This Year's Model
Carol Alt
Avon, Sep 2008, $13.95
ISBN: 9780061366246

Trying to earn some money before going off to the University of Penn; tall Melody Ann Craft works as a server at the Porter House in Morristown, New Jersey. On his way back to civilization after visiting family in Cleveland, photographer Jonathan Novak stops on the barbaric side of the Hudson to grab a bite to eat. Melody Ann is his server and he thinks she is a beauty who displays decorum and cool calmness with a nice smile. He says he is not a stalker, leaves her with his business card and tells her to call the Manhattan model agencies using his name as a reference. He leaves her a nice tip before finishing his drive back to what he considers the real world.

Although cynical Melody calls and soon finds herself in Manhattan learning what it takes to be a supermodel. She is sent on shoots with photographers who must have been part of the Spanish Inquisition in a previous life and finds her peers detest rivals. However, Mac struggles with the male model hunks and huggable who are temptation. Still she wants to make it in Manhattan, but remain an ethical Jersey girl; a seemingly impossible mission.

'This Year's Model' is an exposure of what happens behind the scenes in the world of modeling as seen through an increasingly former innocent turning cynical gilded. Character drive the storyline especially the Jersey teen who tries to avoid the drug scene, the hunk scene, and the cat fight scene; which leaves her somewhat remaining as an outsider. Although nothing new, Carol Alt provides a deep look 'beyond the glory', glitter and glamour to the ugly underside of super modeling.

Harriet Klausner