Gorgeous

by Rudnick, Paul

• ISBN13: 9780545464260
• ISBN10: 0545464269
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-04-30
• Publisher: Scholastic Press

Summary

Screamingly funny and defiant - a must-read book for the summer! This is a book for anyone who's ever faced herself in the mirror, wondered if a new lipstick could change her life, and either read VOGUE or thrown it across the room. When eighteen-year-old Becky Randle's mother dies, she's summoned from Missouri to meet Tom Kelly, the top designer in the world. He makes her an impossible offer: He'll create three dresses to transform Becky from an ordinary girl into the world's most beautiful woman. Becky thinks Tom is a lunatic, but she accepts and is remade as Rebecca. When Becky looks in the mirror, she sees herself--a mess of split ends and cankles. But when anyone else looks at Becky, they see five-alarm hotness. Soon Rebecca is the darling of the fashion world, but when she meets meets Prince Gregory, heir to the British throne, everything starts to crumble. Because Rebecca aside, Becky loves him. And the idea of a prince looking past Rebecca to fall in love with the ordinary girl inside? There's not enough magic in the world.

Author Biography

Paul Rudnick is a frequent contributer to the NEW YORKER, VANITY FAIR, and ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, as well as an Obie Award-winning playwright, and the screenwriter for SISTER ACT, IN & OUT, and STEPFORD WIVES. This is his first young adult novel.

Excerpts

From Gorgeous:

"So here's my offer," he said, sitting up straight, as if he was about to conduct serious business. "I will make you three dresses: one red, one white and one black. And if you wear these dresses, and if you do everything I say, then you will become the most beautiful woman on earth. You will become, in fact, the most beautiful woman who has ever lived."

"What?"

"You heard me."

At first I couldn't even process this proposal, I couldn't begin to wrap my brain around what he'd just said. He was a rich and successful man and, in his way, a major force. He'd known my mother. But aside from all that, I didn't know what the hell he was talking about.

Or maybe I did know, maybe I'd understood him perfectly, and maybe that's why I felt like I was choking and drowning and like I had to get out of there, I had to run, even if it meant bashing myself against the marble walls and scratching to find the elevator or a hidden emergency exit and a staircase.

"I'm leaving," I said, standing. But once I was up, I couldn't move. I couldn't leave. And he knew it.