In honor of International Women’s Day, I’ll go into another two of my favorite rereads with some great female leads.

I shall start first with a very underrated series, The Hollywood Sisters by Mary Wilcox.

Jessica Ortiz is so not on the trail for homicide. Not one bit. She is a self-proclaimed recovering shy girl whose greatest goal in life is to fade into the background since whenever she is put in the spotlight bad things happen. For example, accidentally running over George Clooney with a golf card. Or saying she was in an X-rated movie. (She meant extra in a movie.) Did I mention that she said that to a room full of new classmates and nuns. 

Let me back up for a bit. Jessica’s older sister, Eva is an actress. I mean actress with a capital A. She’s one of those method people that make extensive backstories for their characters even when she is playing a minor role like a wily cactus. 

Since her sister just got upgraded to a costarring role in her ABC sitcom, Two Sisters, their whole family has moved to swanky Beverly Hills and are now the target for paparazzi, jealous co-stars and well…more paparazzi. 

That’s where Jessica comes in. Even though she hates the spotlight, and people think she hangs around the set to sponge off Eva’s fame (as if, the girl cannot sing)- she does it out of sisterly devotion and protectiveness.

Which is why this series is so fun. Jessica is the one sane (wo)man among a cast of utter…. well “characters” to say the least. There’s Paige, the blonde model/actress whose low IQ and need to be on top of every fashion trend (even if it means awful cowboy-baby bow combos) reminds me of certain reality tv stars. There’s Lavender, the mouth from the south with egotistical fauxmantic boyfriends and screeching Southern drawl seems to get thicker with every book.

Finally, there’s Jeremy the child star turned teen heartthrob who is one of the people that thinks Jessica is a fame-hungry sibling turned not so secret crush turn to partner in crime. Wilcox put great skill in crafting Jeremy. I find it very hard to like a love interest, either being too flatly perfect or too unrealistic that he’d fall for someone like Jessica. But she really humanizes Jeremy and why he would be so attracted to Jessica’s down to earthness. Plus there’s a slight tragedy to him with the few peeks of his momager mother and lack of a social life outside of ‘the biz.” I always wondered about his past or at least his family since Jeremy is so guarded about it. 

Not to mention Roman, the director who hates Jessica with every fiber of his being because of her “jinx” that has caused her to tackle Scarlet Johansson, smash Beyonce’s Grammys,- among other celebrity guest star disasters.

As well as Kiko, Eva’s every perky publicist whose exclamation marks hide a shrewd mind.

I enjoy how Jessica’s parents are normal. They didn’t want Eva to get into acting but let her because she loved it so much. Now they struggle with making sure their eldest doesn’t turn into tabloid trash before age 20.

And Eva.. is just hilarious. She is confident, and lives in her own planet (think Liv from Liv and Maddie) like when she tried to “help” Jessica make Jeremy jealous by hiring an actor to play her bf, Heathcliff. 

What I find especially nice is that she truly loves her craft. It seems like in most YA books that the actress character, while they like acting, they become more consumed with the perks of it too. Which yes, Eva does do that, but she’s written with such a charming dedication to her craft to the point of obliviousness to everything else. She’s eccentric, but hey she’s an actress. 

Also I can’t forget the humor in these books. So deadpan and witty, and quite honestly, lines it still pop into my head to this day like “Oh, it’s on boo!” or the “The art of subtle questioning. It’s a skill…. That I do not have.” 

So you can see I have a love for this book because of its snark and hilarious mishaps but also for Jessica’s clear eyed view of the sometimes scummy Hollywood world. While being completely clueless about things such as her own social life and of course, dreaded small talk. My heart goes out to her.  Same with the whole private all girls Catholic school. She’s a breath of fresh air.

Also there’s some Latina pride! While it is not a major part of her personality, her Abuela is all about their Mexican heritage and her family has to defend attacks from the media that Eva is not “Latina enough” to be deserve the Best Latina Actress reward.

Anyway, this is such a fun book if you want a light read and a protagonist who is completely aware of and dealing with her flaws, and the fact that sometimes she meddles just a bit too much but it’s endearing anyway. I just think the series deserves more recognition in how it combines humor with realism and giving a backstage pass to Hollywood.

T*Witches

No I do not mean the Disney Channel movies that I feel butchered the source material. 

T*Witches was originally a 10-books series by the late H.B. Gilmour and Randi Ransfield in the late 90s-early 2000s. It has some flaws like the very outdated slang and “subtle” warnings of the dangers of anonymous chatrooms, anorexia, raves among other subjects, but I find that just part of the charm and it is still ultimately an entertaining read. It’s like Harry Potter for a younger set and more geared towards girls if I have to give it a comparison to something.

It even had it’s own guide about flower meanings, potions, lunar calender etc. (The authors chose to follow a more paganestic, earth style type of witchery than Harry Potter).

Let’s start with the main characters, Artemis and Apolla (yes, they reference Greek myths!) also known as Alexandra Fields and Camryn Barnes. Just hours after their birth, their warlock father is murder by his jealous brother, and their mother has a mental breakdown and disappears. Their guardians split them up into separate homes so the twins never know of the other or of the mega-powerful witchy powers they possess. 

Obviously they meet each other on accident when they’re 14 and are shocked to the core that they are adopted and have a twin. Especially since that twin is their complete opposite. Even though they intiailly hate each other’s presence, they do appreciate finally having someone who understands the odd power of premonitions and heightened senses. 

Camryn is the one who has the gifts of Apollo, the sun god. She can prophesize and scorch people with her bright glare and she is a totally preppy-rich girl-bound for Ivy-soccer star.

Camryn is the one who has the gifts of Apollo, the sun god. She can prophesize and scorch people with her bright glare and she is a totally preppy-rich girl-bound for Ivy-soccer star. And yes at fist Camryn seems the arch-type of all ignorant rich girls that need to be clued in to the suffering of others rather than the cutest boy, she ultimately has a good heart. She is the one who is more open to finding their mother and outright studying how to use her powers than go on the fly. She also has hidden depths as she acknowledges her weakness in wanting to be “normal,” her stubborness and her willingness to use her privilige for a selfish gain.

Although I didn’t like her preoccupation with bad boy warlock Shane in the last few books, I understand why they used him since he represented a “normalcy” to all the big events in her life and how he sort of represented an “easy out.” He was a golden boy, hiding his deceptiveness which fitted how Camryn wanted to avoid deeper implications of her heritage/other people/threats to her comfort for most of the series. Also by making him more important than her human love interest< Jason, it reflected Camryn’s sidelined feelings for him. Very clever. 

Her twin Alex has Artemis’ amazing telepathic aim and vision for hunting. She comes from the opposite side of the tracks, growing up in a RV in Montana with her single adopted mother who dies of cancer. When she goes to live with Camryn, she is resistant and snarky to all the changes thrust upon her life and how Camryn tries to make her “fit in” with her friends. That leads to one of Alex’s many faults which is her tendency to resist conformity/ authority and be independent. Yet under that tough exterior Alex has the bigger heart of the two I think.

She was fearful of meeting her mother because she didn’t want to “forget” the memory of her adopted mom. She hates injustice of any kind and that’s why she always breaks the rules, to do what she believes is right…..and that one time when she skipped school because she didn’t study for the math exam. Fun fact, she is referred to as Harry Potter by Camryn’s adopted bro because she is an “orphan” and she calls hm “Dudley” in return. 

Now, Ileana. The late 20-early 30s something guardian of Camryn and Alex. She is one of the most flawed characters which makes her a real treat to read when you go through her character arc. As she always says, please call her “Goddess.” A vain, opinionated, haughty, stubborn, grudge-holding, precocious witch, she became the twin’s guardian in order to teach her more responsibility and she learned that lesson well. Though she most often appears to be selfish and focused on her concerns like her clothes, she has a caring heart and learns to show that side more. She’s like a mother bear when it comes to protecting the twins from their ruthless, manipulative Uncle Thantos DuBear.

She will be the loudest person rallying against injustice. And cares deeply for her own guardian, the elderly Karsh who adopted her when she was orphaned (the reveal to who her father can be either predictable or fantastic, milage may vary).

Miranda DuBear, the mother that the twins never knew and later on meet. Poor Miranda has been through a lot. I mean first her husband dies, then she has a mental breakdown and is isolated from the world (that doesn’t even know she’s alive!) in a mental hospital where her only visitor is the man who murdered her husband.

Not that she knows Thantos murdered her husband. He is gaslighting her the whole time in order to use her as leverage against the twins. For most of the series you want to simultaneously throttle her for believing all of Thantos’ lies and hug her for being a shell of her former self. But that shell has steel. Once she gets angry because……well I can’t say due to spoilers, but let’s say when she feels betrayed, the other person gets hurt. Beware the nice ones. 

Now there are so many more girls in the series that I can compliment like Sersee, the vicious, never to be fully redeemed leader of the Furies (Yes I adore the reference to Circe and the Furies from Greek mythology); Lady Rihanna (or Lady Potato as little Ileana said) the leader of Coventry Island who can give Minerva Mcgongall a run for her money; there is just so much I enjoyed from this series and I love how each character has their strengths and weaknesses. 

And they do center a thread on their more negative traits (Camryn’s wish to be the best, to keep her creature comforts, stubbornness and willingness to use her privilege for her own gain; Alex’s resistance to authority, stubbornness and wanting to be unique) which they relate to their uncle. But that doesn’t make them bad, they’re still growing. It’s human because even though they’re witches, they’re still humans with heightened gifts. 

The same applies to the parents. As I said Miranda’s not a perfect mom, she seems weak and lost in her grief and she actually disappoints people by not being the perfect Miranda they remember. But I enjoy it because, I can’t believe I am saying this about a fantasy book, but it’s realistic. Honestly, all these characters are complex with their strengths and weaknesses, even Thantos and that’s what makes them enjoyable to read.

Not that I can forget the men like wise mentor Karsh who is one of my favorite characters ever with such a heartwarming father-daughter relationship with Ileana (Not the unnecessary romance that Disney insisted. I hate it so much). Nor the pathetic other uncle Fredo (which they use that classic Godfather line, ‘Fredo was my youngest. He came too late. He wasn’t right), the charming duplicity of Shane and the mysterious yet sweet Cade.

Additionally, I enjoy the subtle diversity put in the books with six-pack, both ethnicity and personality wise which is nice because it does take all types of people to make the world go round, and give them all some spotlight even though sometimes it feels a bit of tokenism.

I also enjoy the emphasis of family, by blood, by adoption, and by choice. Honestly, it’s all about who cares for you and wants what’s best for you, they make up your family.

And unlike the Disney movie, the book series offers more complexities in my opinion and there’s no happy revived father. People die here, and it’s hard but they strive to move on, embrace their heritage and their destinies, flaws and all.