Model: A Memoir »

Cheryl Diamond is a high-fashion model in New York. She has walked in NYC Fashion Week and has modeled for L'Or - al, Clairol, and Armani. Find out more at www.cheryldiamondmodel.com.

Every year, hundreds of the most beautiful people in the world come to New York to become models. At age fourteen, Cheryl Diamond was one of them. Living on her own in a run-down apartment, Cheryl spent her days on go-sees, runways, and shoots, surviving hand-to-mouth, while taking in everything she could about the tough and sleazy modeling industry. She watched other girls make mistakes, and swore she wouldn't be a victim...until a career-altering event changed her life and nearly ruined her shot at her dream. This is the riveting, true account of Cheryl's triumphant rise, disastrous fall, and phoenix-like comeback in one of the hottest and most demanding industries in the world.

Publishers Weekly

Imagine Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl writing a memoir-it would approximate Diamond's voice. Diamond, a blonde who began a modeling career in New York City at age 14, comes off as catty and haughty as she tells what she bills as a harrowing story of her modeling rise, fall and subsequent comeback-"like a phoenix from the ashes." Given the popularity of shows like America's Next Top Model, her memoir is likely to have a built-in audience, but her writing can be crass (for example, she repeatedly mocks people's foreign accents) and her endless sarcasm grows annoying. The author presumes that such things as putting her tongue in a drink and then feeling "smug with the knowledge" that the woman who drains it has her "cooties" is funny. Readers primed to expect tragedy may find the "career-altering event" that "nearly ruins" Diamond almost laughable: unscrupulous stylists dye her long hair and give her a terrible cut, too. Ages 14-up. (May)

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