Modelland by Tyra Banks

 

One thing you need to know about me is that I am very committed to the bit. So when I told my Threads followers that I would read a celebrity fiction book of their choice and basically ended up with a tie, I bought copies of Tyra Banks's MODELLAND and Hilary Duff's ELIXIR. I read ELIXIR first and despite being a pretty obvious Twilight + L.J. Smith knockoff, it was actually okay. Which made me wonder if maybe MODELLAND would be okay. I'd seen a lot of YouTubers talking about it but none of them actually did any in-depth reviews, except to quote the summary and make fun of the heroine's name (Tookie de la Creme), so I thought, okay, maybe it will be good.

But friends, this book was not good. This book was insane. And I use the words "book" and "insane" both loosely here. MODELLAND is kind of like if you put THE HUNGER GAMES, HARRY POTTER, and America's Next Top Model in a blender and hit "puree." Heroine's weird name aside, this entire world revolves around a global fashion industry that is powered by ~magic~ where everyone aspires to get into the magical school of bitchcraft and smizery, Modelland. Like the back cover says, "beauty is in the SMIZE of the beholder." Oh, boy.

Tookie lives with her mean brother and sister, and her even meaner mother and father. (Side note: her dad his a retired circus performer who gouged out his eye on a sword.) Everyone assumes that her sister, Myrracle, is going to be the next "intoxibella" (a graduate of Modelland), especially when Tookie finds a "SMIZE" in their kitchen sink and her mom forces her to give it to her sister. (Side note: a SMIZE is a magical fashion artifact that basically turns you into a magical girl.) On T-DOD, aka "The Day of Discovery," all girls stop, drop, and walk in place, it doesn't matter if you're in the grocery store or on the toilet, you stop what you're doing and walk because the magical scouts can scout you at any time, anywhere in the world, and whisk you away in their magical sacks to the gates of Modelland.

What's that, you ask? Did I say "magical sack"? Yes, I did. #SackIsWack

We're told multiple times that Tookie is ugly because she has two different colored eyes and a big forehead, but she ends up getting picked to go to Modelland. (Side note: did I mention that she also speaks twenty-eight languages?) Also in Tookie's graduating class are a girl named Shiraz from Libarian, an albino girl named Piper from SansColor, and a girl whose name I've already forgotten who comes from a grocery store country named Bou-BIG-tique, who is plus-size. At Modelland, they're quickly whipped into shape by sadistic teachers and students. Spotlights shine on them all night as they sleep (called Lumiere, the different kind of light you get reflects your personality). There's a disordered eating class called Mastication class where the classroom is made out of food that electroshocks you if you try to lick it. The girls eat their favorite food out of vats, and then afterwards they're graded in front of everyone on both their eating habits and their nutrition. There's also a field day x Hunger Games event called ManAttack where they are paired against students from the all-male boarding school, Bestosterone, in their underwear (girls wear lingerie and boys wear assless boxer shorts). As they compete in events, the judges objectify them and pass scathing judgement.

If you don't follow the rules of Modelland, there are punishments. A statue of the school leader sings at you (kind of like the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter, but bitchier and more annoying). There's a jail where you can self-flagellate if you want (and one of the most famous models, a woman named Ci~L, does exactly that, like she's watched Da Vinci Code maybe one too many times). Girls who are catty to their companions are turned into cats with human faces and forced to live in the Catwalk Corridor, where they attack and pee on trespassers. And if you really fuck up, you might actually be killed or sacrificed. Hey, in a magical school for models in the sky, ANYTHING goes, you know?

I wish I could say I hated this book, but it was actually so bad, I found myself almost addicted. Like, I would think, "There's no way it can possibly get any worse than this," and then Tyra would say, "And then sentient bats made out of fake jerky started flying through the classroom and the teacher caught it with a pair of chopsticks and ate it," and I would just find myself nodding and thinking, Hmm, sure, makes sense. (Side note: yes, there are jerky bats.) The book is very cruel and does so on the premise of liberation, because being an intoxibella is supposed to be about embracing your inner power, but of course, it's rooted in gender norms and capitalism so how liberating can it really be? Especially since when the intoxibellas make their public appearance on T-TOD, there are STILL men shouting objectifying things at them. Um, excuse me, what is even the point of being a fashionista magical girl if I still have to deal with creepy men, I ask you. ALSO, for some reason Tyra sort of made this a direct parallel to our world but named all the countries to hilariously offensive stereotypes, so Italy = Cappuccina, India = Chakra, Australia = Didgeridoo, Fuji = Japan, and France = Tres Jolie. Denmark, Sweden, and Norway aren't cool enough to be separate countries, though. They're lumped into NorDenSwee. And all of Africa has been reduced to one country, Kwaito. 

The best thing about this book, though, is that being a student at Modelland means no periods. They don't want to deal with you whining about cramps and potentially missing a show or bleeding through your designer threads, so (without your consent), you're just magically period free. (But still fertile, the creepy teacher takes pains to inform them, ew.) Like, I'm not sure about the jerky bats or the cat bitch hallway, but no more periods? No more cramps? I might be down.

I'm not sure I can forgive her for the phrase "mouth pee-pee" though, to refer to drool. What the fuck, Tyra? Things were going SO well (side note: no they weren't).

Oh, but the best thing though? The ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. I thought they were so hilarious. They're five pages long and she actually shrank the font down so she had more room to thank everyone. The first two pages are Tyra referencing every hotel, retreat, and cafe that she wrote this book at, by NAME. She also thanks Stephen King for writing the book, ON WRITING, claiming that it helped her write this book (side note: I think I just heard a man weeping quietly in Maine). Harvard Business School also gets a shoutout (#stayhumble) and so does her mom, for taking her author pic (actually this is cute). She also does something I've never seen an author do before, and thanks the artist who did her ENDPAPERS (which are really cool grafitti illustrations), and that artist is Hebru Brantley.

So overall, this book was fucking weird. The cover and the writing style reminded me a lot of the really trippy shit I consumed as a kid that came out of the 70s, like Yellow Submarine, The Raggedy Ann and Andy movie, and of course, basically anything V.C. Andrews. Honestly if you just sent me a snap of the cover, and asked me to guess when it was published, I would have guessed 1985-87. I am SHOCKED that it was published in the 2010s. I am also very much not shocked that it has less than 3,000 ratings on Goodreads, as well as a rather grim and unforgiving 2.92 review average. This was 500+ pages of hot mess (and apparently she did have a ghostwriter helping her so, like, what the actual).

Still, this was imaginative and weird and unintentionally funny, so I regret nothing.

1 to 1.5 out of 5 stars