Starred Review Anna, 15, is tired of her life. She feels like a relic from her parents' first marriage, and now that her mother and new stepmother have had a baby together, Anna feels even more out of place. So she borrows her stepmother's credit card and books herself a flight to L.A., where her half sister Delia lives. Despite the ensuing blow-up, Anna is granted a summer furlough during which she watches Delia, a struggling actress, at work and becomes involved in a project involving Charles Manson and the women who murdered for him. Through her research and observations on the dark side of celebrity and the struggles Delia faces, both as an actress and as a woman in Hollywood, Anna slowly comes to terms with her family and herself. In some ways, this debut is a by-the-book bildungsroman, but Anna's wry, biting voice elevates it to something more. The Manson girls are certainly an evocative lens, but their presence is effectively understated; this is not a sensationalized look at a family of serial killers, but a mirror held up to a certain type of violence that effects women in America every day. Bittersweet and true, Anna's journey to self-discovery is one that should be widely read.

Tired of being the -leftover- of her parents- divorce and eager to disappear after a prank goes too far, 15-year-old Anna uses her stepmother-s credit card to buy a ticket to Los Angeles, where her sister Delia, a struggling actress, lives. Surrounded by Hollywood-s beautiful and morally corrupt, Anna navigates interactions with Delia-s ex-boyfriend, Roger, who is shooting a movie about L.A. murders, and her sister-s current love interest, a writer on a kids- show, as well as her own blossoming romance with a teen actor. Forced to pay back the money she stole for her flight, Anna takes a job researching the Manson girls for Roger. Her immersion into the Manson murders leads to paranoia when it appears that Delia is being stalked. Debut author Umminger-s humor is biting (-My family was clearly the place where optimism went to die-), yet it reveals richly complicated relationships among mothers, daughters, and sisters. Umminger crafts a Los Angeles both glittering and soulless, leading to Anna-s realization that she may have more in common with the Manson girls than she thought, but it-s the choices she makes that set her apart