Cat's Meow

✍ Scribed by Melissa de La Cruz

• Publisher: Touchstone
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 188 KB
• Category: Fiction

✦ Synopsis

Cat McAllister grew up as a Hollywood child star, spent her adolescence modeling in Japan, and now, as she celebrates her twenty-fifth birthday for the fourth time, she lives for velvet ropes, Moët & Chandon, gold-leaf invitations, and other fashionista prizes. But on her way up the social ladder, making her way past the who's who and the what's what, Cat finds herself stuck in that seventh circle of celebrity hell.

What's worse, her funds are running dry.

What's a girl to do?

Marry rich. And so the ruckus begins, taking us from China for a baby adoption, to Paris for the couture shows, to the "it" world of Gotham. And that's just the hors d'oeuvres.

Punctuated with Kim DeMarco's illustrations, Cat's Meow is a spectacularly witty novel about a young woman looking for love, clothes, and what will make her truly happy in life.

From Publishers Weekly

This frothy romance revolves around Cat McAllister, a fashionista on a mission to save herself from "B-list obscurity." With her sizable trust fund dwindling and her recent fianc‚ on the arm of a Victoria's Secret supermodel, Cat is desperate to sharpen her edge among New York's rich and elite. With help from her best friend, India, "New York's reigning postoperative transsexual," Cat tries everything from throwing herself the perfect birthday party (her fourth 25th annual), to scheming after a titled, wealthy bachelor, to adopting an orphan in adherence to the gala charity calendar's cause of the moment. The superficial characters and silly predicaments make for a light, if occasionally stilted, read. Canned laughter kills some bad-to-begin-with jokes (e.g., when Cat confuses her illegal alien au pair's visa problems for credit card troubles), and Cat's shallowness is fitfully highlighted in heavy-handed triplicate ("Galliano,' I confessed modestly. It was my usual response to a compliment.Nice hair' was usually followed by Fekkai.'Fabulous makeup' by Kevyn.'Exquisite forehead' by `Botox.' I like to give credit since I am an authentic person.'"). Senior fashion editor for Hint magazine, a well-respected online journal, Cruz is dead-on with detail, from Cat's prized Bliss discount card and designer clothes to playful descriptions of front-row fashion personalities and events. While this debut, sprung from a column Cruz wrote for Hint, might not create a literary sensation, society page addicts will no doubt enjoy its irreverent spin on the glamorous life.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

Simon Doonan author of Confessions of a Window Dresser and creative director, Barneys Melissa de la Cruz is the Jackie Collins of the "Moomba" generation -- she's on a collision course with pulp stardom.