Landry Albright enters a modeling competition with her two best friends, but runs into jealousy when she advances to the next level without them. Enter the gorgeous Devon, who also makes the first cut of the modeling contest. Devon seems like the perfect new best friend, but can their friendship survive the competition? Throw in a new boy, jealousy and loyalty issues, and insults from hair stylists. How’s a girl to deal?
Excerpt #1
The competition was for girls between the ages of thirteen and seventeen, but it felt like Ericka, Tori, and I were the youngest ones there. I only saw a couple of girls from school, and the lineup looked more like something you’d see on a music video set. All the girls were gorgeous, and they had these curvy womanly bodies. I looked like a skinny little kid next to them. The first girl walked out, and I heard the judges say she “owned the runway,” and, “walked like a gazelle.” I was starting to feel ill. I wasn’t sure which way it was going to come, but I knew I had to find a bathroom — fast. I started to get out of line when Ericka grabbed my wrist.
“It’s almost time,” she said. A tiny bit of spit flew out of her mouth and hit my cheek.
I wasn’t sure why she was so intent on me going through with it, but she had a death grip on my arm, so I didn’t have much of a choice. Her number was called and she walked out to the stage. One of the other girls said she walked like a kid with sand bucket stilts on her feet, but she came back with a smirk on her face like she knew she’d get chosen.
“They said they had never seen such long legs,” she said.
Tori was next.
“She walks like a gorilla at feeding time,” said the girl behind me. I went next, and I tried to focus on not tripping over my feet. My mom’s pumps had a rubber sole on the bottom, which probably wasn’t the brightest idea seeing as my shoes were making squeaking noises as I walked. I was so nervous I couldn’t stop smiling as I walked. I looked like the plastic clown who blows up balloons with its mouth at the Pizza Palace. When I got to the end of the runway, I tried to cross my feet to turn like the other girls had, but I over rotated and ended up doing a full spin which made my kilt fan out and gave the mall walkers a view of my blue underpants. I tried to act like it was intentional and did an extra turn. One of the judges put her hand up to stop me, and I held my breath as she started to speak.
Excerpt #2
Crap. What if I got the dry heaves on stage? And what if it got so bad one of my eyes bulged out or something? I should just go back up to the room… double crap. Mom had the room key. At least there was a bathroom for when I had to worry about… the other end.
While I was deciding whether or not to chicken out, the stage manager, Georgia, started having the girls go out on stage. I overheard somebody say one girl fell out of her shoe as she stepped on the runway.
“Is she okay?”
“Yeah, she’s fine. She just pretended to have two heels on and walked on her tip toes,” Georgia said.
I would have burst into tears and run off the stage — kind of like I did when I was four years old and in a dance recital. We were supposed to be little ballerinas and have scarves attached to our tutus, but my mom was still in school at the time and she came home late and forgot to give me my scarves. So all the other little girls pulled out their scarves, and there’s a video of me looking on either side of my tutu for my scarves and then bursting into tears crying “Mommy!” as I ran off the stage. My grandmother said I was adorable, but I don’t think it was any coincidence my grandfather died two weeks later.
At least I didn’t have to worry about missing scarves tonight. All I had to do was focus on not tripping. If I could just make it down the runway and back, I’d be fine.
Excerpt #3
“Landry, they’re having modeling tryouts to be on the American Ingénue show,” Ericka said, showing me the ad she had torn out of the Grand Rapids Press. “The Ingénue judges are trying to find local teens to compete on their reality show.”
I watched every second of the last show. Talisa Milan won and got a Little Rose cosmetics contract and was on this month’s cover of Bright and Lively magazine. She was also a host on Hot Videos Now, a music video show. Melani Parkington, the runner-up, was the new spokesperson for Bouncy Hair conditioner. You were almost guaranteed to be famous if you made it to the final round of the contest.
“First you have to win in your city, and then your state, and then the regional competition,” Tori read. “Then you get to the tough part of the competition where they vote off someone new each week on national TV.”
“It’s an amazing opportunity to get discovered,” Ericka said, checking out her reflection in her spoon.
“Yeah, except for the fact the judges are known to be brutal when they’re honest. Like when they told Melani her gorgeous face was too pinched, her forehead was too low, and her eyebrows were too high,” I said. “They also told one girl she was pretty, but her lips looked like she had walked into a sliding glass door.”
“Well, they did,” Ericka said shrugging. They were holding auditions at the Perry Mall, which was the smallest mall in Grand Rapids. There weren’t a lot of stores there, so you usually just saw old people mall walking around there. Still, it had a decent bookstore and a cute clothing store, so I said I’d go watch while they tried out.
“No, we’re all trying out,” Ericka said, grabbing the ad back from me.
Excerpt #4
A lot of girls at school were talking about trying out, but most of the girls at Hillcrest were jocks. Yasmin McCarty, the most popular girl in our class with one thousand-three people on her social media friends list, could win a modeling competition, but she would never enter because it would be beneath her to stand in line and wait to be judged on her looks. She was always saying modeling and stuff was so superficial, but she was also the same girl who walked around school pretending she was freezing so the teachers would let her wear her designer hoodie over her uniform.
I dunno, maybe some girls just knew they were hot and didn’t need some TV show to confirm it. I loved watching the show, but the thought of going up there to be judged on how I looked scared me. I was afraid of the judges but even more afraid of Ericka. I knew she’d get mad at me if I didn’t try out. So while some girls were secure enough not to need strangers to tell them they were pretty, I spent the whole day trying to figure out the right outfit for my audition (and my dad wondered why my math grades sucked). I mentally went through my closet, and nothing seemed right. My clothes said American Couch Potato, not American Ingénue.
Author Biography
Krysten Lindsay Hager is an author and book addict who has never met a bookstore she didn’t like. She’s worked as a journalist and also writes middle grade, YA, humor essays, and adult fiction. Her debut novel, TRUE COLORS, will be out June 17th from Astraea Press. She is originally from Michigan and has lived in South Dakota, Portugal, and currently resides in Southern Ohio where you can find her reading and writing when she’s not catching up on her favorite shows.
Daydreaming Pays Off
People often ask me where I got my story idea for my novel, True Colors,
and I always say—the sixth grade! See? All that daydreaming in math
class did pay off…well, I can’t do math in my head or figure out a tip
to save my life, but I did get a story idea.
Back when I was in the sixth grade, I saw an album cover of these
four women who were in a band. Something about that picture got me
wondering about what they were like when they were my age. YA and middle
grade books at that time were all about close-knit groups of friends
and I have to admit I felt a little left out even though I did have my
own group of friends. I mean, middle school and high school are all
about ups and downs with friends—who can you really count on? Who will
have your back when you need them most? So reading those books with all
those super close besties made me feel like something was missing from
my life. So I started making up little stories, daydreams really, about
four girls who were best friends and what they did on the weekends and
at school. I even used to write down their class schedules, where they
sat in my made up classrooms, and what their rooms looked like (I still
have some of those notebooks). I never thought those ideas were any more
than daydreams.
Fast forward several years and I was in college and taking a creative
writing class. One of my teachers had suggested I write a YA novel
since I loved reading those books and I came up with a few ideas, but
nothing really inspired me. Then one day I saw a quote saying you should
write the book that you want to read. I remember I was watching figure
skating (I’m kind of addicted to it) and thinking, “What was the book
that I wanted to read?” For some reason the first thing that popped into
my mind were those four girls hanging out in what would become my main
character, Landry’s, room. I went to my computer and I started writing.
I have to admit that when I was coming up with the story it was a
little (okay, a lot!) painful for me to go back through my own difficult
memories of school. I cringed a few time remembering mean things that
had been said to me, arguments, and those fights where everyone stops
speaking to you, but you don’t know why. I didn’t use any exact examples
because those feelings took over and that was enough for me to write
the scenes from Landry’s point of view. There’s a scene where Stuart,
this popular boy, trips Thalia and Kyle humiliates her. That came from
something I saw happen when I was in school. I also really felt the
nerves and anxiety of the scene where Landry feels left out by Tori and
Ericka in history class and she has to get up and go find other people
to sit with. She walks over and asks India and Peyton if she can join
them. I mean, it’s been a long time since I went through that and yet it
felt like it happened yesterday. Those feelings came right back. In
fact, the first editor who read my work (I had taken the first and only
chapter to a writing conference critique session) said she felt so
invested in Landry’s life as she worried if these new girls would let in
their group.
I wrote True Colors because I hope that readers will realize
that everyone goes through these sorts of things – rejection, being
left out/excluded, and feeling insecure. I want them to realize they are
not alone and I know it’s been said over and over again, but it does
get better. I promise you, it does! Just hang in there and stay true to
yourself.
Blog Tour Giveaway
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