Prada and Prejudice by Mandy Hubbard

Callie is completely bored on her class trip to London. As the klutzy and semi-unpopular girl, Callie wants to make some friends and get in with the cool crowd. After spilling iced tea down her shirt, she decides to buy a pair of exprensive Prada shoes as her ticket to popularity. But when she trips in the shoes (not surprisingly), somehow Callie time travels! She falls face first into 1815, and into the mansion of a duke. To figure out how to get back to the twenty-first century, Callie must pretend to be Rebecca, an American who is visiting the Duke of Harksbury and his cousin, Emily. But trouble seems to follow Callie wherever she goes: she's responsible for getting Emily out of an unwanted marriage and trying not to fall in love with the arrogant duke.

From the description, you can tell that this book sounds really corny (which it is), but it was still cute. In the beginning, Callie was pretty annoying. She kept whining about wanting to be friends with the popular girls, who seemed shallow and really vain And when she first ends up in 1815, she is in complete denial, thinking that the people are play-acting in costumes. Since Callie has no sense of the manners that were required of people during this time, some of the things she did were pretty funny, while at the same time making me cringe. Coincidentally, I was also reading the real Pride and Prejudice at the same time, so it was neat to see the comparisons (Obviously, the duke is supposed to be Mr. Darcy). By the end, though, Callie learns that popularity isn't important, it's about just being yourself. Looking back, I can't tell how that relates to going back in time, but hey, it's still a good message. I also really liked the ending; it had a bit of a twist. Overall, a cute and humorous book for fans of any genre.

7 out of 10.

Release Date: June 11, 2009