Catwalk: Strike a Pose by Deborah Gregory

Title: Catwalk: Strike a Pose
Author: Deborah Gregory
Age Group: Teens
# of Pages: 293
My Rating: 2.5/5

Creator of the Cheetah Girls, Deborah Gregory gives you the second instalment of her teen series Catwalk. In Catwalk: Strike a Pose, Pashmina Purrstein is a teen who goes to Fashion International High School at The Big Apple. Aspiring model and future entrepreneur, she is in the Catwalk Competition where her house must compete other houses using their fashion knowledge and turn them into reality. The prize? The winning team will receive a sum of money to start their own label and is going travel overseas to stage their show in Italy among with other goodies! Not to mention, all contestants are filmed for a fashion reality network that follows their every move.

During the competition, Pashmina receives a computer virus that totalled her computer; which means someone is out there trying to take her down so she wouldn't win the competition! Wary about who to trust, Pashmina won't let anything get to her as she strive to win!

I actually have never read the first novel in the series, giving me a disadvantage when it came to reviewing it. I think the cover is pretty awesome but that is as far as my interest for this novel is. The biggest barrier for me to enjoy this novel is the language used. Most of the characters used words that were related or incorporated cats in almost every other sentence, such as "meowverlous" or "purr-worthy". People talking like that constantly made it a little unbelievable for me. There were a lot of metaphors making sentences related to fashion or what have you. I got lost the moment I started reading because it made me feel I was reading Shakespeare all over again, except with more sassiness. You could understand it but if you want to understand it fully, you have to literally sit there and decipher the words slowly or else flying by will just get you confused! Unfortunately, there was so much dialogue that all I would see is the catvocab! It would have been much better if there was more action and less talking.

I do like the idea of the story and how the author tries to bring out more diversity within fashion by bringing out names of black designers and such. It is nice to see a little more ethnicity within YA novels and Gregory definitely makes sure to have a lot of it in her book.

I recommend Catwalk: Strike a Pose to those who are really into fashion and would like to see some diversity in YA fiction. Though I recommend reading Catwalk first. If you however think the language would trip you up like it did to me, then you might not enjoy it so much.

Review copy provided by Book Divas.