Girl Stays in the Picture

By Melissa de la Cruz

Book Overview

On a movie set in Satin Tropez, France, several teenaged members of the Hollywood elite come together in an explosion of scenes shot and reshot, friendships formed and cast aside, and romances begun and destroyed, all duly reported by paparazzi.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1416960961
• ISBN13: 9781416960966
• Release Date: June 2009
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 5.9" x 8.2"
• Age Range: 12 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 7 to 12

Customer Reviews

A Dishy Beach Read for Any Season

With Melissa de la Cruz's typical fun, dishy style, she offers up a teen rivals, glamour, romance and tabloid fun. Follow along as you get the inside scoop on these fictional characters that could be taken straight from the headlines. Devon's sense of entitlement is fun to follow along with and while we're rooting for Casey, de la Cruz makes her slugging it out laugh-out-loud entertaining. A beach read for any season! I hope there's a sequel.

Nice Way To Kill an Afternoon

Without going into plot details, I truly enjoyed this book. It was a very short book but it had plenty of colorfoul and entertaining female characters. I read this book on my commute to work in 2 rides. It's obviously a thinly-veiled reference to Lindsay Lohan and the like and I hope they at least got a chuckle out of it.

Fun summer read.

Devon is the latest teen music superstar. Now, she plans to start an acting career by starring in the film Juicy. Juicy is produced by the famous Sol Romero. Romero's daughter Livia has just had gastric bypass surgery and is ready to start her new life. However, the success of Juicy becomes questionable when Devon's party lifestyle lands her a spot in rehab. The studio execs are not sure if Devon is the right person to make this film successful. In comes Summer Garland, another teen music star, who will play Juicy's best friend. Along with Summer comes her assistant, Casey, an ordinary girl from Alabama. Girl Stays in the Picture is a fun summer read. The greatest strength of the book lies in the characters. Cruz gave each character his or her own distinctive qualities. Out of the four main girls, Casey, Livia, and Devon were all very likable. Summer was also an interesting character. She was the novel's evil girl. A book about Hollywood just would not be complete without a character who would do anything to reach stardom, right? My favorite thing about the novel was how the media portrayed Devon and Summer. Towards the beginning, the media embraces Summer as a replacement for the party girl Devon. As the story progresses, readers learn what Devon and Summer are really like, and how the media can skew things. As for the guys in the story, most of them were drool-worthy, particularly, Jamie, a British actor, and Bruno, a local French boy. Other than the characters, I also enjoyed the setting. The story takes place in the exotic Saint Tropez in Southern France. The setting helped give the story a more of an elite Hollywood feel. The story ends on a major cliffhanger, which honestly frustrated me, but I will definitely read the sequel.

Addicting Fun!

For me, Girl Stays in the Picture was squee-worthy to the tune of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Sleepaway Girls. Pretty much good clean fun. I was surprised at how on their own these teenagers were but I think that goes along with the whole Hollywood lifestyle. I loved the glimpse in to film sets and overworked assistants. One thing that really excited me about this book was that I couldn't pick a favorite character, usually I gravitate towards one or two that I feel like I understand better but in Girl Stays in the Picture I loved them all equally! For me that shows the strength of the characters. They all had their own uniquestorylines , Devon and her mess of a mother and the chance to clean up her act, but does anyone care? Livia, always in the background until a weight loss surgery brings her out of the shadows, and Casey who's totally out of her element with theHollywood elite! I just loved them all. You better believe I'm excited beyond belief that this is a series. This book was an addiction for me, at 432 pages I wouldn't call it short. I somehow was finished it within 24 hours, which is pretty much unheard of for me with a book this size. I just couldn't put it down. I loved being right there in the adventures these three new friends were experiencing. And oh the ending, how perfect. Can you say cliffhanger! I think I've already searched several times for information on the next book in the series and haven't found anything. I'm ready for it, bring it on! I think this is the most fun I've had with a book in a few months and I'm excited a have a few of Melissa's other books to read!

a hot summer read for teenagers

Entourage meets Gossip Girl in this winner from Melissa de la Cruz, an expert on her teen girl audience. In this light but captivating contemporary summer story, teen mega-star Devon (who seems to be a cross between Selena Gomez and Lindsay Lohan) has emerged from rehab and is starring in a movie in Saint Tropez, which she knows can make or break her career. Her co-star, Summer, seems to be getting more and more lines, as the script goes through rewrite after rewrite. Add in Casey, Summer's long-time friend/assistant and wide-eyed high school girl from Alabama, and Livia, the daughter of a studio mogul who is producing Devon's film, and who has just become slim and glamorous for the first time in her life after gastric bypass surgery. Mix in a hot Scottish movie star, a charming French cheese-maker, and stir for summer fun in the sun! We can all dream of spending the summer in Saint-Tropez, attending the Cannes film festival, and mixing with movie stars when we read this Hollywood yarn. Highly recommended for teens looking for a fun summer story for the beach or pool!