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Thursday, June 18, 2015

Review: Hollywood High (Hollywood High #1), by Ni-Ni Simone and Amir Abrams



Title: Hollywood High (Hollywood High #1)
Authors: Ni-Ni Simone, Amir Abrams
Format: ebook
Source: NetGalley

From Goodreads: "They’re the daughters of celebrities—the kind all the teen mags gossip about! But the It Girls of Hollywood High are about to discover that fame has a price. And no friendship—or romance—is safe….
London Phillips will diet as her mother demands. She’ll even date the billionaire her mother has chosen for her. But she won’t give up her secret hottie, Justice Banks. She and Justice plan to elope—right after he becomes a hip-hop superstar. All he has to do is seduce a media mogul’s darling daughter, Rich Montgomery, and a record deal is his! But he better remember London is really his girl…

Rich is so lucky to have a BFF like London. It was London who introduced her to dreamy Justice. Little does she know that her new heartthrob is about to cause a media explosion that will change this spoiled princess’s life forever…

Spencer Ellington hates to see a billionaire go to waste. That’s why she’s hooking up with London’s boyfriend, Anderson Ford. London may not be in love with Anderson, but she believes he’ll do anything for her. Just wait till she finds out the only thing Anderson is doing is Spencer…

Heather Cummings wants in with the It Girls to secure the spotlight for her actress mother.

But when she stumbles upon a secret about the father she never knew, she discovers she has ties to the clique so scandalous it may just bring Hollywood High’s in-crowd to their knees!"

My Opinion: I received a copy of this book free of charge through NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion. 

This story is abhout four rich girls who call themselves the Pampered Princesses and go to a school called Hollywood High, which they rule from their table in the center of the lunch room. Their names are London, Rich, Spencer and Heather, and they are all about letting everybody else know that they are the creme de la creme of the Hollywood scene, and even though they try to put on a united front, the fact that they can't stand each other is pretty obvious to anybody within earshot. They turn on each other constantly and even though we find out that under all of their strutting and bragging they each have a crappy home life with pushy and even abusive parents, I found it very hard to care about them. They aren't very likable and they can be downright cruel when they don't get their way. They proudly admit that other than Heather, who plays a crazy character named Wu-Wu in a sitcom, they are filthy rich and famous for no "gawt-damn" reason at all. They are all about drama, drama, drama, and boys, boys, boys, and if they aren't the center of attention, they will act out and make sure that they are. 

At first glance, all you see are four spoiled little rich girls who expect everything to be handed to them on a diamond studded platter, but as you read on, you find out that all is not as it seems behind the scenes. They all have secrets that they try to  bury so no one will realize that they aren't happy at all with the way their lives are going and they have no one at home who really gives a damn what they do, as long as they don't end up in the headlines, which given the way that they act, is asking quite a lot of them! When they turn on one another, things get down and dirty real fast.

I have to confess that half of the time I had no idea what they were saying (due to some really crazy slang that I've never heard before) but I was always able to get the gist of what was going on. 

I really tried to feel something for these girls when I read about their tragic pasts and their parents, some of whom should never have been allowed to have children in the first place, but the way they talk and act makes them look like stereotypical rich bitches, and even worse than that, they were portrayed as needing a man to make them feel good about themselves, which is not the message I would want my daughter to take away from a book. I thought their behavior might change and that they might experience some personal growth by the end of the book, but I was very disappointed when they only seemed to get worse and worse. 

Don't get me wrong - there were some very funny parts of the book that made me smile while I was reading it, and there were flashes of insight that the characters experienced that I thought would make them clean up their acts a bit, but that didn't happen. They had no self control and when they got mad, especially at each other, the claws came out and it wasn't pretty.

Basically, I really tried to enjoy this book, and did in fact like some parts of it, but overall when I finished the book, I decided that I wasn't going to read the rest of the series since I expect it would be more of the same. It was a quick read and it might appeal to teenagers but I can't really recommend it just because I managed to finish it. As usual, I would tell everyone to decide on their own whether or not to read it as mine is only one opinion out of many. Because there were areas that were funny and there were a few insightful moments in the girls' lives, I am going to give this book 3 stars. 

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