Flawless

by Lara Chapman

Overview

Sarah Burke is just about perfect. She's got killer blue eyes, gorgeous blond hair, and impeccable grades. There's just one tiny-all right, enormous-flaw: her nose. But even that's not so bad. Sarah's got the best best friend and big goals for print journalism fame.

On the first day of senior year, Rock Conway walks into her journalism class and, well, rocks her world. Problem is, her best friend, Kristen, falls for him too. And when Rock and Kristen stand together, it's like Barbie and Ken come to life. So when Kristen begs Sarah to help her nab Rock, Sarah does the only thing a best friend can do-she agrees. For someone so smart, what was she thinking?

This hip retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac is filled with hilariously misguided matchmaking, sweet romance, and a gentle reminder that we should all embrace our flaws.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781599906324
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	05/10/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	12 Years

About the Author

LARA CHAPMAN teaches fifth-grade language arts and has served as editor of numerous professional journals and organization newsletters. She reads and writes daily and is rarely-if ever-found without her laptop and iPhone. This is her first novel.
www.larachapman.com

Editorial Reviews

Gr 7 Up—Although Chapman is no Edmond Rostand, this retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac is great fun. Aside from a protruding proboscis, senior Sarah Burke has a lot going for her. She's intelligent and otherwise good-looking. Her too-perfect mother, who had a nose job when she was Sarah's age, keeps bringing up rhinoplasty, but the teen feels confident enough without it. Or so she thinks, until Rock, a hottie who shares her love of literature, moves into town. The two become instant friends but Sarah, who's never dated before, hopes for more from the relationship. The problem is that her best friend is also taken with Rock. No wordsmith, Kristen asks Sarah to send him emails in her name. Sarah is successful at attracting the boy of her dreams—for her friend. Sarah's loyalty is believable, even as she struggles with misleading Rock and her own feelings. It's hard to believe Kristen, who's described as "smart," knows so little about literature but, for the most part, characters are well defined. A subplot about a scheming coworker at the news station where Sarah's mother anchors is not fully developed but plays off nicely against Sarah's dilemma. The ending is predictable but satisfying. Each chapter begins with thoughtful quotes about love. This novel will attract both reluctant readers and literature lovers. A light, but not flawless, read.—Tina Zubak, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, PA

School Library Journal

Cyrano gets a sex change and goes to high school.

Seventeen-year-old academic superstar Sarah is perfect except for a nose that's so enormously large it literally stops traffic in her high school's hallways. BFF Kristen is not nearly so bright, but she's beautiful, a gifted, fashion-forward shopper, and she definitely knows how to work a room. When Adonis-like newcomer Rock (really!) shows up, both girls fall head-over-heels for him, but Sarah is his intellectual soul mate. Reluctantly, she does what friends are supposed to do—or at least what Kristen guilts her into thinking friends should do: She writes all of the e-mails, love letters and text messages her not-so-bright friend sends, as well as tutoring her on literary and cultural topics. Each chapter begins with a relevant quote on the true nature of beauty, messages Sarah ought to be thinking about, since the walls she's believably built around herself to fend off nose critics have fenced out nearly everyone. While it pushes credibility that Rock doesn't detect the deceit and Kristen isn't sufficiently sensitive to notice Sarah's lust for him, the trying situation is amusing enough to sustain interest, in spite of the worn-out concept (though teens in the know may feel that both Edmond Rostand and Steve Martin did it better).

A teen romance with a little heart, it pushes past other formulaic efforts...by a nose.(Romance. 11 & up)

Kirkus Reviews