The Truth About My Success

by Dyan Sheldon

Overview

What happens when a bratty teenage star and a hardworking waitress get a taste of each other’s worlds? Featuring the best-selling Dyan Sheldon at her snarky, entertaining best.

Paloma Rose is sixteen and already a major TV star. She has money, franchises, adoring fans — and an agent and parents who are dependent on her success to sustain their very comfortable lives. But all that could come to an end when Paloma becomes more famous for her bad behavior than for her acting and her show’s sponsors threaten to cancel the upcoming season if things don’t improve. Meanwhile, Paloma’s worried agent happens upon Oona Ginness working in a coffee shop. Maybe she’s not as tall or as blond as Paloma, but details aside, they really might be twins. So a plan is born: What if they send Paloma to a brat camp to become a better person and put the malleable and much nicer Oona in her place? Oona thinks it’s a stupid idea, but the money is hard to resist, given her family’s dire circumstances. What does she have to lose? Of course, plans don’t always work out the way they’re supposed to. . . .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780763677053
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	06/09/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Dyan Sheldon is the author of many novels for young readers, including the #1 New York Times bestseller Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, which was made into a major motion picture, The Crazy Things Girls Do for Love, and One or Two Things I Learned About Love. Dyan Sheldon was born in Brooklyn and now lives in North London.

“When I look at my high-school yearbooks, it’s like looking at a travel brochure for another planet,” Dyan Sheldon says. “I was painfully shy and introverted, so it wasn’t so much that I couldn’t or wouldn’t fit into the mainstream, it was more that I was so far away from it I didn’t really know it existed.”

Luckily for the teenage Dyan Sheldon, a new girl moved to town who was as flamboyantly outgoing as the author was shy—and as opposites often attract, the two became best friends. Theatrical, uninhibited, and outspoken, Dyan Sheldon’s high-school friend would become the model for the unforgettable Lola in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, a hilarious young adult novel that has taken on new life as a major motion picture (and a #1 New York Times bestseller). “They’re more soul sisters than carbon copies,” says the author of the character Lola and her real-life inspiration. “But the way they’re most alike is that my friend absolutely changed my life (and possibly saved it) in the way that Lola changes Ella’s.”

Intriguingly, Dyan Sheldon followed up Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen with My Perfect Life, a sequel that puts Ella (the character the author most identifies with) in the narrator’s role and gives her “a chance to speak for herself.” Like its predecessor, My Perfect Life was quickly hailed by critics. “Sheldon has spun a delightfully zany spoof of high school, politics, and affluent suburbia, capturing teen angst with wit and poignancy,” said Booklist in a starred review.

Dyan Sheldon’s third book with Candlewick Press, Planet Janet, introduced a new set of characters, starring a self-absorbed British teen who shares her travails in a hilarious diary format that has been likened to a Bridget Jones’s Diary for the teenage set. Other books from Dyan Sheldon, Sophie Pitt-Turnbull Discovers America and I Conquer Britain, focus on comical cases of culture clash when a haughty British teen winds up deep in the heart of working-class Brooklyn for the summer, and her bohemian Brooklyn counterpart crosses the pond to visit an uptight English family. The outrageously funny tales draw on the author’s personal experience of navigating a foreign culture: Dyan Sheldon is a former Brooklyn resident who now resides in London.

“There are enormous pressures on everyone—girls and boys—to behave a certain way as they move toward adulthood,” Dyan Sheldon says of the age group toward which she directs these three books. “Compared to the time of my childhood, when galloping consumerism was still in its infancy, the marketing pressure on kids today is truly frightening.” Still, the author hopes that readers who relate to her characters will find through her books some comic relief from adolescent stress. “It’s been a long time since I was a teenager, but despite this I like to think that my books are emotionally honest and true,” she says. “I believe the only way you can ‘help’ anyone is to share with them what you’ve experienced and learned.”

More recent titles from Dyan Sheldon include My Worst Best Friend, One or Two Things I Learned About Love, The Crazy Things Girls Do for Love, and The Truth About My Success.

Besides writing books for teens, Dyan Sheldon has authored a number of stories for younger readers and also writes for adults. When she’s not writing, the author likes to dabble in ceramics, practice yoga, and ride her motorcycle. Born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island, Dyan Sheldon now lives in London.

Editorial Reviews

04/13/2015
Sheldon (One or Two Things I Learned About Love) offers a fun, contemporary twist on the “Prince and the Pauper” theme. It all starts when 16-year-old TV star Paloma Rose gets caught up in a scandal. Unbeknownst to Paloma, her narcissistic mother and agent hatch a plan to send her to a rehab center on a remote ranch to prevent more media attention, but they need to find a replacement for Paloma to fool the public. Lookalike Oona Ginness, who waits tables at a coffee shop, seems to fit the bill. Desperately in need of money, Oona agrees to pose as Paloma for a generous salary while Paloma is whisked away to rehab, thinking she’s going on a luxury vacation. Compassionate Oona and self-absorbed Paloma are striking (and entertaining) foils, neither exactly thrilled with her new lifestyle. Luckily, both are smart enough to play a few tricks of their own to get their way. The book’s slightly larger-than-life characters and plot offer some hilarious scenarios as both teens learn a bit about power, greed, compassion, and what they want in life. Ages 12–up. (June)

Publishers Weekly

Constantly funny, splendidly witty: a bull's-eye.
—Kirkus Reviews

Sheldon’s latest outing mashes elements of Pretty Woman with The Prince and the Pauper to create a twenty-first-century answer to The Slums of Beverly Hills. ... Recommend this to teens who appreciate wry commentary on contemporary life.
—Booklist

Entertaining ... Teen girls will enjoy the peek into the life of the rich and famous.
—VOYA

The book’s slightly larger-than-life characters and plot offer some hilarious scenarios as both teens learn a bit about power, greed, compassion, and what they want in life.
—Publishers Weekly

This novel will be an easy sell to teens who enjoyed Mean Girls and are looking for light drama.
—School Library Journal

Readers will appreciate the lack of condescension, both in tone and outcome, where even Paloma and Oona’s joining forces against the conniving adults feels neither saccharine nor gratuitously vindictive. Send this one with beach-bound teens for added SoCal feeling—they’ll appreciate it.
—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

From the Publisher

05/01/2015
Gr 9 Up—A Prince and the Pauper tale set in Hollywood. Paloma Rose is a 16-year-old starlet. Her television show, Angel in the House, has made her a household name. However, her increasingly scandalous behavior threatens to derail the path to stardom set out by her mother, Leone, and agent, Jack. In an act of desperation, Leone and Jack send Paloma off to a ranch for delinquents. In her place they hire Oona, a down-on-her-luck teenage waitress with looks remarkably similar to Paloma. While Oona learns to be Paloma and navigate the unexpectedly sad and stressful world of an actress, Paloma begins therapy and learns skills that she's never had to think about—cooking, cleaning, and controlling her temper. While the story line is very readable, this work is written in a detached, judgmental, third-person narrative, which hampers readers' ability to immerse themselves in the story. The characters are slow to develop, but the teens will eventually win over readers. The dialogue is occasionally unbelievable (a teen caught drinking and shoplifting uses "pig crap" as an expletive), though the plot is engaging and takes off quickly. VERDICT Despite its flaws, this novel will be an easy sell to teens who enjoyed Mean Girls and are looking for light drama.—Heather Miller Cover, Homewood Public Library, AL

School Library Journal

2015-02-16
A struggling waitress trades places with a spoiled-brat TV star in this comedy.Sixteen-year-old Paloma doesn't know it yet, but her tantrums are jeopardizing not only her own income, but, much worse, that of her greedy mother and agent. Paloma's emotional maturity is on par with that of a toddler, and the sponsors of her once-popular TV series just might pull the plug on future seasons. Her mom, Leone, and agent, Jack, concoct a plan. They have met a girl, Oona, who looks remarkably like Paloma and offer to pay her big bucks to impersonate the star while they send the real Paloma off to "brat camp." Oona has difficulty with the exacting Leone, but she finds her acting duties to be easy. The show improves, and the sponsors are happy. Meanwhile, Paloma learns that her tantrums won't get her what she wants at problem-teen rehab, so she decides to cooperate until she can get out. However, just when Leone and Jack believe their plan has succeeded beyond their dreams, events take a different turn. Sheldon writes sophisticated, droll humor throughout, balancing comedy against the character development of the two girls. Writing in alternate chapters for each, she weaves the story together from two quite different viewpoints. Descriptions of Paloma's ultraluxurious, superficial Hollywood lifestyle meet Oona's real world, and real emotions result along with the laughter.Constantly funny, splendidly witty: a bull's-eye. (Fiction. 12-18)

Kirkus Reviews