Cover Girl Confidential

Beverly Bartlett
5 Spot (2007)
ISBN 0446695580
Reviewed by Stephanie Rollins for Reader Views (3/07)

If only I did not have any responsibilities, I would have read this in one sitting.  Since that is not the case, it took me two days.  I took it with me everywhere I went with the hope that I could read it, if only for a few minutes. 

“Cover Girl Confidential” is about a woman by the name of Addison who becomes a celebrity personality.  She reminds me of an exotic-looking Kelly Ripa.  She is bubbly to the point of being an airhead, but you still have to love her.   Kelly Ripa’s love life is much more stable than Addison’s.  From the beginning, I hated Hughes, who she dates and marries.  In the end, I wanted to throw things at him as Addison does. 

Beverly Bartlett makes many references to pop culture icons.  “I even took up knitting…They say even Russell Crowe is doing it.”  “She carried with her a spiffy skirt and jacket from the Versace fall collection that Ryan Secrest had shipped to her.”

Bartlett has such humor.  In one part, Hughes complains to Addison that a co-worker is too lazy to say his names; the co-worker calls him Hewey.  Addison nods, but thinks to herself that Hewey has more syllables than Hughes.  In another section, a senator threatens Addison.  “…she would send my ‘skinny ass’ back to ‘wherever it was’ that I came from.”  “Skinny?  I though excitedly, distracted by the unintentional compliment.”  Addison thinks in calories, so this was a big deal for her.

Addison is obsessed with calories, or the lack of, and email boards.  She accidentally becomes a poster child for gay marriages—and she is not gay.  She has a cover shot of herself in nothing but gauze and cotton-balls.  She throws exercise equipment at her husband while on television.  It becomes the “only frequently viewed Internet video of a clothed couple.”

“Cover Girl Confidential” has humor and twists and turns on every single page.  This is the beach book of the summer.  “Cover Girl Confidential” is a book to recommend to all of your friends.  Read and laugh!  I am on my way to get Bartlett’s other book, “Princess Izzy and the E Street Shuffle.” 

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