Secrets of the Model Dorm: Amanda Kerlin and Phil Oh
By: 
Do you want to know the big secret of the model dorm? I’ll tell you (shhhh…): It’s that you already know all the secrets.
I will admit to being slightly addicted to America’s Next Top Model so it’s not like I have a high horse to get up on in this area, and when I picked up this book I wasn't expecting, say, Roots. But I did want to be entertained, and sadly it fell short even there.
Secrets of the Model Dorm begins in the middle of a hectic moment in said dorm, with rampant sexual behavior, alcohol consumption and designer name-dropping all happening at once. “Now, this all may seem strange…” says our narrator but the problem is, it doesn't seem strange at all. All of that is exactly what we would expect from the model dorm. Guess what: models eat weirdly. And guess what? Their agencies tell them they need to be skinnier. Know what else? Some of them drink a lot, and have sex with people they don’t really care about.
What else is new?
A co-author, one Phil Oh, was brought in to help, and I suspect he’s the force behind the out-of-place 50-cent words that show up now and again (“Fashion Week came to a close, shivering in a final paroxysm of glamour…” p. 221). But I don’t know if he is to blame for, or was helpless to change, passages like this:
“His flattery was becoming a bit much, but I figured that was just in his French genes. I was willing to overlook it, especially since after my fourth cocktail I was a lot more interested in what he had in his jeans rather than his genes.” (p. 176)
Ouch. Even a giant showdown that is hinted at and built up over most of the entire book just…never materializes. Pretty much everyone does exactly what they did in the first chapter -- for the whole book -- and then there’s an entirely predictable change of course for the narrator and ta-dah, all done.
I like modeling exposés. I like light reading. I like to be distracted now and again by a book with no massive substance. Unfortunately, this couldn't even live up to that.
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Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Atria (January 2, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0743298268
ISBN-13: 978-0743298261
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