kat's Come To New York City With A Dream: To Be A Big Fashion Designer And To See Her Name On A Label In Bloomingdale's. Back In Kentucky, She Imagined A City Paved In Prada . . . But The Reality Isn't Quite So Fashionable. Still, There Are Friends To Be Made, Boys To Be Flirted With, And Amazements To Be Found . . . Sometimes When She Least Expects It. Even When Her Lame Hick Boyfriend From Back Home Comes To The City To Try To Reclaim Her, Kat Knows She's Found Her Place . . . Now All She Has To Do Is Have The Place Find Her Back.

the Premise Of Kemp's Novel Sounds Like A Guaranteed Page-turner: A Teenage Girl's Grandmother Passes Away Before She Is Able To Help Her Transition To Life In New York City As A Budding Fashion Designer, And So The Protagonist, Whose Own Mother Has No Sense Of How To Parent, Must Go To The City Alone And Make Her Way Without A High School Diploma, Without A Guardian, And Without Her Sewing Machine. However, The Real Story Is Completely Disjointed And Does The Movie breakfast At Tiffany's A Disservice By Alluding To Its Name In The Title. The Protagonist, Junebug, Who Goes By The Alias Cat Zappe While In Nyc, Is A Mean-spirited Teenage Girl Who Likes To Put People Down With Animal-inspired Insults. She Calls Her Mother A Heifer, A Monkey And A Pig Over The Course Of The Story, And While Her Mother Is Certainly Not Going To Be Winning Any Parenting Awards, Junebug's Reaction To Her Seems Equally As Cruel As Her Mother's Lack Of Concern For Her. The Entire Novel Is One Odd Occurrence After Another, And None Of The Interactions Except For The Flashbacks Between Junebug And Her Grandmother Nina Seem Fully Realized Or Even Partially Believable. In Addition The Story Behind Her Grandmother's Death Is A Complete Let Down After Junebug Has Alluded To The Fact That Her Heart Attack Was A Lie For Over Half The Novel. Also Her Time In The City, Which Focuses On Her Attempts To Win A Design Competition, Seems More Like An Advertisement For Nyc Shopping Than A True Coming-of-age Experience. Some Young Adult Novels Can Have A Wise-cracking Narrator And Completely Captivate Readers. Holden Is Still Kicking Around In Book Bags Across The World Because Of His Interesting Views On Life, Butjunebug Has No Real Insights To Share, And Her Rejection Of Those Around Her And Their Subsequent Rejections Of Her, Make A Novel That Could Have Been A Fun Romp Through The Fashion World Or An Interesting Look At A Dysfunctional Family Into A Story That Goes Back And Forth Between The Two With Dismal Results. Reviewer: Michele Decamp

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