Dirty Laundry [Hardcover]

Daniel Ehrenhaft (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 30, 2008

the school:

The Winchester School of the Arts, nicknamed "The Laundromat" because it's where better schools send their "dirty laundry." Get kicked out of Exeter, Hotchkiss, or Choate? End up at Winchester.

the girl:

Carli, a gorgeous pigtailed Hollywood actress going undercover at Winchester to research her role.

the boy:

Fun (short for Fellini Udall Newport), an embittered senior and graffiti artist who was almost expelled—until his dad (and a lot of money) convinced the headmaster to let him work off his crime as Carli's assistant.

the problem:

Beautiful, talented senior Darcy Novak, one of the least screwed-up people at Winchester, has disappeared.

As Carli and Fun discover each other's hidden talents, there's a villain setting them up. Can they save Darcy—and themselves—or will they wash out?

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 8–10—Teen actress Carli Gemz is a self-proclaimed dork preparing for a role in Private Nights—a TV show about scandalous boarding school teens—by posing as Sheila Smith at Winchester School of the Arts, the "dirty laundry" of boarding schools. When model senior Darcy Novak goes missing, do-gooder Carli decides to find her. The teen's disappearance is the tip of the iceberg as far as Winchester scandals go. The school is falling apart and desperately needs money, so Headmaster Stanton tolerates abuse from a wealthy donor's son while accepting a "Faustian bargain" from Fellini "Fun" Udall Newport's father (Carli's boss) to keep the boy in school. The catch is that Fun must serve as Carli's assistant. Their prime suspect is Hilton James, aka Nails, Fun's best friend and dormmate, yet the cast of misfit suspects is endless: there's Carli's roommate Miranda, relocated to Winchester for sleeping with her gym teacher; Sarah, a snarky goth DJ/journalist extraordinaire; her sidekick Mary Fishman, an aspiring author who is always with her diary and pen in hands; and Kirk Bishop, Darcy's current boyfriend. Mostly told in alternating chapters between Fun and Carli, the plot does slow in the middle, which causes readers to question its plausibility; nevertheless, this is a fun read, and the clever voices and engaging dialogue are enough to pull most readers through to the end.—Adrienne L. Strock, Maricopa County Library District, AZ
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In preparation for an upcoming TV series in which she plays a boarding-school student, 17-year-old fledgling actress Carli is enrolled undercover at Winchester, a lackluster New England prep school. Though scared to think of leaving her parents, therapist, and personal assistant behind in L.A., Carli is counting on support from fellow student Fun. A graffiti artist and son of the show’s director, Fun is perennially in trouble with the administration. Neither of them anticipates a mystery that overshadows campus life: the disappearance of another senior, Darcy. The first-person narrative, shifting between Carli and Fun, provides an intriguing dual viewpoint on the characters and the unfolding action. Crime-related clues and hints of hidden identities are imbedded in the story, but, for the most part, predicting the mystery’s solution seems less compelling than just tuning in to Carli and Fun’s accounts of life at Winchester, the last refuge for cast-offs, troublemakers, and miscreants. Grades 8-11. --Carolyn Phelan

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: HarperTeen (December 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061131032
• ISBN-13: 978-0061131035
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,497,839 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, February 24, 2009

By 

TeensReadToo "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dirty Laundry (Hardcover)

Carli Gemz is going undercover. She's off to the Winchester School of the Arts to get into character for her upcoming TV series, Private Nights. She will have the son of the creator, Fellini Udall Newport (aka FUN) at her disposal as her personal assistant.

Fun has no desire to be the slave to Carli, whom he has to refer to as Sheila Smith, her character's name. Being her assistant is part of the arrangement his father has made with Headmaster Stanton to keep Fun at Winchester. Fun should've been kicked out for his graffiti art around campus. Instead, his girlfriend, Charity, was expelled for getting caught in the male dorm. Life is not fair.

Senior year starts out with the news that Darcy Novak, the basic do-gooder of the senior class, has gone missing. Fun's roommate, Nails, used to date Darcy and may be a suspect in her disappearance. Also in question is Darcy's most recent boyfriend, Kirk Bishop. Kirk's family has donated enormous amounts of money to Winchester, and he is able to get away with just about anything.

When Fun and Carli meet, they actually form a bond and the two decide to investigate Darcy's disappearance, each for their own reasons. As they stumble through the first part of the school year, the mystery around Darcy grows. More of their acquaintances come under suspect, and the two no longer know who they can trust.

Told in alternating voices, Fun and Carli reveal their thoughts to the reader as they try to figure out what happened to Darcy. They both have their own issues to work through, but they come to rely on each other as they days pass and the mystery is no closer to being solved.

DIRTY LAUNDRY bounces back and forth between the two characters. At times it was hard to keep track of who was doing the talking, but overall, the story was intriguing. Mr. Ehrenhaft was able to keep the intrigue surrounding Darcy's disappearance cleverly hidden up until the final few pages.

Fun and Carli were both creative characters with quirky personalities, but it would be nice to see their characters develop even more in a follow-up story.

Reviewed by: Jaglvr

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Enchanting Review: Dirty Laundry, February 19, 2009

By 

Enchanting Reviews "Lisa" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dirty Laundry (Hardcover)

DIRTY LAUNDRY
DANIEL EHRENHAFT
Contemporary YA
HarperTeen

Rating: 3 Enchantments

Carli Gemz (pronounced `Games') is about to go undercover at Winchester boarding school to research her upcoming role. Only two people at the school know her true identity, the headmaster Stanton and FUN, the son of the man in charge of her next project. But Winchester is far from what the glossy pages of the brochure promise, instead Winchester is better known as DIRTY LAUNDRY, the place where the best boarding schools send their trouble students. Soon Carli finds herself investigating the disappearance of the popular Darcy Novak, a fellow student at Winchester who vanished the night before Carli's arrival.

FUN, (real name Fellini Udall Newport) is back at Winchester because of his father promising he'd be Carli's personal assistant. Just what he wants to do. Not. But at least he's back with his best friend Nails, who seems to be hiding something. Did he have something to do with Darcy's disappearance? Together with Carli, he's going to find out.

I have to say DIRTY LAUNDRY was a bit of an odd read. Divided into three parts, which each part having a bit of an index that told you the scene order, it took me awhile to get into the story and relate to the characters. Honestly I didn't felt like I really knew the two main characters, Carli and FUN until the third part began. Carli is truly one of the more unique YA characters I've read. What other teenage actress has a homeless guy as a PA back in Los Angeles? Along with her shame spirals, in which she makes herself go out and do something nice for someone else. The one funny part is when she emails her shrink Dr. Fien back in Los Angeles, and gets one back where Dr. Fien tries to make her angry and get out and do something different. Like have some FUN. I did like some of the secondary characters in Miranda, Carli's new roommate and the intriguing Nails.

Daniel Ehrenhaft is the author of several wacky boarding school capers, including the Edgar Award winning Wessex Papers (under the pseudonym Daniel Parker) and Drawing A Blank. You can visit him online at www.danielehrenhaft.com

Lisa
Enchanting Reviews
February 2009

5.0 out of 5 stars Part Mystery, Part Satire, Unputdownable, December 23, 2011

By 

E. Kristin Anderson "EKAnderson" (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dirty Laundry (Hardcover)

Carli Gemz (pronounced "games") is a teen actress who has just landed a role in a new TV show: Private Nights. Since she'll be playing a bitchy teen queen and a boarding school, Carli is being enrolled undercover at the Winchester School of the Arts, an East coast boarding school where all the freaks, geeks, and would-be criminals are sent after being kicked out of more prestigious academies. With a reputation for harboring the "dirty laundry" of the social elite, Carli knows that the few weeks she'll be spending as Sheila Smith will be pretty wild, but she never imagined that, together with her boss's son (and her new personal assistant), she'd wind up investigating the disappearance and possible murder of Winchester's favorite student, Darcy Novak. Fun, the aforementioned son of Carli'a boss, is only still attending Winchester because of the money the school is getting from his dad for hosting Carli. He and his room-mate, Nails, would usually be up to no good, but with Carli on campus and the disappearance of Darcy, he has better things to do. Especially when it turns out that everyone is a suspect. Ehrenhaft's novel is part mystery part sattire, at times dark and at other times sweet. The characters are completely three-dimensional, and while they will surprise you, their motives and methods are realistic within the context of the wacky world of Winchester. This is not the sort of book that one can put down easily.