From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up—Seventeen-year-old Sara wants to be spectacular. Not just pretty, not just popular, but spectacularly famous. She is a borderline anorexic, purposely hurts herself, often adopts different personalities, emits her own special perfume smell, and sees ghosts, among other things. When pop idol Jonathon Heat takes her under his wing, she crosses into a world of lunacy and cosmetic surgery to reach her goals. An eerie Michael Jackson-esque figure, Heat lives on a wacky estate with a private plastic surgery theater and has undergone so many facial reconstructions that he's forced to cover his pieced-together face with a mask. After Sara moves into his compound, readers are led to believe that she will meet the same fate, or worse. Known for edgy, raw teen novels that pull no punches, Burgess certainly delivers his trademark sexual frankness, folding in the issues of body image, self-mutilation, and personality disorder. Unfortunately, he chooses to use a narrator, an investigative reporter of sorts, who attempts to piece together Sara's story through a series of interviews and video diaries. A unique concept in itself, the result is a clunky story, rife with clichés and indistinct character voices. Readers will undoubtedly find themselves wishing for a twist or a turn rather than a string of obvious allusions. This modern horror story touches on many contemporary issues and could spark discussion, but the unknowable protagonist and scattered storytelling ultimately serve to distance readers rather than engage them.—
Jill Heritage Maza, Greenwich High School, CT Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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From Booklist
Jonathon Heat is a fabulously wealthy rock superstar whose unhealthy penchant for plastic surgery has left him without a face (which would explain the mask he always wears). Teenage Sara is a pretty young thing who unreasoningly hates her own face and body. When these two meet in hospital, each recognizes possibilities in the other. Heat will pay for Sara's desired plastic surgery; and Sara has a—well, a face. Could Heat be planning to steal it? He does have a plastic surgeon on his staff. Hmmm. Burgess tells his rather silly but often spooky story from a Citizen Kane–like multiplicity of viewpoints, including Sara's video diary and—in a metafictional touch—his own as the novelist who has been commissioned to tell Sara's cautionary story. Pop culture echoes of Michael Jackson, American Idol, Phantom of the Opera, and even daytime dramas reverberate throughout the creaky, yet suspenseful story. Celebrity-loving teens will gobble it up. Cart, Michael
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