REVIEW for Savvy Girl

TITLE: Savvy Girl

AUTHOR: Lynn Messina

GENRE: YA

RATING: 2 Stars

This type of YA is usually a fun, fun read. Chrissy is 17 and managed to snag an internship at Savvy magazine - she also gets the opportunity of submitting an essay that will give her the chance of becoming a Savvy columnist for a year. The premise sounds great! I was all ready to loooooveee this book. Except that there is so much wrong with the storyline that I don't really know where to start.

First off, Chrissy was chosen among her other high school mates for this internship - presumably because she was bright and interested in developing her future skills (not to mention a great internship mark up on her cv) - yet, the author insists on portraying Chrissy as immature, clueless and completely self-absorbed (yes, I know I have just basically described most teenagers - but I was under the impression that Chrissy was a tad above all of this considering the prestigious internship she was handed). I mean, this girl is completely clueless...instead of actually learning and absorbing all that she can from her internship, she spends her days daydreaming about the cad (yes, you knew there had to be one) and basically flittering away a beautiful opportunity to learn from some of the "best" in the fashion world.

Also, the whole supermodel Jessica inviting lowly intern Chrissy to all these high-brow functions (hey Jessica did you know that Chrissy is not even supposed to be drinking since she is 17?????)is totally incredible and I did not buy it for a minute. I was also pretty horrified by the fact that this 17 year old walks around New York City at 2:00 a.m. - drunk as a skunk with her shoes in her hands - looking for the subway platform - this was extremely creepy to me.

Finally, for those hoping to get a glimpse of what it is like to work at a fashion magazine - don't buy this book. There is a minimal amount of work being done by anyone at this fashion magazine AND the author barely mentions it at all. It is obvious that the "magazine" setting is just a set up for the storyline and is totally irrelevant to the whole thing. Also, I cringe at all the perfect opportunities Chrissy has (the Savvy Girl column for example) and insists on blowing off -

I think Chrissy needs to go back to high school for a couple of years and GROW UP!!! or stop trying to play with the grown ups and stick with being a teenager! I don't care which you choose - just pick up and stop being so clueless! As you can read, I had many, many issues with this