Airhead: Being Nikki by Meg Cabot

September 2009, MacMillan Children's Books
256 pages, Paperback
Review Copy

Young Adult, thriller

Cushions: 4/5
Paperclips: 1/5
Smiles: 3/5
Tissues: 1/5
Yunaleska's recommended rating: ♥♥♥♥♥

Kicking off her adventure in a body switch with the famous model Nikki in Airhead, Em Watts is settling into life as a successful model. Just because she has the body of a model doesn't mean she knows all the tricks of the trade. The moaning of her (well, Nikki's) amnesia induced forgetfulness in her beauty routine is the least of her worries.

At the forefront of her mind and actions are the true intentions of the Stark enterprise who are behind her bodyswitch. Techno-savvy Em knows they are spying on her: there was the sluggish laptop where they could monitor her net surfing, the Stark brand phone where they could listen in on her calls. Em initially missed noticing the listening devices in the apartment, but that problem is easily solved once she deals with Nikki's brother. It takes a long time to convince him that she isn't Nikki. As a member of the armed forces, he's quite a formidable figure. It is Em's caring nature, completely opposite to the original Nikki, which wins him over. That still doesn't help his issue of their missing mother.

Compassionate Em happily gets dragged into searching for Nikki's mother. So what if she has to skip school to do so? It's unfortunate that her younger sister Frida becomes involved in the search, even more unfortunate that Frida is striving to become a particular type of student which Em fears. However, finding Nikki's mother isn't the end of the story - it's more like the beginning of the suspense packed adventure, where Em will have to pretend to be someone she's not (I'm not just talking about acting like Nikki) to save her family from Stark's clutches.

The twist at the end is enormous. Looking back, I can see how the twist occurs, but I had no idea until it struck me in the face. Neither did Em. It's a twist that has me counting down the days for the release of Runaway.

Before I finish, I have to talk about the cover. I prefer this to the American version: the silhouette works well. The bright orange reminds me of a highlighter - it had my mother picking it up and looking at it. This cover works - the marketing team have a winner here!

Meg Cabot's website can be found here.

Liked this? Make sure you've read the first installment, Airhead.