Violet in Private - Happy Release Day!

August 5, 2008

Violet in Privateby Melissa WalkerRELEASED TODAY! AUGUST 5, 2008!Violet Greenfield is done with modelling. She's finished, it's over. Good bye. At least that is what she has told herself, her friends and her family over and over. The only one she hasn't quite shared this information with fully is her abrasive and often harsh agent Angela. The perfect way to avoid confronting the Tryst Model agent is to just not answer the phone and concentrate on just being a normal nineteen year old girl enjoying college life.Violet in Private deals with Violet's struggle with losing her new found popularity versus being "just a college girl". Her two best friends Julie and Roger make appearances and we are introduced to another set of friends, Kurt, Fan, Jess and Oliver. Three of whom are Violet's new college roommies and one of whom has definite hottie potential!Through a series of events which unfold throughout the story, Violet is offered an editorial internship at Teen Fashionista magazine and is contacted by a teacher and asked to speak to her students about body image. Violet is finally finding her voice and more and more convinced that this is where she belongs, not on the runway.College life is just what Violet needs, she can eat normally, be herself and finds she is very happy this way. Her agent, however, is not happy with Violet's new life and can be downright hurtful in her comments about Violet's weight (some of which even made ME cringe!). What does Violet choose? Does she continue being Supermodel Violet, who has to watch what she eats and who she's with and where she is, or does she choose to stay College Violet and enjoy learning, new friends and being herself?I love, love, LOVE this series and main character Violet Greenfield. She is written very real and likable. Even the new characters were fun to read about, except I did not like Kurt. Other reviews I have been reading seem to really like him, I found him irritating beyond believe and just wanted to smack him a couple of time and tell him to shut the heck up. Oops. In general I am not a fan of loud and overly-hyper type people and I think he was written so well that my reaction was just as it would have it been had he been a real person in the room with me. I did, however, love how he and Veronica Trask got along. I thought the two of them together were hilarious and adorable. I love that Melissa Walker made Veronica seem more normal and less "I'm a model" when she was with him.Once again the issue of weight and body image is a major player in this story. I liked that Violet was very firm in her belief that she didn't need to starve herself to fit in. So what if she'd gained 10 pounds, she says herself in the story that she actually feels better with that little bit of extra weight and so what if she's not a size zero! At one point someone calls her out for walking the runway as a "plus-sized model!" and I had to think about that. If she WAS a size zero and gained about 10 pounds, wouldn't that make her about a size 2 or something? Since when was SIZE TWO a PLUS SIZE?Way to make ME feel like a hippo, Fashion Industry. Thanks. Bite me.Violet is finding her voice and starting to stand up to people in the industry more and more, including her agent. Once she realized that when the excitement wore off, it really wasn't a world she wanted to be a part of, things start to change. She develops more of a backbone than she ever has and the she doesn't even realize how much of an influence she has over the industry and others. She brings change to a world that has been stuck in an eating disorder rut for a long time. There is a confrontation at the end of the book which really impressed me and made me go, "Huh! Well, go you!"I am interested to see where things go from here if there are more Violet books. Melissa Walker does a great job of bringing up controversial topics in the fashion world and letting her readers know you don't have to be skin and bones to be pretty or popular. The book is subtly affirming without being preachy.Check out my 5 Questions interview with Melissa Walker for a glimpse into the mind of a spectacular author!If you haven't already, you should pick up the first two books about Violet!