ART GEEKS AND PROM QUEENS
Alyson Noel
St. Martin's Griffin
Fiction
ISBN: 0312336365
240 pages

Transplanted from New York, Rio (like the Duran Duran song, not the city in Brazil) feels out of place in ritzy Newport Beach, California. Her mother is obsessed with redecorating and Juicy Couture sweatsuits, and her dad travels too much for her liking. Even though Rio is fairly happy as a class-cutting art geek, she is soon invited into the most popular clique in school.

Kristi, the clique's feared leader who lives "on coke, both diet and Columbian," christens Rio her "best friend." Rio's climb to the top of the popularity food chain comes fast, and her fall comes even faster. After a disastrous party kills her popularity, Rio knows she'll have to rely on her own wits and bravery to set things right. Or at least sort of right.

If you're itching for the next Gossip Girl novel, ART GEEKS AND PROM QUEENS may be the book for you. Although the setting is sunny beaches and South Coast Plaza instead of Central Park and Fifth Avenue, mean girls and expensive clothes still take center stage. Despite the superficiality of a number of characters, Rio learns a lot about self-reliance and true friendship, making her a little more interesting than Blair and Serena. It's not great literature by any stretch of the imagination, but hey, don't we all need a book like that sometimes?

   --- Reviewed by Carlie Webber

Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com.