Review: A breezy pleaser
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 24, 2010
Author Jessica Park, known for the cuisine-centric cozy mysteries she penned with her mother, Susan Conant, makes two successful debuts here -- as a Young Adult author and as a self-published e-book author."Relatively Famous" is breezy summer fare that should tickle young teen girls with its tantalizing, authoritative and often hilarious glimpses at beach fashion, the B-film industry and, of course, hot boys. And fifteen-year-old Dani McKinley, the story's central character, makes for a pretty good role model. She can be a bit of a turn-on-a-dime diva at times, but she's goodhearted and ultimately well-grounded.The story: Dani, living an ordinary life in suburban Michigan with her single mom, her mom's longtime boyfriend and her best friend, has her world turned upside-down when a longheld secret spills forth: Her biological father is none other than Mark Ocean, Hollywood's king of the scatterbrained B-movie thriller. After a few rounds of denials and recriminations, father invites daughter to spend a summer with him in Southern California.Mark, a 35-year-old confirmed bachelor type, isn't thrilled about having a teen daughter and doesn't exactly know what to do with her, but he does help her hook up with a ready-made set of gorgeous, spoiled children-of-celebrities teens ... though even that move is rooted in a secret and self-aggrandizing agenda. Romances ensue for both father and daughter as they fumble their way toward a relationship stripped of artifice and defensive attacks.Misunderstandings lead to deep complications, until at one point, Dani finds herself angry with almost everybody she knows ... most of all herself and her typical teen penchant for bad moves borne of hotheaded impulse. How she manages to dig herself, and everybody she cares about, out of that hole makes for a deeply satisfying ending.Park knows her craft, and when combined with obvious affection for her characters, she can't help but deliver a tight, fast-paced winner that, in a just world, would be taking up chain-store space this summer alongside Stephenie Meyer's books.