How to Rock Braces and Glasses

August 1, 2011
In this Alloy Entertainment property that's been picked up by Nickelodeon for a sitcom, sharp-tongued Kasey Simon, 13, is used to the spotlight. She has the lead in the school play and a weekly spot on the televised middle-school newscast, where she regularly disses her peers. But that's before she is forced to wear ugly tortoiseshell glasses and get metal braces. Now, instead of dishing out insults, she has to take them as she becomes a target of ridicule from the entire student body, including her three so-called best friends. Worse, the lisp she's developed from her dental hardware threatens to cut short her budding career in drama and broadcast journalism. As Haston, in her first YA novel, traces Kasey's painful tumble down the popularity hill, she offers some clever dialogue and important life lessons, but the contrived plot and predictable outcome feel less than genuine. Readers may have trouble warming up to the arrogant heroine and grow impatient waiting for her to be as brutally honest about her own weaknesses as she is about others' flaws. Ages 12âup.

March 1, 2012

Gr 6-8-Kacey Simon thinks nothing of dispensing unsolicited, often cruel advice to her peers. She doesn't even try to veil her contempt for those she considers socially inferior (everyone). Then the universe delivers the ultimate cosmic slap: an eye infection and a roller skating injury leave Kacey with chunky glasses, braces, and (gasp!) a lisp. Her social status plummets-her elite clique drops her, she loses the lead in the school musical, and her budding broadcast career seems over. Naturally, Kacey faults her altered appearance rather than her horrific attitude. Eventually, Kacey changes her tune-literally and figuratively-when she joins a band run by the quirky, blue-haired Zander. After much personal struggle, Kacey learns valuable lessons about humility, humanity, and acceptance. Meg Haston went a bit overboard in this novel (Little, Brown, 2011) by crafting a character so unlikable that listeners will find it difficult to sympathize with her. Kacey comes across as shallow, cruel, and seemingly devoid of redeeming qualities. This gives her attitude an "After School Special" feel. Yet, despite being predictable and not particularly deep, this is a fun story that carries an important message. Narrator Casey Holloway is excellent, giving Kacey a voice that is overly dramatic, angst-ridden, and occasionally tinged with a hint of Valley Girl lilt. She even nails her post-braces lisp. This story will find a home among fans of YA chick lit.-Alissa LeMerise, Oxford Public Library, MI

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 15, 2011

In a morality tale with all the breeziness and exaggeration of a teen movie, an eighth-grade mean girl loses her status and becomes only slightly less mean.

The lead in the school musical and the host of an advice segment on the school's TV channel, Kacey Simon starts at the top. Then a failure to care for her new purple contacts and a fall at her friend Molly's boy-girl birthday party doom Kacey to the ultimate in loser accessories: glasses and braces. Saddled with a braces-related speech impediment along with her geeky new look, Kacey finds herself at the bottom of the pecking order. Molly and other former friends circulate a YouTube video mocking Kacey's lisp, and, somewhat unrealistically, the drama teacher immediately removes her from the school play. Luckily (and, one might argue, undeservedly), two outcasts support the fallen queen of mean. Paige, a student-government enthusiast, helps Kacey with a plan to regain her popularity. Zander, an indie rocker who wears, to Kacey's horror, skinny jeans, grudgingly accepts Kacey as his band's lead singer. Despite the book's ostensible stance against meanness, Kacey regains her social standing largely by bullying and manipulating her old friends, and the notion that glasses and braces must always spell social ruin is left unquestioned.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

January 1, 2012
Popular Kacey loses her friends, her role in the play, and her gig as school newscaster thanks to getting braces and glasses. Kacey attempts to regain her status by using and manipulating people. Eventually she realizes her exile has more to do with her attitude than her appearance. Though Kacey is generally insufferable, her quest to discover her true self is redeeming.

(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

September 1, 2011

Gr 6-8-Eighth-grade queen bee and would-be journalist Kacey Simon hosts her own advice show, "Simon Says," on Marquette Middle School's cable channel and rules the school with an iron fist, telling her fellow students exactly what she thinks of them with no effort to be kind or tactful. After she gets an eye infection from her cosmetic contact lenses, her diminished vision causes an accident at a roller rink, forcing her to make an unplanned visit to the dentist. The results? Kacey is forced to wear thick-lensed glasses and braces that make her lisp, and her popularity plummets. Her former best friends no longer listen to her, a YouTube video mocking her lisp goes viral, and she loses the lead in the school's production of Guys and Dolls. Paige, a politically savvy girl who was a friend before being turned off by Kacey's thoughtless remarks, offers to mastermind a campaign to restore her status as Queen of Cool. Kacey also befriends a quirky boy who plays in a punk rock band and wants her as its lead vocalist. This is a fairly predictable plot with numerous pop-culture references throughout. However, Kacey is a surprisingly engaging character, not so much a mean girl as a genuinely clueless individual who really believes in saying exactly what she thinks. Middle school readers will enjoy her humorous journey toward self-awareness.-Kathleen E. Gruver, Burlington County Library, Westampton, NJ

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.