Book: Now Starring Vivien Leigh Reid: Diva in Training
Author: Yvonne Collins and Sandy Rideout
Pages: 256
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Reviewed by: Kat (Age 20)
Amazon.com Price: $9.95
Purchase: Here

Now Starring Vivien Leigh Reid: Diva in Training is the follow-up to Introducing Vivien Leigh Reid: Daughter of the Diva. A year has passed and Leigh is once again spending a summer with her movie star mother Annika, only this time they’re staying at Annika’s apartment in LA. Leigh is attending a prestigious acting class, her Irish boyfriend Rory is coming to visit for a few weeks and Leigh has landed a small recurring role on the hit soap Opera Diamond Heights but then the unthinkable happens; it starts out with Leigh’s attempt at method acting and channeling her character Willow but soon turns into Leigh being the worst thing ever; A diva… just like her mother. Can she regain sanity or will she be forever lost to the craziness that is Hollywood. And will she lose her friends and loved ones in the process?

Diva in Training is a very amusing book. It’s great to see Leigh and her mother switch roles; now that Annika is actually starting to get the hang of parenthood and for the duration of the summer is taking time off from acting. Leigh on the other hand is every bit the unreasonable and vain celebrity her mother behaved in the first book. It gets to such a bad point that you find yourself wishing you could crawl into the pages and slap some sense into Leigh.

There are some good lessons to be learnt regarding vanity and keeping perspective and it’s certainly a ride you’re going to enjoy.

Check out our review of the sequel: The New and Improved Vivien Leigh Reid: Diva in Control