CHLOE BY DESIGN: Balancing Act (Books 5-8)

So over 2 years ago, I found two of these books at Goodwill, ripped through the first one, bought the missing middle volume, and then promptly never finished the series. I picked up the first volume, which contains 4 books, and zipped through it yesterday, then started the second volume. I finished that tonight and I've started the third, so I will finally finish this series!

Chloe by Design is a series of 12 books, but they're most easily bought in the 3 bind-up editions, which contain 4 books each. 

The cover to the left here is the second bind-up, containing books 5-8. 

As I did the first time, I'm going to show the covers for the individual books, though this time I'm not going to try to match them up to how the bind-up is broken up. 

So when we first met Chloe from Santa Cruz, CA, she was a contestant on a teen version of Design Diva (Project Runway). The first four books got her through the three auditions to New York City and then through the entire competition. I thought the competition part went a little quickly. Can't remember if I mentioned that in my first review or not, but it definitely felt that way this second read through. 

 

So now Chloe finds herself interning for a designer in New York City, which was her prize for winning the competition. She's living in a dorm at FIT, alongside other interns. Two are definitely in college. I can't remember how old the mean girl one is. But yeah, one is a mean girl who never gets to like Chloe because she feels she didn't earn her way to the internship. Reality TV may be silly, but some of the competition shows are no doubt competitions. Chloe definitely earned her prize. 

Most of the book is about Chloe's adventures in interning. 

She's in a different department for each 2 weeks of her 2-month internship. She starts out with Laura in knits and denims. Laura wasn't my favorite. She's clearly unorganized and I just didn't really like her. Chloe's one big mistake during her internship is something I still can't understand. She was doing her second internship at the time, with Taylor in dresses, but also doing 2 days a week still with Laura, who's basically such a mess that she needs an intern more than Taylor. Chloe is tasked with doing something with designing jackets, which are supposed to pair with the dresses she worked on with Taylor. So she uses designs she did for Taylor and Laura gets upset and says she cut corners. Yes, she used the work she did for Taylor...but aren't the jackets supposed to go with those dresses? I read this part over a few times and still have no idea what she did wrong. So that's why I don't like Laura much. Taylor is uptight and can be cold, but I liked her better. 

Chloe's third two weeks are with Michael in PR and then the same two days with Laura still. This had some way more interesting tasks and I liked it the best of the internship divisions. 

The majority of the book really is serious details about interning, which is pretty cool, because it has Chloe mostly choosing her internship over Jake, her friend-possibly-boyfriend from the first books. She also never stoops to any sort of bad level with Madison the mean girl, who digs her own grave during Fashion Week. 

Chloe is a likeable yet sometimes frustrating character. There's a scene where she's more interested in texts from Jake than listening to Michael and I wanted to smack her, especially because most of the department heads just give instructions and then leave the interns to it. She could have easily gotten her assignment then checked her phone when she was alone. Stupid. 

Chloe's BFF, Alex, from California visits during Fashion Week and ends up helping Chloe with the show, as the designer is happy for another volunteer. Not sure how realistic that is because Alex has zero experience, but I like her so whatever. In the two months Chloe has been gone, Alex suddenly cares about fashion and now has a boyfriend, both of which Chloe is happy about. 

Everything goes smoothly. Chloe is asked back for next summer and she's adjusted well to New York. She's made friends with the older interns and the mean one got herself in trouble so she won't be interning again. Chloe stays friends with Jake, even through some ups and downs, and they decide she's just plain too busy to balance him along with everything else. Very mature decision. I didn't find this one as fun or interesting as the competition one, but that's because it was more loaded with fashion details and less with fun places and challenges. It was still fun though.

CHLOE BY DESIGN: Making the Cut (Books 1-4)

I adore a good thrift store find. The colorful spines of this book and the other one I bought from the same series caught my eye in Goodwill today. I learned that they're volumes 1 and 3 with no 2 in sight, but I got them anyway. And promptly ordered 2 off Amazon after reading a single chapter.

Now you wouldn't think an eldergoth (Yeah, there's even a term for us older goths that have been part of the scene for eons.) like me would enjoy Project Runway, but I DO. I don't watch it religiously, but I love seeing the designs people come up with. I used to draw a lot of my story characters and designing their clothing was super fun, but that's where my fashion design ability ends. I can't sew for shit.

Anyway! Making the Cut is about 16-year-old Chloe, who's in a teen fashion design competition a la Project Runway. The book is chock full of cool fashion art, which I love, so it was an easy decision to purchase it.

When I got home and looked the series up on Amazon, I was immediately confused, because I was seeing a LOT of different titles. Making the Cut is over an inch thick, so I was kind of amazed that there was that much to write about a teen in the fashion design world. Then I read some of the blurbs in the listings and realized they sounded like the book I had.

It turns out Making the Cut is a compilation of the first four books in the series. I'm adding their covers here so you can see them, but if you're interested in the series, buy the three compilation volumes. The individual ones are really overpriced because a lot of them only came in library binding.

I'm going to talk about them by their individual names to make things a bit easier.

I do have to guess where each book ends and the new one begins though, because they're not divided up in the compilation, nor is there a number of chapters divisible by four to make things easier for me.

Design Diva is the first book. You get to meet Chloe, her not at all into fashion best friend Alexis (Alex), her parents, her rival Nina, and Mimi, the lady who runs the fabric/thrift store.

Chloe spends the first book not being sure of herself, but then getting her shit together and making the three outfits needed for the first audition. Nina, who's been stealing her ideas since they were kids, is her competition. Naturally, both girls make it past the first round of auditions.

I'm really not sure where the break between 1 and 2 is. The 9th chapter ends at a good point, but the Amazon listing for Design Diva says it's 96 pages, so that would include the 10th chapter. The 10th chapter also starts immediately after the 9th. Like obviously it does, but 9 ends with "And I know I'll be ready" and 10 starts with "Did I say ready?" Like they really flow together. But there is no other place to have the book break that makes any sense, so I'm going to say it's there.

Gah, this really doesn't matter, but I'm anal.

So the second book is The First Cut. Chloe's past the first audition and now has to enhance one of her three looks with an accessory. She gets inspiration at an art fair and meets her very, very casual love interest, Jake. Then she has to design a rodeo-inspired look for the final audition. She meets Jake's mother at that audition and she turns out to be one of the past winners of the regular Design Diva show. Chloe makes it into the real televised competition...but so does her rival, Nina.

In Unraveling, the third book, Chloe is now in New York City and the competition is under way. This one clearly starts at chapter 20 of the compilation. Here's where I started getting a bit frustrated, because the short format of the books doesn't give New York enough screentime and it doesn't give the characters enough screentime. It's pretty much just the competition with a couple extra scenes thrown in, but it could have been so much better! Chloe struggles at first, but then scores some wins.

Design Destiny is the fourth book and I cannot freakin' tell where it starts in the compilation. My guess is chapter 33. But it doesn't matter. There's no break in the narrative. The third and fourth books are solidly about the competition. As contestants are eliminated and the challenges get harder, each contestant receives a mentor from one of the past seasons of the adult version of the show. Who does Chloe get? Jake's mom, Liesel, who she already met. It sounds like Liesel asked for her, which I'm not sure would have been allowed in an actual reality show. Chloe's rivalry with Nina comes to a head, because Nina's mentor is a woman who sabotaged her fellow contestants on her season and is now getting Nina to do the same thing. In a completely unrealistic plot twist, Chloe watches an episode of the show while on the phone with her best friend Alex, and sees that Nina really did sabotage her in one challenge and the cameras have caught her plotting with her mentor. Nina mentions how she gave Chloe an ugly necklace before the main televised competition in the hopes that she'd use it and get eliminated. Chloe ends up using it as a belt on her final look...and wins. Of course she does. I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to watch the show you're on though. I feel like that's against the rules.

Silly things like that aside, this is a really fun series. Sometimes it gets a bit too fashion-detaily for someone like me who doesn't know much about sewing, but overall, I enjoyed it enough to zip through the entire compilation and now I'm stuck waiting for the second volume to arrive so I can read it and the third. There are 12 books total with 3 compilations that are the most affordable way to check them out.

I'll be back next week with reviews for the rest!