BOOK REVIEW: L.A. Candy

By Lauren Conrad
Copyright 2009
Published by HarperCollins Publishers
326 pages

Confession time.  I will go ahead and admit it right now.  I have watched the MTV series Laguna Beach and its spinoff The Hills.  As a matter of fact, one Christmas I gave Laguna Beach: Season 1 on DVD to one of my BFF's.  I am not proud of this fact.  I was young, and I had less wisdom than I do now.

Since I have watched these shows before, I immediately recognized the name Lauren Conrad when I was walking through my local grocery store/convenience store/clothing store/bookstore. (You know this kind of store - where you can buy everything from fruit to tennis shoes to magazines.)  Her name was on a bookshelf.  I had one thought, "Weird."  And (also weird) I noticed Lauren Conrad's name was on the front cover of a book.  Apparently, she's started her own book series which is marketed to the vast teens and tweens market. Lauren Conrad's L.A. Candy series uses fictional characters to illustrate to readers the situations she found herself in while filming The Hills with MTV.

I'm not sure what I was expecting when I started reading this book.  I'm not sure why I was so surprised at the constant party-going and boy-obsessing that showed up on page after page with the main characters.  But anyway, I was surprised.  I was shocked really.  The characters in the book spend most of their time in bars or shopping or saying less than nice things about each other.  The language in the book is less than tasteful, too.  (And when I say there was bad language, I mean I counted the "f" word showing up at least five times.)

I think I was MOST shocked that the book showed up in the "Tween" fiction section at the store! No kidding. There was a plastic strip with the word TWEENS jutting out from the bookshelf just above the stack of L.A. Candy books.  Really?!  Another book appearing in the same section was Charlotte's Web.  The contrast in content between these two books prompted me to write a note to the company I bought this book from!

So it is extremely important for me to say that this book is not appropriate for Tweens, Teens, or anyone who does not want to support underage drinking, sex outside of marriage, or the publicity-hungry lifestyle.

A second book in this series is already out.  Sweet Little Lies is the second book in Lauren Conrad's series.  We can only expect more of the same.

The search continues for a positive, fictional book series that teenage girls can read in lieu of plots which glorify the act of making poor choices.

Ree Reinhardt is a youth worker at First Baptist Church McKinney, Texas, and has worked with and ministered to teenagers for almost 11 years.  She also serves with SAGE's event team and contributes to SAGE's online resources.