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60th out of 113 books
—
49 voters
The Queen of Cool
by
Cecil Castellucci (Goodreads Author)
The author of BOY PROOF is back with a funny, incisive look at a teenage girl whose reign of popularity comes at the price of ennui - until she dares to take off her tiara and do something truly cool with her life.
On the outside, Libby Brin is the most popular girl in school. She has the coolest friends, the hottest boyfriend, the trendiest clothes, and the hippest parents...more
On the outside, Libby Brin is the most popular girl in school. She has the coolest friends, the hottest boyfriend, the trendiest clothes, and the hippest parents...more
Hardcover, 176 pages
Published
February 14th 2006
by Candlewick Press
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THE CHRISTMAS WEEK FAMILY READ
Continuing my completist reading of Cecil Castellucci's novels. The Queen of Cool is her second after Boy Proof.
I didn't love this one as much but it has highlights. Libby Brin is #1 popular girl at school. She is spoiled at home: even when she rarely gets grounded, she gets out of it. She has her own car, a huge wardrobe, and all the requisite toys. Her boyfriend's mind resides in a lower body organ than his brain or heart.
She lives in Los Angeles and (highlight) s...more
Continuing my completist reading of Cecil Castellucci's novels. The Queen of Cool is her second after Boy Proof.
I didn't love this one as much but it has highlights. Libby Brin is #1 popular girl at school. She is spoiled at home: even when she rarely gets grounded, she gets out of it. She has her own car, a huge wardrobe, and all the requisite toys. Her boyfriend's mind resides in a lower body organ than his brain or heart.
She lives in Los Angeles and (highlight) s...more
The Queen of Cool is a realistic fiction novel. Libby Brin. She is the most popular girl, the best clothes, the hottest boyfriend , and the hippest friends. Even though Libby has the most easygoing parents. She is dying of boredom. Then, one day she surprises everyone, including herself. She signs up for a internship at the Los Angles Zoo. Her friends start to think she is becoming a loser because Libby becomes friends with Tina (aka "Tiny"), and Sheldon. Libby realizes that the Zoo is more fun...more
This book has been sitting on my shelf since 2006 - and I'm not even sure where I got it from. It is slim book and I totally forgot about it even being on the bookshelf until I was going through books to take with me when I move downstate. I found this one right next to Boy Proof, Castellucci's first novel, and was intrigued by the summary on the book. It helped that this book is pretty short, but I completely devoured this book. I had forgotten how much I loved Castellucci's writing and story t...more
Cecil Castellucci is an author that had only recently bleeped on the Persnickety Snark radar via the fantastic Beige. Queen of Cool falls into a trio of novels that Castelucci fondly calls her LA Trilogy though the books are independent of one another bar setting and girls realising they aren’t who they thought they were.
Castellucci is an author that is easy to gravitate and attach yourself to. She’s brilliant at telling contemporary fish-out-of-water teen tales. Considerably shorter than Beige,...more
Castellucci is an author that is easy to gravitate and attach yourself to. She’s brilliant at telling contemporary fish-out-of-water teen tales. Considerably shorter than Beige,...more
Jul 14, 2012
Alex
added it
Recommends it for:
Bored &/or Depressed Teenagers (as they could relate)
Shelves:
coming-of-age
I spent a very long time reading this book but that's no fault of the author or the book or anything like that. It wasn't hard to get through and really I've found to really relate to Libby, the main character in the book.
Even though I was never really the most popular kid in school this book sort of has given me a renewed realization of the fact that really, it shouldn't matter how cool your friends are. Just that they're real friends to you. That you enjoy being around them and trust them.
And...more
Even though I was never really the most popular kid in school this book sort of has given me a renewed realization of the fact that really, it shouldn't matter how cool your friends are. Just that they're real friends to you. That you enjoy being around them and trust them.
And...more
Jul 11, 2011
Laura
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Shelves:
cursing,
alcohol,
animals,
dorks-nerds-underdogs,
family,
fiction-realistic,
friendship,
sex,
teen
I bumped this book up to the top of my to-read list because of a recent complaint from a library patron. She confiscated it from her 13-year-old because it has a hand job and the word f--k 3 times in the first few chapters. But other than that, I found this book pretty tame compared to what else is out there for the YA set. There's no explicit descriptions of sexual acts, just references to them, and the f-word doesn't show up again until almost the end of the book. The book's plot centers aroun...more
While a quick read, a day tops, "The Queen of Cool" characters have little redeeming qualities or personalities. Libby Brin, the hippest in her school and looked up to by many, soon becomes bored with the label and self-destructive. Inappopriate sexual acts, excessive drinking, and a lack of concern for anybody's feelings make her quite unlikeable. Castelluci tries to make this self-absorbed teen a bit more rounded by tossing in a zoo internship, entirely out of character, but the main character...more
Libby is part of her high school's upper crust; she and her friends are the coolest. Written in first person, the "queen of cool" tells her story very simply; it's all about what happens when Libby starts getting bored with her life and her friends. She realizes that they never really do anything. In this mood, she decides to sign up for an internship at the zoo - something a cool person would never do. Though she regrets her decision almost immediately, she follows through and slowly discovers...more
I don't normally read books where the main character revolves around one of the popular girls....mainly because I was never one of those girls and never really wanted to be but I saw this book in the giveaway thing here and I thought I'd try for it and I'm glad I did. At the beginning, Libby seems like your typical rich, snobbish, girl, leader of the popular clique but there's something missing for her. Life seems dull. So she signs up for a zoo internship and as the story progresses she finds w...more
``The Queen Of Cool," Is a Amazing book about kids being popular but one kid get's stuck with the geeks and the main character relizes that even though she's popular she still could have fun with the loser's and they make up wired things to do that day at school.
The setting mostly takes place at school and the book is mostly about a popular group makes front of the geeks and one day the teacher makes the leader of the popular group do extra credit at the zoo because she's failing the class but...more
The setting mostly takes place at school and the book is mostly about a popular group makes front of the geeks and one day the teacher makes the leader of the popular group do extra credit at the zoo because she's failing the class but...more
Libby Brin is an IT girl. She's funny, her parties are legendary, and she starts trends, whether she means to or not. And yet, she isn't happy.
Libby is bored. Her friends bring her no comfort or joy. Her parents are going through changes, which travel down the line to make further impacts into the sudden non-sense that is her life.
When Libby signed up for an Internship at the Zoo she was confused, but when her friends razzed her about it she decided to see it through. In the end she gets herself...more
Libby is bored. Her friends bring her no comfort or joy. Her parents are going through changes, which travel down the line to make further impacts into the sudden non-sense that is her life.
When Libby signed up for an Internship at the Zoo she was confused, but when her friends razzed her about it she decided to see it through. In the end she gets herself...more
Remember back in the high school days of what you thought cool was and those who were considered cool did you ever wonder about them or what they did or what problems they may have faced in life? Libby Brin is the cool girl. She has a wild character, panache and even seems courageous. Her life seems free from too much attention from parents or even teachers. She seems as if she could do or have anything in her life without major consequences.
Yet, life isn't always so carefree for her, inside of...more
Yet, life isn't always so carefree for her, inside of...more
So firstly - I seriously don't know how I haven't read this yet. Egads. Anyways.
One thing Castellucci is really good at in all her books is really capturing what it's like to hang in a crowd of people, whether it's the hipster punk rock kids in Beige or the artsy performance crowd in Rose Sees Red, or, here, the uber cool popular crowd. The crowds are the setting, which is kind of bonus, given that the setting in and near Los Feliz is pretty spot-on too.
Really liked Libby's journey. Loved her ne...more
One thing Castellucci is really good at in all her books is really capturing what it's like to hang in a crowd of people, whether it's the hipster punk rock kids in Beige or the artsy performance crowd in Rose Sees Red, or, here, the uber cool popular crowd. The crowds are the setting, which is kind of bonus, given that the setting in and near Los Feliz is pretty spot-on too.
Really liked Libby's journey. Loved her ne...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
The Queen of Cool is one of Cecil Castellucci’s three LA-novels. Just like Boy Proof and Beige, it is set in Los Angeles, and follows a particular ‘scene’ in the city of Angels. This time, the angle is more science-related as the main character decided to do an internship at the Los Angeles Zoo, in an attempt to change her life(style) and find what’s lacking in her life.
Libby Brin is an IT-girl. She has the coolest friends, she throws the greatest parties, she is a natural born leader at her loc...more
Libby Brin is an IT-girl. She has the coolest friends, she throws the greatest parties, she is a natural born leader at her loc...more
I really enjoyed this book. It surprised me in many ways. I'd never read anything by Cecil Castellucci before, but I know a bit about her (I almost interviewed her once, then decided I couldn't take the time to do the interview justice) and expected her main characters to be kind of hipstery thrift shoppers with cool glasses and entertainingly affected speech patterns. You know, the kind of people I like to have as friends. Instead, I found out that the Queen of Cool was ACTUALLY, you know, cool...more
Libby is one of the popular kids at school, but she's dissatisfied, bored of everything including her popular friends and her own popularity. On a whim, she signs up for an internship at the zoo, where she is mortified to be working with an astronomy nerd (who wants to be an exobiologist) and a little person, Tina ("Tiny"), who her group has always mocked.
This book has what I love from Cecil Castellucci: the conviction that teenagers can be awesome people when they have goals and useful things...more
This book has what I love from Cecil Castellucci: the conviction that teenagers can be awesome people when they have goals and useful things...more
Nov 07, 2012
Jennifer Wardrip
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
trt-posted-reviews
Reviewed by Dena Landon for TeensReadToo.com
Libby Brin is the popular girl. She has the right friends, the right clothes, and goes to all the right parties. Where she leads, the school follows, from "pencil day" to "funny walk day." But she's hiding a deep, dark secret. She's bored. No matter what she does, she doesn't feel alive. Which might explain the temporary insanity that causes her to sign up for an internship...at the zoo. When she's assigned to a team with two of the biggest losers in s...more
Libby Brin is the popular girl. She has the right friends, the right clothes, and goes to all the right parties. Where she leads, the school follows, from "pencil day" to "funny walk day." But she's hiding a deep, dark secret. She's bored. No matter what she does, she doesn't feel alive. Which might explain the temporary insanity that causes her to sign up for an internship...at the zoo. When she's assigned to a team with two of the biggest losers in s...more
I HEART CECIL CASTELLUCCI! I love this book. Libby's cool clique rules the school, but Libby is bored out of her mind. She signs up for a zoo internship to stop her mind from unraveling, meets different people, and finds a way to get away from the zombies.
"There are these crabs in the ocean," I begin. "They get into a fisherman's net, and they're too stupid to get out. They just can't figure it out. But every once in a while, one crab figures out how to escape, and the other crabs go crazy and p...more
"There are these crabs in the ocean," I begin. "They get into a fisherman's net, and they're too stupid to get out. They just can't figure it out. But every once in a while, one crab figures out how to escape, and the other crabs go crazy and p...more
Apr 25, 2009
Kirsten
added it
Another coming of age story, only this time, it's the rich popular girl who discovers that there is more to life than popularity. Libby Brin starts out being the Queen of Cool, setting trends, pulling stunts, throwing parties...but an internship at the zoo, of all places, and some unexpected friendships change her perspective on life. This is definitely a girl book -a guy might get the popularity and conformity ideas, but they are definitely couched in terms of a Mean Girls type mentality.
Libby is the Queen of Cool, she starts all the new fashion trends at school and everyone wants to be like her. Except she's bored, oh so bored of her friends, and school and her life. So she signs up for an intern position at the zoo, where she meets some very non-cool people. But of course, they turn out to be very interesting people. Libby learns how to shed her malaise with life and play to her strengths and how interesting life can be while working at the zoo with her new friends.
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
It was a good book. It really showed the changes of a high school girl. I'm happy she let go of her uneeded friends because they were really bringing her down. I also liked the fact that she kept at least one of her old friends, and made two new great friends. She kept her self together through ALL her social and family changes while still letting us know it was not easy.
THE QUEEN OF COOL
My book is about popular girls named Libby, Perla and they control the school whatever they do the other kids in the school have to do the same things they do besides the geeks aka nerds. The setting is at school and at Libby’s house. They bother Tina aka tiny because she looks like a dwarf because she’s little and ugly.
My book is about popular girls named Libby, Perla and they control the school whatever they do the other kids in the school have to do the same things they do besides the geeks aka nerds. The setting is at school and at Libby’s house. They bother Tina aka tiny because she looks like a dwarf because she’s little and ugly.
Cute YA book, nothing life-changing. It's really about what is "cool" and what isn't...the kinds of stuff you wish teenagers would figure out, but never really do until they are older. It's a really short, easy read, but as an adult reader of YA, it's not one I would seek out. Would be a good addition to my classroom library.
Apr 26, 2010
Amanda
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommended to Amanda by:
laaaaames
Shelves:
ya,
women-authors
I wanted this to be longer. I really liked it, and thought the main character's journey was interesting (and it's nice to see a sympathetic "mean girl"-type character, since they're usually villains). I guess I'd liked to have seen a little more dealing with the fallout, though.
yet again i am pleased with this author's efforts. cecil has a way of getting inside her characters heads and really detailing how real people think, act, talk. this is one of the most realistic YA novels ive read. it has lessons and such but none of it is sappy or tired. somehow she manages to come up with very fresh living characters that make me believe the stories are autobiographical. on to her next one. :D
Probably not fair of me to write a review as in my eyes Castellucci can do no wrong. Again the writing isn't anything stupendous but man does she get it. There's a lot of great characterization packed into a small book and it becomes really powerful. Good stuff.
Girl is bored with her popular life at school and takes some steps to make life more interesting. She interns at a zoo and makes new friends. Tiny and Sheldon are not popular but turn out to be "cool". This was okay. A lot of alcohol and sex references.
"The Queen of Cool" by Cecil Castellucci is a fantastic story about a popular teen named Libby who signs up for an internship at the zoo when she signed her name because she was bored.So she decided to look for something to do. Until she did, she couldn't believe it. Only two names were on the list and one of them were hers and another teen called Tina also known as Tiny because she is very short and small. Compared to Tiny Libby was a very popular girl until when they were posted together as a...more
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Cecil Castellucci is an author of young adult novels and comic books, most notably Boy Proof and The PLAIN Janes. Upcoming in 2012 is her new hybrid prose / graphic novel The Year of the Beasts illustrated by Nate Powell.
She is also the author of First Day on Earth, Rose Sees Red, Beige, The Queen of Cool and Janes in Love. Her short stories can be found in various anthologies such as After, Teeth...more
More about Cecil Castellucci...
She is also the author of First Day on Earth, Rose Sees Red, Beige, The Queen of Cool and Janes in Love. Her short stories can be found in various anthologies such as After, Teeth...more
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Jul 01, 2011 10:56pm