an apartment at the age of sixteen, but she is from a small town, which makes the book interesting. The book has lots of turns that kept me wondering till the end.