The Truth About My Success

The Prince and the Pauper meets Trading Places, but with modern teenagers and Dyan Sheldon's unique deadpan humour! Paloma Rose is 16 years old and the star of one of the most popular TV shows ever. She has millions of fans and is the face of a hugely successful merchandising empire. But having had too much too young, Paloma is growing into a notorious brat and beginning to behave really badly: inappropriate boyfriends, drunken incidents, suggestive photos on the internet. The resulting bad publicity could mean the end of the show and with that the end of the lavish lifestyles her family – and her agent – have grown accustomed to. Then her agent bumps into 16 year old Oona Giness in a coffee shop and, struck by the resemblance, decides to switch Oona for Paloma and trick the wayward brat into going off to a boot camp in the desert which he hopes will sort her out. Oona, who lives with her depressed dad in a run-down apartment block, agrees to the deal in the hope that it’ll turn her life around. She quickly discovers that Hollywood is not for her, though Hollywood much prefers the new Paloma to the old one! And when Paloma finds out she’s been tricked, she breaks out of the camp and heads for home – and revenge.

What happens when a bratty teenage star and a hardworking waitress get a taste of each other’s worlds? Featuring the best-selling Dyan Sheldon at her snarky, entertaining best.Paloma Rose is sixteen and already a major TV star. She has money, franchises, adoring fans — and an agent and parents who are dependent on her success to sustain their very comfortable lives. But all that could come to an end when Paloma becomes more famous for her bad behavior than for her acting and her show’s sponsors threaten to cancel the upcoming season if things don’t improve. Meanwhile, Paloma’s worried agent happens upon Oona Ginness working in a coffee shop. Maybe she’s not as tall or as blond as Paloma, but details aside, they really might be twins. So a plan is born: What if they send Paloma to a brat camp to become a better person and put the malleable and much nicer Oona in her place? Oona thinks it’s a stupid idea, but the money is hard to resist, given her family’s dire circumstances. What does she have to lose? Of course, plans don’t always work out the way they’re supposed to. . . .