Customer Reviews
Secrets of My Hollywood Life 
2008-04-28
Secrets of My Hollywood Life
Jen Calonita
"I just want to go to school for a bit, I'm not quitting I'm just taking a break."
Every teenagers dream is to be rich and maybe even famous, well not for this Hollywood star. 16-year-old Superstar Kaitlin Burke dreams to be a normal teenager. She wants days that aren't planned everyday. Going to school seems like the perfect idea.... or maybe it isn't.
School is tough for her, first being made fun of because of what she wears and her accent. Some things do work out like, making new friends, being invited to some of the hottest parties on campus, signing up for school activities and maybe even falling in love? But just as things seem to be going good for Kaitlin, will it all turn out to be a total disaster, or will someone even find out who Rachel really is?
This was a really good book I would recommend this to girls in grades 5-8, girls this age will be able to connect with Kaitlin.
The plot was set out nice and evenly there wasn't to many events happening at once. Jen Calonita is a great author I love the way she wrote Kaitlins life. Don't miss the next one and the third book coming out soon!
-Bailey C.
What it's really like to be a celebrity! 2008-04-22
Kaitlin Burke is the girl who everyone wishes they could be. She's got many mega movie deals, a hit prime time television show, and many more things going for her, but she just isn't happy! Unlike her mother and many other people around her Kaitlin thinks that she deserves at least a little bit of a vacation when her hit television show "Family Affair" wraps up for the season. With the help of her best friend she creates a disguise and attends an actual school under a false identity. School is a big experience for Kaitlin, she goes to her first actually real party, meets an incredibly nice guy who isn't even famous and attends she her first real school dance! Kaitlin attends the school dance with Austin. (the incredibly nice, non-famous guy who she met!) Everything seems to be going well until Kaitlin's celebrity arch nemesis, Skye Hamilton shows up, and turns it into a horror in which Kaitlin will never forget! Discover Kaitlin's next move as you pick up "Secrets of my Hollywood life" by Jen Calonita!
WOW!!!!! 2008-04-21
This book was amazing!!!!!! I can't believe hardly anyone wrote reviews for this book. There are also two other books in this series, Secrets of my Hollywood Life: On Location and Secrets of my Hollywood Life: Family Affairs. They were all so good I read them all in the same month! It gives you a good idea of what it is really like to be a celebrity. It shows that Hollywood stars are just regular people underneath all of the glamour and they find it very important to have a private life. In this book, the leading character, Kaitlyn Burke, wants to have the chance to be a normal girl. So she enrolls in school and everything becomes a big disaster. If you want find out the whole story you've got to read the book. So buy it now!!!!
totally amazing novel 2008-04-18
I am 14 years old and this is one of the most amazing book I have every read. I love the plot and the characters are are so realistic. I love the fact that it has real facts about hollywood. It kept me reading untill I got to the end. It was so amazing I had to buy the next book the same day! A great book!! :)
The inside scoop we've ALL been waiting for! 2008-03-25
So... In the book "Secrets of My Hollywood Life" we are introduced to young Hollywood star, Kaitlin Burke. Everyone in America LOVES her, heck, EVERYONE loves her, but Kaitlin is sick of the attention. Directors want her, girls want to Be her, and boys want to be WITH her. All Kaitlin wants is to be a normal girl with normal friends. If only her Beautiful blond waves and emerald green eyes didn't give her away. WAIT! What better thing to do then to disguise herself and go to the same school as her best (normal) friend Liz... right!? WRONG! Kaitlin soon finds out that being "normal" isn't exactly a walk in the park either. With her new cropped brown hair wig, brown contacts, fake name, fake but oh-so-good Brittish accent, and thrift-store threads, Kaitlin is labeled the GEEK of all GEEKS in her school. Only her closest friends and family know her secret. If anyone outside her inner circle found out, Kaitlin wouldn't be America's sweetheart anymore and her career would be on the line. Not to mention how much everyone would HATE her. Kaitlin is in a tight situation and it doesn't help that everyone in school is making fun of her. Everyone except for Austin. Austin is the all-around best guy that a girl can ask for. He's smart, funny, and HOTT! Austin likes the new girl Rachel (our favorite Kaitlin Burke in disguise) and he likes her for being so real and sharing interests with him. What he doesn't know is that Rachel is Kaitlin whos jealous co-star, Sky Makenzie, is out to ruin her career. Who knows what will happen next in this thrilling adventure!?! Will Kaitlin be revealed? Will Austin like Rachel AND Kaitlin? Will Sky FINALLY be fired?! It is all answered in this FANTASTIC book! Read it! The worst that will happen is that you won't like it (yeah right!) I rated it FIVE STARS for a reason you know! I hope you enjoyed my review!
Check out all my other reviews!
<3 tAyLoR =]
Great Book! 2007-09-06
What if? Your picture was taped inside teenage boys' lockers across America, your closets were bursting with never-worn designer clothing, and the tabloids constantly asked whether you were losing your "good girl" status?
It's a glamorous life, but 16-year-old Kaitlin Burke, co-star of one of the hottest shows on TV, is exhausted from the pressures of her fame. So she decides to spend two months undercover as an ordinary high school student. But could it be that real life high school is just as harsh as cutthroat Hollywood??
Juicy Hollywood secrets appear throughout. Combining the vicarious star-studded glamour of the New York Times bestselling A-List with the innocence of The Princess Diaries, this is an engrossing look behind the velvet ropes of stardom.
Krazy About Kaitlyn 2007-08-21
What a refreshing change of pace in the world of "tween" novels!
The author is wonderfully descriptive and the characters come alive, making you feel as if you've jumped right into the pages and have become part of the story yourself. This book is difficult to put down and always keeps you wondering what will happen to Kaitlyn next. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series! For those parents that are leery of the content, I can assure you this book is good clean fun! You will thoroughly enjoy it from beginning to end!
GREAT BOOK!!!! 2007-08-12
I LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS BOOK! Kaitlin is a great character in the Hollywood lifestyle! An awesome read for anyone! I coud not put this book down! I recomend this book with a big thumbs up! A definately intresting story and page turner! Jen Calonita did a great job with this book and I loved Kaitlins journey!
Love Kait, but flat writing 
2007-05-05
After reading an excerpt of the book - the first chapter, I had high hopes. Kaitlyn seemed like a real person, not some stereotypical, contrived "it girl" that fills so many other YA books nowadays. (And I'm not just talking about the 'Gossip Girls')
I was dissapointed.
Not with Kait's character, which was awesome, but with the writing. It seemed flat. Good enough to hold my interest for a short story, but relying heavily on suspended belief for an entire novel. In short, the writing was dry. Flat.
But I can overlook almost anything if I love the character(s) enough, and Kaitlyn is awesome.
Reviewed by Jocelyn Pearce 
2007-01-26
Kaitlin Burke is a star. In Jen Calonita's novel Secrets of My Hollywood Life, everyone in America knows Kaitlin's name; she's been playing the character of Sam on the soap Family Affairs since she was four years old. But while her picture is on the walls of teenagers' bedrooms across America, when does she get to just be Kaitlin? After brainstorming with her best friend, Liz, at their favorite pizza place, she comes up with a plan. She wants to be ordinary and inconspicuous for awhile ,and what better way to do it than live her best friend's life? Or at least go to her school.
For Kaitlin's break from the life of a starlet, she enrolls at Clark Hall as Rachel Rogers, a mousy British girl visiting America for a few months. It's the perfect disguise--between the accent, the short brown hair, the brown contacts, the glasses, and the very un-superstar clothes, nobody will ever recognize Kaitlin for the Hollywood star she is. She's thrilled to have new friends and a cute guy who like her for who she is, and being free of her jealous Family Affairs co-star (at least during school hours), Skye, is definitely a bonus.
When her two lives begin to collide, however, and the possibility of being found out and exposed (the tabloids aren't helping with that one), Kaitlin has to figure her life out, fast.
Jen Calonita's novel is a quick, entertaining read that will have the attention of readers from the beginning to the end, eager to find out what will happen to Kaitlin. Kaitlin's voice, which certainly echoes that of a real teenager, is fresh and funny, and helps to make Secrets of My Hollywood Life a fun page-turner.
The characters are all very realistic, especially Kaitlin, who, despite the very extraordinary life she leads (when she's not playing Rachel Rogers), is a very grounded and ordinary teenage girl. The colorful characters in Kaitlin's life seem just as real, from her overbearing publicist Laney to her cocky thirteen-year-old brother, Matt. Jen Calonita really brings them all to life!
The whole idea of Secrets Of My Hollywood Life is a good one as well. Every girl likes to imagine herself as famous, and Kaitlin really is--but it's not all it's cracked up to be. The inside look at the life of a celebrity will hook readers, and Kaitlin's desire to be more ordinary will only keep them interested! It's an entertaining idea, but also one that teenagers will be able to relate to--who hasn't wanted to be something they're not? Perhaps for most people, they are ordinary (like Rachel Rogers) wanting to be a star (like Kaitlin Burke), and Kaitlin is the opposite, but it's still a feeling people will be able to relate to while reading this novel.
Jen Calonita's novel is one that teenage girls will love. Kaitlin is a celebrity who regular teenagers will still be able to relate to, which makes her a great main character. An insider's look at Hollywood is something that people are always looking for in the magazines, and here it is, with a fabulous story to go with it! Secrets Of My Hollywood Life is an entertaining debut novel from Jen Calonita, and readers will be eagerly awaiting her second book about Kaitlin!
