The Look
” a beautifully glamorous masterpiece, full of dreams, hopes and heartbreak” Chicklish, Feb 2012 – THANK YOU, Chicklish!
“blisteringly good” Lovereading4kids
“one word: BRILLIANT” Cathy Cassidy
In June 2010 a girl called Elizabeth wrote to me, telling me she was thinking about becoming an English teacher one day: ‘the kind who wear pencil skirts and crimson lipstick’. That sounded great to me! But she’d been told she could maybe be a model instead – what did I think?
Well, I wasn’t sure what to think. At least, I knew what I thought (which was ‘No! Don’t do it! Be that English teacher instead!’), but I realised I didn’t know why. What’s it like to be a model? Who would enjoy it? Who wouldn’t? Is it really as glamorous as it sounds, or as seedy as some people say?
I was talking to some of the girls from Bliss magazine at the time and they said that whenever they run a modelling competition, they’re overwhelmed by entries. According to surveys, about 30% of girls consider it at some stage. Secretly. Nobody will admit to it. But they do.
And so I set off on my research. Meanwhile, a friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer and she had a whole set of new and different challenges to face. And I saw a stunning girl on the street with an arrestingly short haircut, and I instantly realised she was my main character, Ted. Gradually it all came together. Not the story I first had in mind, but a different one – a bit darker and much harder to tell. This story became The Look.
It took a year to describe Ted and her big sister Ava, and their adventures. I’m writing this in June 2011, just as I finish the line edits – the final word-tweaking rewrite that a writer has to do.
I’m very pleased with it. It’s sad, and funny, and joyful, and – I hope – thought-provoking. It addresses the secret dreams that girls often don’t dare tell their parents about. I think it answers all the questions I originally had in mind. I adore the cover that Steve Wells has done for me. It comes out in the UK in March 2012, and various other places in 2013 and 2014, I’m told.
I hope you like it.
If you want to read an opening extract, you can find it here.
Updated March 2012. Some lovely reviews have started to come out. Something that always pleasantly surprises me is that book bloggers and reviewers are much better at describing what my books are about than I am. So you can find out more here:
Amanda Craig in The Times
Martin Chilton in The Telegraph
Abouthappybooks (check out the beautiful photographic illustrations – but be warned, there are some spoilers)
And FINALLY … I was lucky enough to do an interview about the book in March for the lovely Sugarscape online magazine. You can see the video here.
