Sara's Face

"If you want to be a work of art, you have to suffer a bit,' says 17-year-old Sara Carter. Sara suffers more than a bit in Burgess's (Smack; Doing It) terrifying thriller/morality play, in which she gets the spotlight. Obsessed with both stardom and physical perfection, Sara is also accident-prone, and a face-down encounter with a hot iron seems to put a permanent red mark on her quest for fame. Enter Jonathon Heat, billionaire pop star who endlessly reinvents himself, with the help of controversial plastic surgeon Dr. Kaye. Burgess draws a chilling parallel between over-the-hill icon Jonathon Heat and Michael Jackson, in Heat's attempts to look young, and in setting up a bedroom for Sara on his posh, sprawling estate. Heat shows Sara his face (which he hides under a mask), reduced to shreds after so much surgery. Bernadette, a savvy and kind nurse, and Sara's boyfriend, Mark, provide intermittent reality checks for the outlandish situation. Sara soon begins to see apparitions of a girl with no face, and Sara and Mark discover a locked room giving off the smell of rotting meat. Burgess tells the story through the narrative of a novelist-turned — investigative journalist, alternating with transcripts of Sara's video diaries (in one spine-tingling scene, she corners the 'ghost,' with echoes of The Blair Witch Project). Burgess wraps his message about vanity and celebrity-obsessed culture in a nightmarish, unforgettable story. Ages 12-up." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Melvin Burgess has produced a body of work that is both

challenging and thrilling, including the seminal teen drug and love

novels Smack and Doing It. His books have been adapted

for film, stage, and television.