Even the Diet Coke isn't helping wake me up this a.m. It is such a bummer to be jarred out of a dream by the alarm. And I think I had finally fallen back to sleep. I woke up at 2:22 - how weird is that - and then couldn't fall back to sleep. Kept thinking about all the things on my "to do" list, which seems to get longer every day. Living in the islands is not a vacation, vacationing in the islands is! The leak in the kitchen area finally stopped so I can now try to get this apt. back in order. I have books from one end of it to the other, from board books to upper level YA novels - what a mix!

Don't you just love the name Lola? I can hear Barry Manilow singing in my head! :-) Lola Douglas is the pen name under which Lara Zeises wrote True Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet. The title suggests this might be just "fluff," but it isn't. Written in a combination of diary entries, letters to her party animal best friend back in Hollywood, and script like dialog, Morgan Carter relates the sometimes funny, often heartbreaking account of her losing battle with cocaine and alcohol and adjusting to living incognito as Claudia Miller, "typical" high school student in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Claudia/Morgan's interactions with the high school counselor and the people at AA are frank and poignant, leaving the reader little doubt about how painful it is for this self-centered rich brat to come to terms with who she was and what she must do to make sure she doesn't end up back in the same situation. But the joy of this book is Claudia becoming friends with Emily and Eli, a set of delightful twins who help this jaded teen realize normal teenage activities are actually fun. But Claudia is "outed" as Morgan by Debbie Ackerman, the girl Eli didn't choose instead of Claudia as the recipient of his affections. Claudia/Morgan's adventures aren't over as there is a book 2 coming in 2006. At first I was a bit overwhelmed by the name dropping, from Paris Hilton to Katie Holmes and every hot young actor in between. I felt like I was reading an In Touch magazine, but then realized that this would have been this young starlet's world. Although necessary, the name dropping with date this book quickly, but not before lots of teenage girls will vicariously live the life of a Hollywood Starlet.

Gotta head out to Montessori!