Shooting Stars

Gr 7 Up—Josephine Foster, also known as Jo Zo, is a teen paparazzo sensation, working the star-studded streets of Los Angeles. With her short stature and moxie, she has a knack for getting the shots that others can't. But when she is offered a lucrative job by a sleazy journalist, she is forced to ask herself some hard ethical questions. Her parents aren't any help. Her father is also a paparazzo, working in Japan, and her mother is out of the picture. Jo Zo decides to take the job. She enters a treatment facility as a fake patient to take candid photos of a male teen pop star. While this book appears to be another teen-about-town-with-conveniently-absent-parents story, it turns out to be more. The parents are actually part of the plot, and as the story unfolds, Jo's stint in the treatment facility helps her gain perspective about her home life as well as her professional one. Throw in a romance with a hunky boy and you have an entertaining read that's not mindless, with appeal for pop-culture fans.—Mindy Whipple, West Jordan Library, UT