14. Foreign Exposure: The Social Climber Abroad

As with the first book in this series, I felt that I was a bit older than the target audience. I enjoyed this one quite a bit more, though. Perhaps it was the setting of first Berlin and then London. I do love London. Like the first book, this one definitely took advantage of its European location. I also loved the descriptions of Mimi's job at a gossip newspaper.

Berlin Nightlife

The train finally pulled into our station, and [Dagmar and I] stepped out into Ostbahnhof, a succession of brightly lit streets thrumming with elegant couples and teenage girls in short, expensive-looking dresses. On every street corner, men stood behind little carts, peddling aromatic pretzels. Though Mom and the Meyerson-Cullens were still in the same city, or at least one of its unprepossessing suburbs, right then I felt very far away from them, delightfully so.

The scenery grew dingier as we neared Friedrichshain, where nineteenth-century limestone buildings gave way to tan apartment complexes and shabby minimarkets. We passed a few places that seemed sool, including the Lee Harvey Oswald Bar, which was painted red and white and filled with monitors playing a loop of Kennedy's assassination. "That's where all the Americans conspire," Dagmar said with a note of disgust.

A few blocks later, I flipped for the Astro-Bar, a little hole in the wall with ancient computers hanging from the ceiling. "Look!" I said, peering inside. "This is so geeky - I love it! Can we go in?"

4. The Rise and Fall of a 10th-Grade Social Climber

Okay, so this was kind of a cute book. I gotta admit, I'm a sucker for books that take place in exclusive private schools. And this one does feature a private school pretty heavily, although it's more ultra-progressive than exclusive. (No grades, people. No grades.) I also love that it used its setting of NYC so prominently.

So the book is about this girl, Mimi, who moves from Houston to NYC to live with her dad. She starts going to this school called Baldwin. She makes a bet with her childhood friend, Sam, to befriend the cool girls at Baldwin. So Mimi does just that, skipping school, smoking pot, drinking, and buying a fake ID to get herself into the good graces of the popular girls. She also keeps a journal of her endeavors - predictably, this journal ends up published online. But of course, Mimi is forgiven by the end of the book and it all ends happily ever after.

I really liked Mimi's difficult relationship with her mother; although it was very, very difficult, it was, to me, one of the most realistic parts of the book. I also liked that the popular girls at Baldwin didn't have the typical blonde, all-American look that popular girls in books usually have. Instead, they were very diverse. However, on the flip side, they had the same typical problems that rich girls in books always seem to have - f'ed-up family life, drug problems, etc. Not one of these girls was at all realistic. Also, secretly? I think Mimi's dad was gay. But that's just me.

My favorite character was Quinn, Mimi's dad's assistant. I also love that Mimi's dad is a photographer; I'm not sure why, but I really liked it.

All in all, I think this book gets a 3/5. It was a quick read and funny, but also very predictable.

Buy this book at Amazon ***** Visit Lauren Mechling's website 

(Can't find a website for Laura Moser now. Will update when I have one.)