The Daughters - The Ugly Duckling Revisited

Daughters

Author: Joanna Philbin

Only by being yourself can you be more than yourself. –Mr. Barlow

This woman is taking pictures of me. And this is actually fun. –Lizzie Summers, internally

For the first time, she remembered what it felt like just before she opened her mouth to speak to that reporter. That delicious feeling of letting go, of taking her hand off the wheel, of just being herself – with no filters, no voice in her head telling her no. she put her hands on her hips and leveled her gaze at the camera. She let her smile fade away. –Narrator

That was three weeks ago. […] Everything's different now. Everything. –Lizzie Summers

Amazon.com:

The only daughter of supermodel Katia Summers, witty and thoughtful Lizzie Summers likes to stick to the sidelines.  The sole heir to Metronome Media and daughter of billionaire Karl Jurgensen, outspoken Carina Jurgensen would rather climb mountains than social ladders. Daughter of chart-topping pop icon Holla Jones, stylish and sensitive Hudson Jones is on the brink of her own music breakthrough.

By the time freshman year begins, unconventional-looking Lizzie Summers has come to expect fawning photographers and adoring fans to surround her gorgeous supermodel mother. But when Lizzie is approached by a fashion photographer that believes she's "the new face of beauty," Lizzie surprises herself and her family by becoming the newest Summers woman to capture the media's spotlight. 

This book is not likely to become a “classic” or be taught in schools. But I don't think that's really what Joanna Philbin had in mind when she wrote the first in what is now a series of books about the daughters of the rich and famous. It's a good, fun book that doesn't talk down to its readers. The story is well-written and only mildly forced at times.

I tend to enjoy reading "young adult" fiction, which I'm pretty sure is what this is. I own all the Harry Potter books, have read all four Twilight saga entries and have done my fair share of shelf-perusing in Target's YA section. So, this book was kind of right up my alley. I like the friendship that the girls shared, though I wished the relationships with their parents could have been a bit more diverse.

I get that one of the big bonding points is that each girl is the product of one (or two) celebrities or moguls. But it seems a bit contrived that each would have such a rocky relationship with the parental units. Lizzie and her mother's relationship was the least strained, though the plot centers around the two Summers women misinterpreting the other's words and actions. Lizzie's relationship with her father is also better than most of the other parent-child depictions. But you don’t get to see very much of it in the book, the dominating theme being of mother-and-daughter run-ins.

The book had a good message, too, like most YA books do. It was kind of an "ugly duckling" story. Lizzie feels inferior in the looks department to her supermodel mother, and doesn't like that her mother constantly thrusts her into the limelight when no one else ever seems to want her there. It isn't until someone who doesn't know her at all tells her she's the kind of "new beauty" or "ugly pretty" that is trending in fashion that she comes to embrace her own look. And, as can be expected, she lets herself get caught up in it and gets a big head over it, only to be knocked back down to earth, where her mother is there to catch her. It was fairly predictable, but it worked.

Overall, I liked the characters in this book and have added the other three books to my list of must-reads after my 30@30 project closes.

My takeaway: As hard as it may be, confrontation and direct communication is sometimes the best way to avoid hurt feelings, mixed signals and confusion. And it's always best to lie to a paparazzo who asks you questions about your famous mother.