Secrets of the Model Dorm

Scouted from her southern farming community and sent to Manhattan to train as a model, eighteen-year-old Heather Johnston finds herself in a cramped dormitory with other models and is rapidly disenchanted by the harsh realities of eating disorders, drugs, and high-stakes competition. 100,000 first printing.

Everything that could be expected in a novel about aspiring models is present: casual sex, drug usage, club hopping, backstabbing, and though Kerlin, an ex-model, and Oh, a DJ and music consultant, are familiar with the lifestyle, they manage to make it a chore to read about. Heather Johnston, newly arrived to Manhattan from the modeling minor league in Miami, is determined to prove to herself and her doubting family that she can succeed as a model. The agency that represents her provides her with the use of a downtown apartment, which she shares with a handful of other aspiring models, including Svetlana, a calculating Russian possessed of a dubious grasp of English. While out one night, Heather meets a dashing French nightclub owner, Robert du Croix, who shows unusual interest in Heather as a person, not merely a body. Svetlana, though, is obsessed with Robert as well. Something akin to drama ensues, but even the frisson of titillation that should accompany a book about desperate models is lost to flat prose and crude stabs at character development. (Jan.)
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Anyone attracted to the glamour of modeling will do a double take upon reading former model Kerlin and Oh's fictional expose of New York's fashion world. Heather Johnston leaves Miami for New York City when she is accepted by the Agency, one of the hottest modeling firms in town. But she experiences a rude awakening when she finds herself housed in a dorm with several other models and forced to sleep in bunks that are too short for the tall girls and to contend with a messy place only one bothers to clean. Her roommates are a colorful bunch, however, including Svetlana, who is crazy for both men and cocaine; Laura, who is being driven crazy by the Agency's shoddy treatment; and Kylie, a friendly Australian who downs more Metamucil than food. Heather soon learns that being a young hopeful has its advantages when a handsome French nightclub owner begins to pursue her. Readers will be engrossed by this inside look at the lives of ingenue models. Kristine Huntley
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