While Molly’s mom is dying from cancer, she confesses to the 16-year-old Indiana native that her dad is Brick Berlin, a famous movie star. Mom’s dying wish is for Molly to connect with her father. So, grief-stricken and ready for anything that might bring some change into her life, Molly moves to Hollywood. She hopes to get to know Brick as she recovers from her loss. Instead, she is greeted by a manic—at best—half-sister and an absentee father.
Her newly discovered half-sister, also 16, is anything but helpful in introducing Molly around and making her transition to a new school easier. It turns out that Brooke Berlin has been coping with having Brick as a father for years, and she’s not about to share what little bit of face time she has with him with a hick from Indiana. Colby-Randall Preparatory School is a hotbed of cliques and spoiled rich kids, and Brooke’s unwillingness to take Molly under her wing makes the school all the more difficult for Molly to navigate. Her only rays of light are the friendships she begins to create with the headmaster’s two kids, Max and Teddy. However, when her feelings for Teddy threaten to undermine her relationship with her boyfriend back in Indiana, her life gets even more complicated.
On the surface, Spoiled is as much about fashion as relationships, but within a few pages it becomes clear that Molly and Brooke are multifaceted and extremely interesting characters. They both grow and change as the story progresses, and readers will appreciate their transformations as well as the cheeky and often hilarious prose of authors Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, whose site, gofugyourself.com, is one of the most popular fashion blogs on the web. Their trademark wit and fashion sense are both evident within the pages of Spoiled, and readers will hope their debut YA novel isn’t their last.
