Famous for Thirty Seconds (Commercial Breaks #1), P.G. Kain
Rating: 5/5 Stars
Age Group: 9-13, Tween
Publication: 3/6/2012, Aladdin
# of Pages: 224 (Paperback)
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Source: I received a copy from the author in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis from Goodreads: Brittany Rush is the face of Gotta Have It candy bars, the hands of Write On pencils, the hair of Knot Me Not detangle spray and the voice of Mom, It’s Delicious! soups. Brittany has been appearing in commercials and print ads since her backside was the official derriere of Simply Dry Diapers. When Brittany showed up at a callback some girls would actually just get up and go home since they knew it was almost impossible to compete with her.
However, a month after her twelfth birthday, Brittany’s mother tells her that the entire family is moving to Hong Kong for a year. Brittany is forced to take a brief but agonizing break from her commercial career. After a year of being just an anonymous kid in a foreign country, Brittany is more than ready to return stateside to her steady diet of go-see’s, auditions, callbacks and bookings in NYC. Within 48 hours of landing at JFK Brittany’s agent Judith Lister of the A Lister’s Agency has three go-see’s for Brittany. When she shows up to the first go-see, she expects the spotlight to start shining on her again but instead she finds that, in the year that she has been gone, she has changed from being the cute kid to watch out for to just one of the many pretty girls waiting her turn.
Will Brittany be able to steal back her spotlight? Or will she discover there's more to life than being a commercial success?
My Review: When Brittany Rush returns home from a year spent in stupid Hong Kong where her stupid mother was transferred for her stupid job (Brittany's words, not mine), she finds that she is no longer the commercial world's It girl. For someone like Brittany, whose life revolves around 30 second snippets of fame, this is a disaster beyond compare. Think the-sinking-of-the-Titanic disastrous.
She's losing all her coveted spots to Phoebe, a girl who previously couldn't even remember her lines, and she doesn't like it. Her solution? Cozy up to the girl's brother and good-luck charm, Liam, in an effort to distract and destroy the competition. What ensues is a hilarious and heart-warming journey as Brittany discovers there's more to life than fame.
I loved this book. Absolutely LOVED it. There are those books that take a while to get into and then there are those books where the voice appeals to you immediately and you just know you are going to adore it. Famous for Thirty Seconds falls into the latter category for me. I loved Brittany Rush from the instant I read the first sentence. She's spunky and determined, not to mention over-confident and overly dramatic to a degree only a 13-year-old girl could achieve. There was no waiting and hoping, or straining to forge a connection with the story line or the main character. This book appealed to the tween girl in me on every level. The proof is the fact that I received the book in the mail yesterday evening and I finished it this morning somewhere around 3am.
The cover is just oh-so-adorable and P.G. Kain has a pitch-perfect middle grade voice. It's smart and sassy and with it, he creates an ideal heroine for tween girls. She's not boy-crazy or willing to sacrifice who she is to please someone else. Brittany does only what is absolutely right for her. It may take a few missteps for her to realize what she really wants and what's really important, but once she figures it out, she goes for it. It's a series I can't wait to share with my niece.
In to Middle Grade fiction? Buy it. Want an example of how to write a great MG novel for tween girls? Buy it. Have a tween daughter/granddaughter/cousin/sister/niece who likes to read? Buy it. You won't be disappointed.
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3.5 of 5 Stars