Review: "Breakfast of Enemies" by Jamie Suzanne (created by Francine Pascal)

Breakfast of Enemies by Jamie Suzanne (created by Francine Pascal)
First published 1997
★★★

Jessica's going to be a star...the only problem is that because of child labor laws the studio wants twins, not a lone girl. Jessica has a twin, but sharing the spotlight? Nuh-uh.

I only had the vaguest of memories of this one, related mostly to the fact that our copy of The Twins Hit Hollywood, which comes right after this one, stuck around way longer than it had any right to, so I read it multiple times. No big surprises, though: Jessica is completely exhausting, Elizabeth can't act, and it all works out in the end. I suppose the real surprise is that they're hired after their lackluster audition, but then...if anything, I appreciate the lackluster audition, because these are just kids, not professional actors, and I suppose it carries the story along.

Worth noting that the twins spend about half the book getting parental permission to audition for the role and the rest of the book hanging on to the role by the skin of their teeth—the stipulation for auditioning is that they have to get along, which they interpret as "express fervent admiration for everything they hate about each other" and "get their older brother to be mean so that they can defend each other". One can guess from how well this goes just how well their acting careers are going to go...