The Daughters by Joanna Philbin

This is my official start to blogging this year, with an attempt to update and post reviews more often.  I debated picking just the right book to be my first review of the year, but then decided to go with one that I wrote and meant to post last year, The Daughters by Joanna Philbin.

 My copy of the book is an ARC.  The cover of the actual book was changed so that the girls more closely resembled the characters in the book.

Plot:

The Daughters took that title because they are all daughters of famous people forced to share their parents’ spotlight, whether they feel comfortable there or not.  In this book, the 1^st in the series, the story focuses on Lizzie, the daughter of the world’s most famous supermodel.  Lizzie hates being forced to share the spotlight with her beautiful mother because she feels she’ll always be seen as lacking.  After one little comment said on camera out of anger and frustration puts her in her own spotlight though, she sees a beauty in herself she never had before, and vulnerability in her mother she never knew.  Of course, there were plenty of stumbles along the way.

Review:

Characters:

Lizzie: It was nice to see Lizzie stop being so harsh about her own appearance and come to respect her mother more.  Generally she was a likeable character that you wanted to see do well.  That’s not to say that there weren’t issues, and I had two in particular.  First, there was a point in the story where she looks a woman in the eyes and realizes that this was not someone she could lie to, then five pages later she lies to the woman.  I guess it could have been a “can’t lie to your eyes, but I can to your back” type of thing, but it seemed more like a “can’t lie to this person” thing.  In the second incident, she and the guy she likes have a misunderstanding because she ditches him when Carina needs her, but I honestly did not buy that she wouldn’t have given even a sentence more of explanation that would have prevented the following drama.  Of course, his actions afterward were also kind of hard to believe. 

Carina: The athletic, rebellious girl.

Hudson: The fashion loving, musician who may be too nice.

You really only get an outline of their personality and interest in this book, but it didn’t’ feel like you got to know them; it was more of an introduction to what would happen in their own books. 

Plot:

This is a fun, easy read.  It’s like reading a teen movie, the kind you watch, laugh at, and enjoy when you are looking for mindless, feel-good entertainment.  It may have been a bit predictable, but it worked.

I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t more like Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants where you really got to know each character in each book.  With a title like “The Daughters” I was really expecting it to be more about all of the daughters. 

My last thought on this book is that it may not have longevity for the marketplace. It’s really a snapshot of the times.  There is a lot of name dropping of places, people and objects, which may no longer be relevant in a few years.