L.A. Candy - kinda sugary

So I read L.A. Candy by Lauren Conrad on the plane on the way home from my vacation. Verdict - it wasn't terrible but she isn't winning any Pulitzers. I went looking for it in Barnes&Noble and when I couldn't find it in the fiction section, I asked the guy at the counter (and pretended to look confused just so he wouldn't think it was for me - I probably just looked like a moron). Turns out it was in the teen fiction section. Awkward.

I am a massive Hills fan. It's one of those shameful, dirty secrets. Granted I am now 100% completely over Speidi and I heartily endorse the E! Network banning all things Speidi from their shows, but gimme that faux-reality scripted shit set to music and I'm happy as a pig in mud.

Where was I? Right; L.A. Candy is about a sweet, young blonde girl who moves to L.A. to pursue her dream creative career with an internship (sound familiar?). She is then 'discovered' to be on a reality program that follows four young girls and their lives in L.A. (sound familiar?). Cut to her dating dramas, being with the 'bad boy' (sound familiar?) and being the target of a hateful campaign by her jealous co-star when they start a sex scandal about her (sound familiar?).

I honestly only think you would appreciate this book if you are a Hills fan. The writing itself isn't fantastic, but it was really fun to identify all the various personality traits of the different characters on the show. There are characters who you can easily identify their real life counterparts (Whitney, Brody, Lisa Love), some who appear to be composites (Speidi, Audrina) and then one character, the BFF, who doesn't appear to have a direct counterpart (possibly Lo, or it could be a throwback to the Laguna Beach days). So many questions...!

Either way, the book doesn't exactly have what you would call an "ending". I know, most books seem to do this traditional beginning-middle-end thing, but L.A. Candy seems to end abruptly and you can almost see the to be continued... flash up on the screen as Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield begins to play. Lucky for us Conrad has said there will be more. Until then, I'm just going to keep watching re-runs on MTV.

Price: $29.99
From: Borders (published in Australia by HarperCollins)
Why you need it: For Hills fans only, so you can try and figure out the truth behind the show

Picture credit: harpercollins.com.au