The Real Real »

Drawing on their own harrowing experience as nannies to NYC's pampered and powerful, Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus penned the breakout No. 1 New York Times bestseller The Nanny Diaries. Their latest irresistibly entertaining satire, Citizen Girl, takes aim at the working world.

Imagine there was never a Laguna Beach, a Newport Harbor, the shimmering Hills. Imagine that your hometown your school is the first place XTV descends to set up cameras.

Now imagine they've trained them on you.

When Jesse O'Rourke gets picked for a "documentary" being filmed at her school in the Hamptons she's tempted to turn down the offer. But there's a tuition check attached to being on the show, and Jesse needs the cash so she can be the first in her family to attend college. All she has to do is trade her best friend for the glam clique she's studiously avoided, her privacy for a 24/7 mike, and her sense of right and wrong for "what sells on camera." . . . At least there's one bright spot in the train wreck that is her suddenly public senior year: Jesse's crush has also made the cast.

As the producers manipulate the lives of their "characters" to heighten the drama, and Us Weekly covers become a regular occurrence for Jesse, she must struggle to remember one thing: the difference between real and the real real.

Publishers Weekly

Long Island girl Jesse O'Rourke is a down-to-earth Have-Not among the glamorous, vacuous Haves at Hampton High. But all this changes when she's one of the lucky six chosen to star in a reality-TV show called The Real Hampton Beach. From the authors of The Nanny Diaries, this first venture into YA functions as a reality-TV exposé about how the genre corrupts those who play along-even a regular girl like Jesse. For $40,000 toward college, Jesse risks everything-her best friendship, dignity, values, respect from her parents and even getting the right guy-as TV producers stage ridiculous, fake situations for these high school "stars" that lead to humiliation, backstabbing and other shock-value fare. And things only get worse once the show airs ("Must stop looking every time someone calls my name," thinks Jesse after passersby harass her while she's picking up the mail.) Though the endgame payback lacks punch-its purpose is to set up a sequel-with this lighter-than-air page-turner the authors deliver a fast-paced, fun read. Ages 14-up. (June)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.