Review: Airhead by Meg Cabot

Title: Airhead
Author: Meg Cabot
Published: 13th May 2008
Publisher: Point
Series: Airhead #1
Source: Own Copy

EM WATTS IS GONE.
Emerson Watts didn’t even want to go to the new SoHo Stark Megastore grand opening. But someone needed to look out for her sister, Frida, whose crush, British heartthrob Gabriel Luna, would be singing and signing autographs there—along with the newly appointed Face of Stark, teen supermodel sensation Nikki Howard.

How was Em to know that disaster would strike, changing her—and life as she’d known it—forever? One bizarre accident later, and Em Watts, always the tomboy, never the party princess, is no longer herself. Literally.

I have had this book sitting in my TBR pile for so long. I'm not sure initially why I didn't pick it up, but recently I was looking for something easy going and light hearted, this book checked all the boxes for me. This is the story of Emerson Watts who, after being involved in a fatal accident, finds herself waking up as teen supermodel Nikki Howard.

Emerson Watts is such a likeable character that you can't help sympathising with her. OK so she is now living life as Nikki Howard, teen supermodel who is rich and fabulous, but you can't help but think it's not all it appears to be. We get a good sense early on that Em is not the kind of girl who fawns over celebrity and would much rather be playing a computer game or watching a documentary than doing her nails or putting on a face mask. So living a life where she has to worry about buffing her lips and waxing is difficult for her and this collision of cultures makes for some very funny situations.

The basic premise of this story, and the whole trilogy, is a mystery revolving around the big bad, The Stark corporation, and why Em Watts is now Nikki Howard. The mystery is never taken to "out there" proportions however there was a good dose of the unexpected to keep you on your toes.

This book is full of humour. It's not too thought provoking or groundbreaking, but it is fun. I read it really quickly, in only a couple of hours. This was my first Meg Cabot book and I think it will be the start of a beautiful friendship / fangirl - author relationship.

Review: The Lying Game by Sara Shepard

Title: The Lying Game
Author: Sara Shepard
Publisher: HarperTeen
Published: 7th December 2010
Series: Lying Game #1
Source: Own copy on kindle

I had a life anyone would kill for.
Then someone did.

The worst part of being dead is that there’s nothing left to live for. No more kisses. No more secrets. No more gossip. It’s enough to kill a girl all over again. But I’m about to get something no one else does—an encore performance, thanks to Emma, the long-lost twin sister I never even got to meet.
Now Emma’s desperate to know what happened to me. And the only way to figure it out is to be me—to slip into my old life and piece it all together. But can she laugh at inside jokes with my best friends? Convince my boyfriend she’s the girl he fell in love with? Pretend to be a happy, carefree daughter when she hugs my parents good night? And can she keep up the charade, even after she realizes my murderer is watching her every move?
From Sara Shepard, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Pretty Little Liars books, comes a riveting new series about secrets, lies, and killer consequences.
Let the lying game begin. - From Goodreads

So my reasons for picking reading this book were exactly the same as the reasons I had for picking up The Nine Lives of Chloe King, Pretty Little Liars and The Secret Circle. I started watching the new TV series and I  wanted to know what was going to happen without having to wait out a whole season! Well the joke is on me as right away the book differs from the TV show in one significant way that I knew I was not going to learn any of the plot points from the series of books!

Sutton and Emma are twins who were split up at birth and ended up in 2 very different situations. Sutton lives a life of privilege and Emma has been bouncing around foster homes all of her life. After some investigation into her birth mother Sutton finds the twin she never knew she had. When they arrange to meet each other Emma leaves her life and travels to Arizona to meet Sutton, however when she turns up Sutton is nowhere to be found and she ends up taking Sutton's place. When she is told that Sutton is dead and she could be next she decides to try and find out what happened to the sister she never knew.

So the story begins with Sutton dead as a ghost that is watching her twin sister Emma. This sounds a bit weird, but it totally works in this book. We have the live sister, Emma, walking around and trying to fit in to Sutton's life with Sutton commenting on what she is watching. I really enjoyed how this worked. Now at this point you could be saying to yourself "Then where is the mystery? Why does Sutton not just say who killed her?" Well Sutton can't remember anything and only starts getting flashes once Emma starts living her life. We see some of these flashes in the form of "flashback" chapters in the book.

Emma is a good character and you can understand her struggles at stepping into someone else's life where everyone thinks nothing has changed and expects you to behave as you should. She struggles with the little things, like remembering who her friends are and their quirks, where her locker is and her combination, even how to behave in different situations. Saying this, I do love a mean girl, so I really enjoyed the nasty Sutton portions, however I did feel they slowed the pace of the book slightly.

I am looking forward to following this story and seeing how it progresses for Emma. I hope she can make it work as Sutton. She needs a good family, as she has never had one, and the Mercers seem to be the perfect family on the surface. I can't help but wonder how the story will progress in comparison to the TV show with the significant difference that one of the main characters in the book is dead!! What will happen to Emma and Sutton next?