Anne Marie Pace (Children's Literature)
Future Biographers, take note: Lily Blennerhassett is keeping a diary. When she becomes a rich and famous writer, her take on her thirteen-year-old life will be here for you to study--the good, the bad, and the very funny. At the start of the book, Lily's in despair; her best friend Charlotte has abandoned her for Young Executive Camp and her parents make her crazy--particularly because they're normal, boring parents who are failing to provide her with the rich experiences she thinks she will need to produce a great novel someday. Enter the LeBlancs--distant relatives who fascinate Lily with their expensive taste in clothes, vegetarianism, and environmental activism. After they manage to scam Lily into loaning them her family's vacation house and then sue her family for $1.3 million, they lose their thrall for Lily, who learns to appreciate what she has. Lily's adoration of the LeBlanc family wears a bit thin, but overall, this is an entertaining novel that middle-school girls will pass to their friends. 2003, HarperCollins Children's Books, $15.99. Ages 10 to 13.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2003 (Vol. 71, No. 20))
Pay attention, future biographers. Writer-to-be Lily Blennerhassett wants you to know her secrets-plus she's getting credit for this vacation diary. It's going to be a dull summer: Lily's parents schedule outings to yarn-making seminars and accordion factories and her best friend is at Young Executive Camp. But at an otherwise dreadful family wedding, Lily meets her fascinating LeBlanc cousins. The family snubs cool cousin Karma and parents, but Lily adores them. They're beautiful, stylish, and definitely not boring. Despite her parents' disapproval, Lily spends much of the summer visiting the LeBlancs. She loves their environmental group, Hug the Planet, and their fancy clothes and food. Though Lily won't see it, the untrustworthy LeBlancs exploit her financially. When she gives her cousins the key to her family's summer cabin, things go horribly wrong. Is Lily too gullible to be a writer? Will she need to become an accountant instead? A delightful heroine, sweeter than predecessors Georgia Nicholson and Adrian Mole-and hilarious. 2003, HarperCollins, $15.99. Category: Fiction. Ages 9 to 14. © 2003 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Karen Coats (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, February 2004 (Vol. 57, No. 6))
Lily Blennerhassett suffers under the curse of having respectable, ritual-driven, drama-free parents, a fate that she fears may prevent her from reaching her goal of being a world-famous author. She is thus primed to become enamored of her exotic and sophisticated relatives, Charles, Veronique, and Karma LeBlanc, especially when she is warned off them by her boring parents. Obvious to readers despite (or perhaps because of) Lily’s gushing infatuation with the urbane family is the fact that the LeBlancs are working a con; abetted by the oblivious Lily, they devise a scheme that threatens to bankrupt her family with a spurious lawsuit. Lily records everything in her summer journal, ostentatiously addressed to her Future Biographers, with enough exclamation points and cutesy asides to compensate for her boring existence. Reading back over her own work reveals to her that her life is, after all, full of the drama that she has been craving, and that she has been a duped protagonist. Readers will have known this all along, and hence the intrusion of Lily’s insights comes off as slightly condescending. Though funny in patches and deft in the presentation of family quirks, the prose simply tries too hard to approximate the hyperbolic angst of a verbally precocious but clueless thirteen-year-old. Her concluding metafictive reflections badger readers with the tail-between-the-legs humility of a lesson learned: appreciate the stability and wisdom of the ordinary. The lively plot pacing and witty critiques of family life will likely keep the book circulating, but it will remain no more or less memorable than the latest after-school special. Review Code: Ad -- Additional book of acceptable quality for collections needing more material in the area. (c) Copyright 2004, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2003, HarperCollins, 245p, $16.89 and $15.99. Grades 4-8.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, Spring 2004)
Lily Blennerhassett, convinced she will be a famous writer one day, keeps a notebook for the benefit of her "future biographers," in which she relates the events of her thirteenth summer. With her best friend away at camp, Lily falls under the spell of some fascinating relatives who turn out to be con artists. Lily's relentless perkiness becomes a bit wearing, but the writing is undeniably lively, and the action nonstop. Category: Intermediate Fiction. 2003, HarperCollins, 247pp, $15.99, $16.89. Ages 9 to 12. Rating: 4: Recommended, with minor flaws.

Donna Bode (The Lorgnette - Heart of Texas Reviews (Vol. 16, No. 4))
Thirteen-year-old Lily wants to be an author, and she writes everything that happens to her in her diary. She also thinks that she has boring parents, and when she meets the LeBlancs, who are distant relatives, at a wedding that she is forced to go to, she thinks that they are totally cool. Mr. And Mrs. LeBlanc and Karma, their daughter, convince Lily to do things that her parents would not approve of. Things like swimming in the pool at the hotel after closing hours, charging on her “emergency only” credit card, and handing over the keys to their summer house. Lily is so trusting, but the readers understand what is happening. The LeBlancs are con artists. When the dust settles, Lily discovers that her family is the best and that she might be a writer after all. The author has produced a funny, fast-paced novel. Fiction. Grades 5-8. 2003, HarperCollins, 245p., $16.89. Ages 10 to 14.

Walter Hogan (VOYA, October 2003 (Vol. 26, No. 4))
This novel might surprise some readers. The title and cover art, as well as the tone of the book's first few chapters, signal that it will be a light-hearted, female-oriented novel about a typical suburban thirteen-year-old girl. Lily Blennerhassett is just that sort of narrator, but her exuberant, self-centered chirpiness is subjected to some major strains as events unfold. Lily begins her story saying, "My life lacks excitement," and she is eager to break away. Before long, Lily finds just the sort of excitement she has been seeking in the company of the LeBlancs, a glamorous and adventurous family she meets at a wedding. Charles and Veronique LeBlanc and their daughter, Karma, exude all of the style and charisma that Lily admires. She is thrilled when they take an interest in her, and she feels "on the brink of cool" when she is with them. She eventually finds that the thrills come with an unexpected price tag. The novel is presented as Lily's summer diary through September and her fourteenth birthday. As in other recent diary novels, such as Jaclyn Moriarty's Feeling Sorry for Celia (St. Martin's, 2000/VOYA April 2001) and Louise Rennison's Georgia Nicholson books, the diary format is stretched to implausible limits, as if the diarist were recording fresh entries in her journal almost continuously. Aside from that quibble, this diary novel is well told, presenting an initially naïve narrator, who has an intense social adventure that forcefully teaches her about substance versus appearances. PLB $16.89. VOYA CODES: 3Q 3P M J (Readable without serious defects; Will appeal with pushing; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2003, HarperCollins, 240p, $15.99. Ages 11 to 15.