Dream Girl (review)

On Claire Voyante's fifteenth birthday, her beloved grandmother Kiki gives her a fabulous black and white cameo that, Kiki says, will enhance Claire's budding ability to see the future. Kiki's suggestion that wearing the cameo will help Claire aid the people around her is almost immediately realized when Claire is drawn into industrial espionage involving the wealthy father of her best friend, Becca. While Claire attempts to pinpoint the threat to Becca's family, she can't help noticing Becca's very cute older brother, Andy, particularly since he seems to be noticing her, too. She soon discovers that Andy's beautiful and extremely unpleasant girlfriend, Rye, is in league with the bad guys, and Claire must find a way to stop her before real harm comes to her friends. Claire's abilities manifest through visions and dreams that move the story along but never take it over, so that teens are likely to relish this book as much for descriptions of the lifestyles of the rich as for the paranormal touches. Fans of the 10th Grade Social Climber series (The Rise and Fall of a 10th-Grade Social Climber, BCCB 5/05), which Mechling co-authored, will feel right at home in the New York scene, which features the opulence of the Gossip Girls with little of the cattiness. Characters are down to earth and likable, and they include a lively set of secondary characters such as grandmother Kiki, who keeps Claire outfitted in couture from the '60s and '70s and who lives at the Waldorf-Astoria. Readers will enjoy immersing themselves in Claire's turmoil as she surreptitiously obsesses about her best friend's brother and solves a mystery that saves a ketchup empire.