L.A. Candy
by Lauren Conrad
My rating: 2 out of 5 stars
"LA Candy" was recommended to me by a good friend, but she enjoyed the book a lot more than I did. One reason could be that she is a fan of Lauren Conrad's MTV shows and I don't watch them. I did think I would gain insight to the world of reality tv, but I was disappointed in the small amount of insider info in the book, which could have been summed up in a short magazine article.
The story focuses on Jane Roberts and her journey from average recent high school graduate to overnight Hollywood sensation. Jane moves to LA with her best friend, Scarlett. Jane has an internship with an event planner and Scarlett is attending college. They happen to meet a reality tv producer at a club and he casts them, along with two more girls, for his newest reality show, called LA Candy. Jane and Scarlett's lives are changed for good when the cameras start rolling. But it's not all fun and games when the cameras start intruding upon every aspect of their lives, school, work, and boys.
I found Jane to be annoying, and much too good to be true. I found myself wondering if the Jane character was supposed to mirror Lauren Conrad herself as a naive, goody goody thrust into the limelight, and so the author tried to make her look virtually flawless. She was way too naive about boys and I wasn't interested in either of the boys pursuing her anyway. Gabby and Madison weren't in the book much as the other stars of the tv show. They were pretty flat characters, but at least they had personalities, unlike Jane.
The only interesting character in the book was Scarlett. She was the only one who seemed to have her own mind and interests outside of the show. Scarlett had a good head on her shoulders, but she wasn't in the book nearly enough.
When the other three girls became jealous that Jane was turning out to be the breakout star of the show, I found myself jealous along with them! She was so annoying, why would everyone like her so much?
A lot of reviews praise Conrad's writing style, but I found it to be very dry and un-exciting with little imagination or feeling. Sometimes her descriptions of the mechanics of the show, like microphone and lighting placement, read like a textbook. I just can't recommend this to anyone but die-hard Lauren Conrad fans and fans of MTV reality tv shows. I did gain a little insight into the world of reality tv production and I'm more convinced than ever of how very "unreal" it really is.
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