Review: DupliKate

By Cherry Cheva
Released Sept 29 from HarperTeen

Read her guest blog!



I bought SHE'S SO MONEY, Cherry Cheva's YA debut, with my own money. (Full disclosure: it was actually a gift card from my former roommate, but that makes the sentence less snappy.) It was well worth it - funny and romantic. And I luckily finished it a mere two minutes before it was my turn to drive. So I was quite happy when I opened a mysterious package that included DUPLIKATE (along with Never Cry Werewolf and two other books that I shall review later). So happy that it was the first novel I read after returning to my permanent address from the UK. (Why are you only reading this review now? Because it's the release date.)

Kate Larson has a plan. She's gonna score well on her standardized tests and go to Yale with her hot and intelligent boyfriend Paul. Yeah, she's working herself into the ground, but it will be worth it. Then she falls asleep after opening up her old account on a game similar to SecondLife. She wakes up to Rina, her avatar, come to life - complete with a love of glitter and pink. But while Rina has the style of a preteen, she's got a brain of her own and a desire to get out of the house. The two begin switching, and things go wrong in classic storytelling fashion.

To me, DUPLIKATE was not as funny as SHE'S SO MONEY. However, it still made me laugh. I also enjoyed the complicated romantic dynamic between Kate, Rina, Paul, and Jake, Kate's former best friend. Both Jake and Paul are good guys, which makes any triangle more interesting. And Cheva knows overachieving teenagers. There's the self-imposed pressure, the desparate allocation of time . . . I managed my time and stress better than Kate when I was in high school, but I remember the drive and knowing that every one of my college admission essays sucked. (I still got in. I'm sure most college admission essays are pretty terrible, if only because the prompts are insipid.)

If you enjoy humorous, relationship-driven stories, you'll probably enjoy DUPLIKATE. Don't worry about the science fiction elements - Rina's existence isn't pondered much, it just is. And please ignore the cover, which I find boring. I prefer the motion of the SHE'S SO MONEY cover, even if it made me think the main character was Latina.

20 Things About 20-Year-Old Cherry Cheva

Jennifer Banash had to be hospitalized because her concussion got worse, so we're having a little change in schedule. So here's Cherry Cheva, the author of SHE'S SO MONEY and a Family Guy writer. She also wrote the Family Guy novel IT TAKES A VILLAGE IDIOT, AND I MARRIED HIM with Alex Borstein.

Before anyone asks: I really did give authors the option to write about something other than their 20s. I guess it's just a good time of life to write about, and who could complain when the guest blogs are this entertaining? (And hey - A.S. King, tomorrow's guest, didn't write about her 20s.)

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Livi’s turning 20! So, for my guest blog, I’m about to relate 20 facts about when I was 20. Okay, here goes!

1. It was kind of a long time ago. Yikes.
2. I mean, cellphones existed, but I didn’t have one yet.
3. I also didn’t have a fake ID.
4. This actually wasn’t a big deal, because my friend was a bouncer at the bar we usually went to.
5. (One time he bounced Claire Danes because she didn’t have a fake ID either and he didn’t recognize her.)
6. At age 20 I didn’t know I wanted to be a writer yet.
7. Correction—I did know, sort of, but I didn’t think it was possible. I mean, people getting paid to make stuff up? Hello! It’s madness! MADNESS!
8. My parents thought the same thing. Which is why they kept trying to get me to be a doctor.
9. There was no way in hell I was going to be a doctor.
10. Hence, I took the LSATs and started filling out a bunch of law school applications instead.
11. I knew this wasn’t the best idea in the world but I did it anyway. (It actually turned out okay so if I had to do it again I actually might, but boy oh boy is law school expensive.)
12. I had much shorter hair (about chin-length) than I do today (several inches below shoulder-length). What the hell was I thinking?
13. I was wearing flannel shirts that I still wear today, so maybe I was thinking something right. Or, depending on how you feel about flannel, something equally as wrong as I currently think.
14. I had no idea how to pursue a writing career, so I researched it on the internet and figured out that to get into TV writing, I really had to move to LA.
15. Unfortunately, I didn’t know anyone in LA, so I nixed this idea. (For the time being.) (I did move there eventually.) (Still not knowing anyone.)
16. I watched a lot of TV. (This is still true.)
17. I ran a lot. (This is no longer true.)
18. I was really in a short-story reading phase as opposed to a novel reading phase, for whatever reason.
19. I’m pretty sure the word “blog” didn’t exist yet.
20. I’m glad it does now! OK I know that last one has nothing to do with when I was 20 so I totally cheated but whatever! :) Happy Birthday Liviania!

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As I utterly love flannel and wear shirts I stole from my dad and sister, I think Cherry was doing something right. As for number 17 - I told ya'll exercise popped up quite a bit. (At least, I think I did.)



Either way, Cherry's offering a copy of the SHE'S SO MONEY paperback, which contains a preview of her 2009 release DUPLIKATE. So obey the rules and you might win something super fun. (Also, there's cool buttons on the rules post you can use to link back to the blogiversary.)