Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Paris, France, and New York City, New York - Present Day

Violet Greenfield is not a typical teenager just graduated from high school. She has had quite the year ever since signing with Tryst Models. She moved to New York and lived in an apartment with a bunch of models her senior year. But her experience isn’t the best since most of these beautiful girls are addicted to drugs and have eating problems. Violet quits modeling but is enticed back by her former agent, Angela, with the promise of a trip to Brazil for Sao Paulo Fashion Week. Violet has never been out of the country and plans to take the summer and fall to model before she starts Vassar in the spring semester.

Violet’s best friends, Julie and Roger, will also be going off to college in the fall. Julie will go to Providence, Rhode Island and Roger to NYU in New York City. After a fun filled summer with her best buds, Violet is thrown back in the fire. Her agent puts her down every chance she can get, questions Violet about gaining weight, which only happens to be five pounds, and the press will not stop hounding her, especially when she posts blogs on My Space about modeling and the pressure she undergoes.

As the weeks fly by, Violet has her own romance with an older boy, nineteen year-old Paulo Forte who has his own clothing line and wants her to model for him. Violet is falling hard for Paulo and is deciding whether she should give him her virginity. Then there is her old roommate from the model apartment last year, Veronica, who also comes to Brazil to model. She is a recovering drug addict and has gone through rehab, but Violet is not sure where she stands with her. Violet’s adventure is not what she thought it would be, and when she finds out that Roger is dating an older girl at his college despite his apparent romantic interest in her, Violet is soon at her wits end. Between her weight issues, the paparazzi, and her good friends moving forward in their lives without her, Violet wishes she had never left her small American town and wants to just crawl into bed and hide.

Melissa Walker has written quite an interesting tale about eighteen year-old model extraordinaire, Violet Greenfield. Violet’s voice is so real and very much what I assumed a girl her age would think and act like. Her ideas about sex and romance amazed me, because this is a girl with a good head on her shoulders. She wants to do the best for everyone around her and tries to do the same for herself. Even though Violet is the perfect size two, she still has to deal with feelings of inadequacy, mainly because of Angela, her shark of an agent, and some fashion designers who always look down upon people, regardless of their beauty.

I also enjoy Violet’s wonderful boyfriend, Roger, whose feelings for Violet have changed. When Violet finally figures out what is going on with Roger, it may be too late; I felt so bad for her because Roger is such a great guy and the perfect boy to fall in love with.

VIOLET BY DESIGN has its moments of hilarity and drama, but underneath there is a very important moral about being true to yourself and taking the good with the bad. I am so glad Melissa Walker has come up with a character like Violet and hope to enjoy more tales of Violet in the modeling world and, hopefully, as a student in college. I look forward to the third book in the Violet series, VIOLET IN PRIVATE, that will be published in August 2008.

Kate Garrabrant