Spoiled (by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan)

I finished my own Hollywood-themed YA, so I finally allowed myself to read Spoiled, by the wonderful  Jessica and Heather who write maybe the best, most consistently funny site on the internet. gofugyourself.com. I admire them for somehow managing to keep their writing so fresh and funny when they've basically been writing variations on the same theme for years and years. And they produce a lot of content, too. It's pretty amazing.

Oh, and Spoiled! I think it's pretty different from my book in tone and plot, but it's just as fun, insidery, and awesome! (Confidence. Bam.) If I were going to steal things for my own book, I would steal two things first: the wonderful sense of place, and one line that approximately goes: "blood is thicker than smartwater." Come on, that's genius.

I loved the characters, two sisters named Molly and Brooke whose points of view alternate throughout the book. (It makes me wonder how H and J collaborated, since I don't think they each took a character, necessarily--I'll have to hunt down some interviews.) The charaters' conflicts feel very organic and it doesn't necessarily feel like Molly is always right and Brooke is always wrong. I also thought Molly's mother's death was handled very well--it's a sad plot point in a comedic novel, but they strike the right tone there, of dwelling on it enough but not too much.

I love how they did the alliterative Hollywood name thing, too. Brooke is named Brooke Berlin. I have a character in my novel who is a former tween star named Harper Hudson. They could totally exist in the same universe!  And that universe is awesome, Hollywood-themed YA. ;)