The
Landry’s TrueColors Series is a Young Adult humor series about friendship, self-esteem,
fitting in, middle school & high school, frenemies, crushes, and
self-image. It’s a Clean Reads book so it’s suitable for ages 11 and up.
Landry Albright just wants to be one of the interesting
girls at school who always have exciting things going on in their lives. She
wants to stand out, but also wants to fit in, so she gives in when her two best
friends, Ericka and Tori, push her into trying out for a teen reality show
modeling competition with them. Landry goes in nervous, but i
mpresses
the judges enough to make it to the next round.
However, Ericka and Tori get cut and basically “unfriend”
her on Monday at school. Landry tries to make new friends, but gets caught up
between wanting to be herself and conforming to who her new friends want her to
be. Along the way she learns that modeling is nowhere as glamorous as it seems,
how to deal with frenemies, a new crush, and that true friends see you for who
you really are and like you because of it.
The competition was for girls between the ages of thirteen
and seventeen, but it felt like Ericka, Tori, and I were the youngest ones
there. I only saw a couple of girls from school, and the lineup looked more
like something you’d see on a music video set. All the girls were gorgeous, and
they had these curvy womanly bodies. I looked like a skinny little kid next to
them. The first girl walked out, and I heard the judges say she “owned the
runway,” and, “walked like a gazelle.” I was starting to feel ill. I wasn’t
sure which way it was going to come, but I knew I had to find a bathroom —
fast. I started to get out of line when Ericka grabbed my wrist.
“It’s almost time,” she said. A tiny bit of spit flew out of
her mouth and hit my cheek.
I wasn’t sure why she was so intent on me going through with
it, but she had a death grip on my arm, so I didn’t have much of a choice. Her
number was called and she walked out to the stage. One of the other girls said
she walked like a kid with sand bucket stilts on her feet, but she came back
with a smirk on her face like she knew she’d get chosen.
“They said they had never seen such long legs,” she said.
Tori was next.
“She walks like a gorilla at feeding time,” said the girl
behind me. I went next, and I tried to focus on not tripping over my feet. My
mom’s pumps had a rubber sole on the bottom, which probably wasn’t the
brightest idea seeing as my shoes were making squeaking noises as I walked. I
was so nervous I couldn’t stop smiling as I walked. I looked like the plastic
clown who blows up balloons with its mouth at the Pizza Palace. When I got to
the end of the runway, I tried to cross my feet to turn like the other girls
had, but I over rotated and ended up doing a full spin which made my kilt fan
out and gave the mall walkers a view of my blue underpants. I tried to act like
it was intentional and did an extra turn. One of the judges put her hand up to
stop me, and I held my breath as she started to speak.
About Krysten Lindsay
Hager:
Krysten Lindsay Hager writes about friendship, self-esteem,
fitting in, frenemies, the celebrity world, values, and self-image in
True Colors, Best Friends…Forever? Landry in Like, Next Door to a Star and
Competingwith the Star. Best Friends…Forever? was ranked at #1 on Amazon’s Hot New
Releases in Teen & Young Adult Values & Virtues Fiction and
True Colors is an international
bestseller. Her work has been featured in
USA
Today, The Flint Journal, the Bellbrook Times, the Grand Haven Tribune, and
on the talk show Living Dayton.
Author social media
links:
Read Other Books by
Krysten Lindsay Hager:
Landry Albright hopes the new year will start off in an
amazing way—instead she has to deal with more frenemy issues, boy drama, and
having most of her best friends make the cheerleading squad without her.
Suddenly, it seems like all anyone can talk about is starting high school next
year—something she finds terrifying.
Landry gets her first boyfriend (her crush, Vladi), but then
gets dumped just as things come to a head with her friends. She feels lost and
left out, but finds good advice about dealing with frenemies from what she
considers an unlikely source. Landry faces having to speak up for what’s right,
tell the truth (even when it hurts), and how to get past the fear of failure as
she gets another shot at competing in the American Ingénue TV show modeling
competition. Will she get a second chance with her friends, fame, and Vladi?
Things seem to be going well in Landry Albright’s
world—she’s getting invited to be on local talk shows to talk about her
modeling career, her best friends have her back, and her boyfriend Vladi has
becoming someone she can truly count on…and then everything changes.
Suddenly it seems like most of the girls in school are into
hanging out at a new teen dance club, while Landry just wants to spend her
weekends playing video games and baking cup-cakes at sleepovers. Then, Yasmin
McCarty, the most popular girl in school, starts to come between Landry’s
friendship with her best friend Ashanti. Things take a turn when Yasmin tells
Vladi that Landry is interested in another boy. Can Landry get her
relationships with Ashanti and Vladi back or will she be left out and left
behind?
A few more thoughts about Self-Esteem, Frenemies, Modeling,
and Middle School Drama from Author Krysten Lindsay Hager:
In the
Landry’s True Colors Series, we meet my character, Landry Albright, a fourteen year old
who deals with self-esteem issues as she tries to see where she fits in with
the others at school. Is a girl who just wants to be noticed and fit in, but
she also shies away from the spotlight at times. Landry wants to be more
self-assured and wouldn’t mind if the modeling competition were to make her a
big star…assuming she doesn’t have to wear heels in public or talk in front of
a crowd. As she makes new friend, she finds herself conforming to fit in and
gets away from her true self. She makes friends who seem to be more sure of
themselves, like Thalia, Peyton, and Ashanti, and they encourage Landry to be
herself.
Landry and I share a similar sense of humor and way of
looking at things. Neither one of us is good at math and spent that class time
daydreaming. In
True Colors (Landry’s True Colors Series Book 1), Landry gets pushed into trying out for a modeling
reality show competition by her two best friends. She goes in feeling anxious
and unsure of herself, but the other two girls, Ericka and Tori, push her into
going to the audition with them. However, things take a turn when Landry gets
chosen to move on to the next round and Tori and Ericka don’t. However, in book
two, we see that even though Landry moved on in the competition, she still
deals with self-image issues after the girls at school talk behind her back.
“It had hurt my
feelings when I overheard girls at school say the only reason I had gotten as
far as I did in the American Ingénue competition was due to my height. Sure,
models had to be tall, but would it have killed someone to say, “Hey Landry,
you looked really nice and confident up on that runway?” (from
True Colors).
Landry also
worries about fitting in and being accepted with her new group of friends. She
feels like she finally found a comfortable group to be with, but her
self-esteem takes a hit when she goes to visit her grandparents for Christmas
and feels left out when she sees her friends’ posts on their social media pages
about how much fun they’re having in her absence (from
Best Friends…Forever? Landry’s True Colors Series Book 2):
“I got ready for bed and then stopped to check my social
media page one more time and that’s when I saw it — another picture of Peyton,
India, and Devon hanging out. They were sitting on the couch with their heads
scrunched close together and laughing. It was a cute picture, but then I saw the
caption: So glad we could all be together for the holidays. Love these guys
soooo much! Best friends forever. #Alltogether #Threemusketeers
#BestFriendsForever #ThreeBestFriends #ThreesCompany.
My heart sank. It
was India’s caption and anyone who read it would think what a close
‑knit
group of friends and not realize anyone was missing from that photo. Sure, I
was in another state, so naturally I couldn’t be there for it, but the way
India wrote that made me feel so left out. I mean, what did she mean by the
“Three’s Company” hashtag? And sometimes people tagged friends who weren’t
there in pictures and added, “Wish you were here,” but there was no mention of
a fourth member of the group.” (from
Best Friends…Forever?)
In the series, we
see Landry learn that her true worth is more than just her appearance and
fitting in with the right crowd. Images of models and celebrities are
everywhere showing what the supposed “ideal teen” looks like, which leads
Landry to have an unpleasant experience at the makeup counter where the
salesperson makes Landry feel worse about herself in order to get her to buy
more products. However, soon Landry begins to see through the artificial side
of things and she learns to value what’s truly important in herself and others.
