Synopses & Reviews
All right, so she blew it! The last time she was in front of the camera, she acted like a total diva and ended up losing the gig. But now the new and improved Vivien Leigh Reid is back in L.A. and determined to make it right. While helping her mother plan for her wedding, Leigh unexpectedly lands a featured role in a new television series, and this time she is going to keep her inner diva in control.
It may not be easy as she hoped, though. The all-male cast of Freak Force, an action-adventure series about superhumanoids, isn't exactly thrilled to have a girl on board. Add that to the demands of her mother, who is quickly turning into Bridezilla, and a wicked soon-to-be stepsister, and Leigh's newfound cool may really be put to the test.
Review
"In the third book about Leigh's life as an up-and-coming actress (following Introducing Vivien Leigh Reid and Now Starring Vivien Leigh Reid), we find her determined to ditch her reputation as a diva. She is in Los Angeles visiting her mother, a B-list actress with A-list aspirations, when she unexpectedly is offered a starring role in Freak Force, a new action-adventure television show about college students whose DNA has merged with animal DNA. Leigh reluctantly signs on, certain she has only been offered the part as a bribe. The producer, Jake, has just gotten engaged to her mother and is hoping to win Leigh over. Once the show begins filming, Leigh realizes it may not be easy to stay calm and centered. She discovers her character, the unfortunately named Effluvia, is a hideous warthog. If that's not enough, both the director and her all-male costars seem to have it in for her. Meanwhile, at home, her wicked stepsisters-to-be do their best to break her spirit and her mother becomes obsessed with her upcoming wedding. Leigh tries to keep her calm, but will all of the stress unleash her repressed diva? Leigh is a likeable, funny, and realistic heroine . . . Leigh's life as a burgeoning young star has a wide appeal thanks to her down-to-earth outlook and her witty personality."—KLIATT "Vivien Leigh Reid's first forays into acting, detailed in Introducing Vivien Leigh Reid: Daughter of the Diva (2005) and Now Starring Vivien Leigh Reid: Diva in Training (2006, both Griffin), ended in disaster as her starring role on a TV show led to a big head and her eventual dismissal. Now that her actress-mother is engaged to a producer, Leigh has been offered a role in his new TV show, Freak Force. Eager to prove that she can avoid the diva syndrome, she jumps at the chance to reform her reputation. The role turns out to be more challenging than she expected: she is a humanoid, part female college freshman and part warthog, and doing her own stunts is complicated by an unwieldy costume. Her relationships are complicated, too: her male costars don't want to work with her, her evil future stepsisters are determined to make her life miserable, and her mother is planning a wedding. To complicate things further, she falls for one of her costars. Leigh's first-person narrative (including fantasy sequences written in script format) is engaging. Fans of Meg Cabot's "The Princess Diaries" series (HarperCollins) will enjoy the inside look at life among the famous and identify with Leigh's romantic travails. Though it's not necessary for readers to be familiar with the previous volumes, they may be in demand once this one hits the shelves."—Laurie Slagenwhite, School Library Journal
Synopsis
When she arrives to spend Thanksgiving with her actress mother, sixteen-year-old Leigh is horrified to discover that her mother is planning to marry the producer who had fired Leigh the summer before and whose daughters are determined to sabotage their father's relationship as well as any hopes of reviving Leigh's budding acting career. Original.
About the Author
Yvonne Collins and Sandy Rideout are the coauthurs of seven books, including Totally Me: The Teenage Girl's Survival Guide, Introducing Vivien Leigh Reid: Daughter of the Diva, and Now Starring Vivien Leigh Reid: Diva in Training. Both authors live in Toronto.