Ruby Parker Hits the Small Time (review)

Ruby Parker has been playing Angel, a character on a soap opera ("Angel's main thing is finding out stuff and stopping it in the nick of time"), since she was six; now that she's thirteen and going through a physically awkward stage, her career on the show is in peril. Confiding in her parents is out, because they've just split up, leaving Ruby attempting to sort out her pain at the family breakup and her worry about her job and her identity on her own. This British import is clever in its depiction of Ruby as a young television star, who gets loads of fan mail from yearning kids seeking guidance (Ruby's smooth, highly scripted responses are ruefully ironic in light of her own turmoil) but who's so completely credulous that she believes every self-serving word in her jealous co-star's interviews. Ruby's narration is also believably limited even as it's articulate about the pain, anger, and awkwardness of a kid dealing with a parental divorce ("I felt like hurting my mum and dad was the only thing I could do to make them see how much they were hurting me"). Plot contrivances mar credibility, however, often turning the book purposive, as when Ruby discovers that the class mean girl is just lonely and longing for real friends, or hackneyed, as when her actor schoolmate proves to be harboring a silent crush on Ruby, and the dialogue tends to be corny. The divorce story may still win readers with its sad familiarity, though, and the soap-star drama adds an appealing twist that may intrigue starstruck middle-schoolers.