RELEASE DAY: Krysten Lindsay Hager "True Colors"

  

Blurb

Every day I walked down the sidewalk to school and wished I were one of the interesting popular girls who ran up with exciting news. Just once I’d like to be one of those girls instead of the being the one who didn’t get invited to things because people “forgot” about me.

Landry gets pushed into trying out for the American Ingénue reality show modeling competition with her two best friends.  She doesn’t think she stands a chance, but she advances to the next level in the competition and her friends ignore her when they get cut. 

Enter the gorgeous Devon, who also makes the first cut and includes Landry in her clique. Devon becomes the perfect best friend, but can their friendship survive the competition?

Landry hopes her big break could come at any moment, but soon sees there’s much more to modeling. She begins missing out on being with friends and has the chance to have a boyfriend when she meets a boy named Vladi from another school.

Part of Landry wants to be famous (and have her hair look good for once), but part of her just wants to be accepted. She learns about friendships, being true to yourself, and that a good hair conditioner doesn’t hurt.

 

 

About the Author:

Krysten Lindsay Hager is a writer and journalist from Michigan and has lived in South Dakota and Portugal. She currently resides in the Dayton, Ohio area with her husband. You can find her at: http://krystenlindsay.blogspot.com/
 

 

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Excerpt:

Chapter One

Every day I walked down the sidewalk to school and wished I was one of those interesting girls who ran up with exciting news. They were always yelling, way before they got to their group of friends so everyone could hear, about how they got asked out, or their parents were taking them on some amazing vacation or something. I’d prefer my news to be more like, “Guess what? I’m going to be in a music video!” Or maybe, “Guess who’s going to be in a movie?” But nothing, nada, never any news to share. Well, once a stray cat had kittens in my garage, but it was more annoying than anything since it smelled like cat pee in there for months after my mom found homes for them all. I couldn’t even say, “Ooh, guess who got a kitty?” since my mom said I couldn’t keep one because the poor thing would get lost in my mess of a room and starve.

Still, just once I’d like to be the interesting one instead of the girl who didn’t get invited to things because people “forgot” about her. Instead, I was the girl picked last in gym class (like today) and who couldn’t even get noticed there when I tried to get hit during dodge ball so I could sit down.

“Okay, hit the showers,” Coach Daly said.

I hadn’t done anything to cause me to break a sweat, so I didn’t need a shower. I pulled my ponytail holder out of my hair and hoped for the best. My pale blond hair, which behaved so well last weekend when no one saw it, now looked and felt like a broom. The more I tried to fix it, the more it felt like hay. I tried putting in a dab of styling crème, but it just made it greasy. I didn’t know how my hair managed to have a dry texture while looking oily at the same time, but it did.

I gave up on my hair and went to get dressed. I tugged on my khaki pants and navy sweater, which made up my glorious Hillcrest Academy uniform, (it was just my luck my school picked colors which made me look like a dead goldfish), grabbed my bag, and went to join the rest of my class lined up to go to the cafeteria. I was almost fourteen and yet had to walk to the lunchroom in a straight line like Madeline from the storybook. Stupid Hillcrest.

Lunch was my favorite part of the day. For one, it meant the school day was half over. I went through the lunch line and grabbed a ham sandwich, some chips, and a bottle of water and went to join my two best friends, Ericka Maines and Tori Robins. The lunchroom was always extra noisy on Fridays because everybody was talking about their plans for the weekend. Sometimes Ericka, Tori, and I went to a movie, but we didn’t do much else. Tori and I liked to go shopping, but Ericka’s parents thought hanging out at the mall would “morally corrupt” Ericka, blah, blah, blah. And they about had a stroke when she wanted to get a social media page. So I was surprised when Ericka said we should all go to the mall tomorrow.

“Landry, they’re having modeling tryouts to be on the American Ingénue show,” Ericka said, showing me the ad she had torn out of the Grand Rapids Press. “The Ingénue judges are trying to find local teens to compete on their reality show.”

I watched every second of the last show. Talisa Milan won and got a Little Rose cosmetics contract and was on this month’s cover of Bright and Lively magazine. She was also a host on Hot Videos Now, a music video show. Melani Parkington, the runner-up, was the new spokesperson for Bouncy Hair conditioner. You were almost guaranteed to be famous if you made it to the final round of the contest.

“First you have to win in your city, and then your state, and then the regional competition,” Tori read. “Then you get to the tough part of the competition where they vote off someone new each week on national TV.”

“It’s an amazing opportunity to get discovered,” Ericka said, checking out her reflection in her spoon.

“Yeah, except for the fact the judges are known to be brutal when they’re honest. Like when they told Melani her gorgeous face was too pinched, her forehead was too low, and her eyebrows were too high,” I said. “They also told one girl she was pretty, but her lips looked like she had walked into a sliding glass door.”

“Well, they did,” Ericka said shrugging. “The newspaper says the first fifty girls who try out got a free American Ingénue tote bag and Little Rose makeup samples.”

They were holding auditions at the Perry Mall, which was the smallest mall in Grand Rapids. There weren’t a lot of stores there, so you usually just saw old people mall walking around there. Still, it had a decent bookstore and a cute clothing store, so I said I’d go watch while they tried out.

“No, we’re all trying out,” Ericka said, grabbing the ad back from me. She said her mother thought she’d be a “natural” for the show since she always got the lead in the school plays. However, Ericka was usually the only one who tried out for the lead. Everyone else felt too stupid singing on stage in front of the whole school. Besides, you had to stay after school to rehearse, and I liked to go home and watch my favorite soap opera, As the Days Roll On.

“There’s no way I’m trying out,” I said. “They always make the girl stand on a platform while they tell her everything that’s wrong with her. Melani’s gorgeous, and they tore her apart. Besides, I don’t look anything like those girls on the show.”

I didn’t even buy makeup at the Little Rose cosmetics counter because I hated having the salespeople stare at my face to determine whether I was a summer gladiola or a spring daffodil.

“You’re tall,” Tori said. “Remember one judge wanted to kick Melani out for being too short.”

“Yeah, you’re practically the tallest girl in school,” Ericka said.