Customer Reviews

Dirty Laundry

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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

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

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.

Winchester School of the Arts is the Laundromat of East Coast boarding schools. When teens have dropped out--or have been kicked out--of every other reputable prep school, Winchester is where they go. It's also where unsuspecting Carli Gemz, a young actress, is sent by the producer of her new TV show to get some real life experience with boarding school living. What she doesn't know is that she's also being sent there to give the producer's son, Fun, one last chance at redemption before he gets himself kicked out. Both are surprised to find that the school's golden girl, and possibly the most normal person there, Darcy, has gone missing. Carli is intrigued and can't fight the urge to look for her, and Fun is dragged along, making for a humorous and puzzling adventure.

Dirty Laundry is a nicely engaging combination of wit, mystery, and a dash of romance written in the form of alternating narratives between Fun and Carli's unique voices, which can be a difficult feat, but one that Ehrenhaft pulls off flawlessly. The characters are presented in such a way that everything Ehrenhaft discloses about them--from multiple points of view, their own dialogue, and their actions--only reinforces the genuine vibe Dirty Laundry gives off. The diverse and realistic characters are the key element that grounds the rather far-fetched plot from seeming too cheesy and unrealistic and adds to the quirkiness and overall charm of the entire novel. The seriousness of the missing girl and the possibility that her abductor lives among the teens is carefully balanced by the underlying wit and humor that is present throughout the entire novel. The only deterring aspect of the book was the slightly rushed conclusion, but overall Dirty Laundry is a hilarious and entertaining read reminiscent of the works of John Green and Jaclyn Moriarty's The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie, and is easy for the reluctant teen reader to get immersed into. Ehrenhaft has created a winner.