Back Talk by: Alex Richards

Book Description (from publishers): Goodbye small town hell . . . hello Big Apple! Sixteen-year-old Gemma Winters couldn't be more ecstatic-and terrified-about scoring a summer internship at one of the hippest daytime TV talk shows, Back Talk with Kate Morgan. To top it off, she's staying in a palatial brownstone in Manhattan with celebutante Dana Cox (a virtual E! True Hollywood Story in the making) and world-weary millionheiress America Vanderbilt. Gemma's corn-fed naiveté melts away as she gets a taste of designer clothes, underclubbing . . . and a cute Johnny Depp look-a-like.

The glamour fades by nine a.m. when Gemma becomes slave labor for harried producers. Not even her borrowed Manolo Blahniks can shield her from an office romance turned ugly and backstabbing fellow interns. When someone is unfairly fired and a show is at risk, Gemma goes out of her way to prove this small-town girl is more than just a "photocopy bitch."

My Review: Honestly, I don't even remember why I picked it up. I was hoping for something Gossip Girl-esque and found, well, Back Talk. The premise is promsing, if not a bit tired. Small town girl. Big city. Chaos ensues! Gemma (whose name I instantly forgot once the book was placed back on my shelf) is a nice girl. She finds herself working at a not-so-nice job, gets almost raped, and tries to save a child prostitute from demise at the hands of her pimp. I wondered if Ms. Richards didn't like her character to begin with? Name-dropping, cursing and too-fast-to-be-real falling in-n'-out of love fill the 257 pages of this book.

Total: two and a half stars. (But only because of the exagerrated workplace, which I loevd to hate, I admit.)