"Both based and cringe at the same time. almost impressive."

"5 stars, no notes. "

"You know what? I'm giving this five stars; it was the most entertaining and bizarre thing I've read in ages. In order to help you all understand, I've written an analogy that will take you back to studying for the SATs:

My Immortal : Harry Potter :: Modelland : America's Next Top Model

"

"Dude.

I just read Modelland. In one day. Why? Because it's such a train wreck I couldn't actually stop. I don't know what I read. I'm confused. I think someone slipped me some drugs.

Things that I thought I'd get out of this book:
-modeling
-some posing with hands on hips or something
-a message of female empowerment
-maybe a romance?

What I actually got out of this book:
-dumpster diving
-armpit sniffing
-some very graphic puke scenes

So from the cover, I understood that this was a something-like-a-dystopian-novel where there was a big shiny academy where lucky girls got chosen to compete to be Intoxibellas, which are supermodels. The main character, Tookie, is a Forgetta-girl, which is a forgettable girl. Plus, one of my goodreads friends reviewed this and it sounded so hilariously bad I couldn't help but try it out. And oh, wow.

I get comfortable in my work chair and turn on my iPad and on the first page, this gem stares up at me: “You begin your mornings staring at the fog, longing for the fateful evening when it will turn a golden yellow and then, finally, like a push-up brassiere, lift.�

But it gets better. The first introduction to Tookie, when the story actually starts, she's lying on the floor in the hallway of her school, squirting whipped cream into her mouth directly from the can. I mean, really? This is the main chracter. This is the person we follow through the whole book. But anyway, she is trying to get attention—she's a Forgetta-girl, after all, and no one even sees her. Except her best friend, with whom she sniffs armpits. (They probably smell pretty bad, because the BFFL lives in a tree on a mattress, so.)

The whole world is aflutter because they're going to choose new applicants to be Intoxibellas. They go through all the people who are walking around the world and “discover� them, take them up to Modelland, and then they more or less brutally fight their way through to be one of the final seven at the very end. Each of the seven has a special power, like ThirtyNever (this one is my favorite!!), where the Intoxibella, on her thirtieth birthday, reverts to a seventeen year old. This cycle repeats until she dies. (I'm not sure how she dies since she doesn't age.) Very very very rarely there's something called a Triple7, which means that Intoxibella gets all of the powers. There's only one right now and her name is Ci~L! (That's Ci~L with a tilde, not a hyphen.)

There's some dumpster diving for clothes, and then some picketing about armpit hair (“The hairy hag was Abigail Goode, sideburns in full glory, faint mustache above her upper lip, unshaven leg hair coating her calves, underarm hair swaying in the wind, and a DOWN WITH RAZORS! picket sign still in her hands.�)

To no one's surprise but Tookie's family, she's chosen to become a Bella (student) over her sister Myrracle, who is gorgeous but stupid. She says DA-TAH instead of TA-DA! The scout goes to other countries, and picks a few people who are as weird and misfit as Tookie (who by the way has an enormous forehead, mismatched eyes and apparently the world's biggest feet) and they insta-bond and become friends. Tookie can understand them because she speaks every language on the planet, even if we don't:

(actual screenshot)

They're shown through Modelland and there's an arena where “pretty boys and gorgeous girls battle in ManAttack, the one class you'll have with our brother male modeling academy, Bestosterone.� But don't worry, there are no gorgeous male models here! Bestosteros are only there to look at, they're an ACCESSORY, like a handbag, and they build things and look good but that's about it.

The head Intoxibella person is called the BellaDonna, and she sings, and it's AWFUL:

Modelland is your new HOME
Welcome to this superDOME
For you XX-chromoSOMED
Modelland is your new HOME.

I don't know, guys, there's a storyline here, but I have to say I didn't find it. There's a Bestostero that she has the hots for named Bravo, and at some point she sucks his thumb, and it's the most awkward thing I've ever read. There's not a lot of romance and the chemistry is like... staring at the periodic table... but she sucks his thumb and he tastes masculine, however masculine tastes.

Now first off, they have THBC, which stands for... thigh high boot camp. They have their own faces melt off so they know better than to ever share cosmetics (which they do on like, the next page) and they're choked to death by knockoff handbags and fake jewelry because it's wrong to buy that stuff, it's made by underage laborers (which Tookie would have been if she wasn't chosen). They get their thigh-high boots, and nightgowns with capes, and then their real classes begin and they're pretty uneventful, I guess, except that one class is about binge eating and how you should always listen to your body and how there are four girls that are anorexic and that is Wrong.

There's a lot of graphic vomit scenes, where mostly everyone pukes and everyone else rolls around in it. Okay, not really, but Tookie throws up in a girl's hair, and then her friend (who has regressed into bulimia from her childhood) throws up all over herself and the bathroom, so the four Unicas, as they call themselves, all sit in the vomit-covered bathroom to bond, and then later, a baby is born into a toilet full of vomit because the mother didn't even know she was pregnant, (the baby lives!) so there is that.

There are also these weird things called Mannecants, which look like mannequins, made from some of the people who failed at becoming Intoxibellas. Clever, right?

So if this sounds like I wrote this review on crack, I didn't. It's pretty much the plotline of this book, for what it's worth, and there are two more. There was potential, but anytime anything got remotely interesting that plotline was dropped for leg hair and vomit.

Here are some more quotes:
“Lynne began snapping with her right hand to the rhythm of the Leg Leech's head-bopping beat. The creature seemed pleased, and motioned for Myrracle and Lynne to join in with both hands. Myrracle complied, snapping double time while doing her signature high kicks. But Lynne just could not double-snap to perfection, given that she had lost her left hand's middle finger weeks before.�

�

“The guards dropped Tookie's arms and [spoiler] said, �Psych! Tookie, I was totally kidding. I was spooky, huh? Like before, when I was crazy, but I'm not creazy now but I feel crazy cus I'm the frickin' BellaDonna. I'm so nervous and now I'm sweating again. You know how I sweat. Augh! Come here, girl!� And then [spoiler] wrapped Tookie in a big hug.

“[spoiler], you totally freaked me out,� Tookie said, giggling nervously. “I thought you were gonna kill me.�

�

I even read the acknowledgements at the end. She thanks the Hudson River. And the Pacific Ocean. So there's that. "