What teenage girl hasn’t compared herself to the models and actors on TV? What girl hasn’t felt bad about herself at one point or another? But who has ever thought that the glamorous world of Hollywood is all fake? Well, Meg Cabot has.
In Runaway by Meg Cabot, feminist rebel Em Watts is suffering from a brain transplant into the body of Nikki Howard, America’s hottest model. Some may think it’s heaven. Who wouldn’t want to become perfect overnight? But Nikki’s world is far from perfect. Spy-ware is in all of her electronics and she’s tailed constantly, not to mention she was blackmailed into playing Nikki Howard in the first place.
Em must uncover the motive behind Nikki’s supposed death, bring down the organization that ordered it, and protect her family, all the while trying to figure out her relationship with her best friend/ boyfriend, Christopher, and walk down a runway wearing a million-dollar diamond bra on national television.
Cabot keeps a slightly sarcastic, slightly ditzy tone throughout the book as she sends a clear message to girls around the world that they should be happy with who they are and not try to be different. She describes the modeling preparation with painstaking detail, where hours of work are put into one person for every photo shoot (and then they use Photo Shop on top of that). Cabot writes the romance between Em and Christopher with an effortless, carefree style that is purely her own.
Runaway, the third book in the Airhead trilogy, is perfect for any girl (feminist or girly) looking for a thrilling but light book with a tone with the girlish sense of teenage romance.
Ink and Paper 