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Fame and Consequences

Teen book group leaders looking for an adult book should take a look at Three Girls and Their Brother by Theresa Rebeck. Three girls and their brotherThis compulsively readable novel told in four voices will particularly appeal for its subject matter. Three sisters with wildly unusual red hair are tapped for a photo spread in the New Yorker with a renowned photographer. The photo immediately shoots the girls into the stratosphere of notoriety and celebrity.

The youngest sister, Amelia, has no desire to become a famous model/”It Girl” like her older sisters, but the girls’ agent knows that they are a package deal. The older sisters, Daria and Polly, are so obsessed with their impending fame, that they don’t care that Amelia must drop out of school for being a “nuisance.” The girls’ mother is jubilant with the newfound attention and is happy to send her daughters off on “meetings” with movie stars, producers and publicists who ply the young teens with alcohol and drugs.

And who is “the brother” of the title? He is the voice of reason and concern. But his wariness over his sisters’ budding careers as “celebrities of the moment” leads to his own banishment from the family.

The author has done an excellent job of capturing the cadence of adolescent-speak and the bewilderment of teens who think they have gotten what they always wanted.


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