cover image It’s All Your Fault

It’s All Your Fault

Paul Rudnick. Scholastic Press, $19.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-545-46428-4

Heller Harrigan, a troubled teen star made famous in a Hannah Montana-like TV show, is about to make her big-screen debut in a film based on a YA novel, one that sounds like an angel-themed mashup of Twilight and The Hunger Games. Her homeschooled cousin Catey, a 17-year-old naïf in kneesocks, is reluctantly drafted to play chaperone to ensure that just-out-of-rehab Heller gets to the red carpet premiere drug- and scandal-free. Catey, whose family performs as “The Singing Singleberries,” is devoutly Christian and anxiety-ridden, making it a very long 72 hours for both girls, especially since they haven’t spoken since a mysterious falling out years earlier. Improbable hilarity abounds—the girls get in legal trouble, but buy off the judge with tickets to the Angel Wars premiere for his granddaughters Katniss, Hermione, and Bella—as Rudnick skewers celebrity, Brooklyn hipsterdom, YA literature, and much more. Much as in Gorgeous (2013), it’s a whirlwind, laugh-a-minute escapade about a girl swept far outside her comfort zone, with real heart beneath the acid humor. Ages 14–up. Agent: David Kuhn, Kuhn Projects. (Jan.) [em] [/em]