Sweet Little Lies by Lauren Conrad

Ok, so in the review that I wrote for Lauren Conrad’s L.A. Candy, I warned readers that there would be a cliffhanger ending. Of course I had to get Sweet Little Lies from the library to see how the story would continue. When we left off, Jane’s love life was in shambles and her friendship with Scarlett was on the rocks. To make matters worse, we knew that Madison was up to no good.

The story picks up there with more of exactly what you would expect, Scarlett reads books that Conrad herself has probably never heard of, Jane uses her bad judgment and naivety to get herself into bad situations and Madison schemes for ways to try to get attention. I’m expecting the next book to contain more information about Madison’s dark past that is hinted at.

It is a little bit worrisome to think that Jane Roberts is frequently referred to as being the most relatable of the four girls on the L.A. Candy series, not because I don’t think she is closest to representing the typical 20 year old American girl, but because I think she might actually be. Sweet Little Lies offers some really fantastic examples of how a relationship can be abusive without a woman actually being beaten. I guess I just think that it is unfortunate that women keep putting themselves in these situations to the extent that it becomes the experience of the “average” girl.

Luckily, readers won’t be left with and ending quite as suspenseful as the first book in the series, although Conrad hints at future story lines, I won’t be losing any sleep over these loose ends.

Seriously? L.A. Candy by Lauren Conrad?

Though it is a book in the traditional sense, L.A. Candy isn’t the kind of book that really needs to have a book review written about it. Based on the title and the background of the author (she’s on MTV’s The Hills for those of you who don’t know), most people probably know just about everything they need to about this novel. This isn’t necessarily a negative thing though, either you like the occasional scandalous, girls’ novel about sex, love and the L.A. party scene or you don’t.

This book is about Jane Roberts and her best friend Scarlett who move to Los Angeles to work for a party planner and attend college, respectively. At a club, the girls are discovered by a producer for a mysteriously named television station (PopTV), and invited to participate in a new reality show that he is planning. Of course, the show is a success and the girls quickly become famous. Don’t start this book if you aren’t prepared to commit to reading the series – L.A. Candy has a cliffhanger ending, so readers will also want to check out Conrad’s next book, Sweet Little Lies.

I feel confident in saying that Lauren Conrad doesn’t know who Descartes or James Joyce are, and she has never read Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, but she talks about this literature as if she were familiar with it. These references just add to the fun; I shake my head and wonder what the editors were doing. I think the assumption that someone “helped” her to write this book is pretty safe, but for the purposes of this review, I’ve referred to Conrad as an author.

As with all sweets, L.A. Candy isn’t especially healthy and should be enjoyed in moderation. (How's that for a cheesy end to a review?)