Book Review : "The A-List: Hollywood Royalty" by Zoey Dean

*Although the books I review on my blog are almost always Christian fiction, there will be a few spotlighted regular fiction titles I will review from time to time.*

Sam Sharpe, Cammie Sheppard and Anna Percy were the most glamorous faces of Young Hollywood. But times change, people move on, and Hollywood is fickle. Yesterday's star is today's extra, and it's a whole new year at Beverly Hills High--and there's a fresh cast of A-Listers ready to become the toast of Tinseltown.

A-List: Hollywood Royalty is the newest guilty pleasure in the witty and risqué series that takes readers behind the scenes of the Hollywood glitterati. The A-List and its New York Times bestselling sequels are full of unforgettable stories about the fast times of Beverly Hills' most beautiful and glamorous people.

Welcome to the new generation of A-List class.

This is another book that continues that latest trend in YA fiction these days. Take a popular series, write 10-12 books in that series, then end it. Begin again in the same setting with a new set of characters that have absolutely nothing to do with the old ones but keep the series title the same. If it sounds confusing, it's really not. This series could be compared to what the new version of 90210 is like. It even takes place in the same high school.

I thought it was really interesting to learn about the life of young Hollywood. Amelie's story is my favorite. She wants to progress to older roles but she still has the young fans that she has to cater too. It's very reminiscent of someone like Hilary Duff or Miley Cyrus. It'll be interesting to see whether she can successfully move away from the Fairy Princess act and change into to a teen star. Myla's life story is interesting too, as her parents are an obvious play at Brangelina with their adopted brood. I do like it that the story features a minority as a main characters being that the setting is California and not everyone is Caucasian there. The other characters are interesting but I felt like they were rather one dimensional. First impressions of Ash were not very impressive as he seems too emotional and dramatic for a 16 year old guy. Hopefully in the next few books they'll evolve into more multi dimensional characters.

I was rather disappointed that there was absolutely no reference at all to the cast of the original series. I know this is a reboot spinoff but it would have been nice for someone to mention Anna or Cammie or maybe even have Sam have a walk by cameo. The thing that really bugged me the most though was the way the book was written. POVs would switch not only in the middle of chapter but in the middle of a paragraph. This would get very confusing when you go from Ash's thoughts to Mayla's within sentences of each other. It was worse when the POVs of two female characters would switch in a paragraph. It might be a stylish technique but it's a little sloppy because of the confusion. I'm fine with the switching between chapters if there was a little divider between the train of thoughts. However switching in a paragraph needs to be taken out completely.

Fans of the original series will probably enjoy this books. There's no sex in this story but there is some cursing and underage drinking. If you've ever wanted to know what it's like to be young, rich and famous in the Hollywood industry, this is the book for you.

The A-List Hollywood Royalty by Zoe Dean is published by Poppy (2009)