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High Cheekbones
When fourteen-year-old Alice Lonner is discovered by a modeling agency and leaves homework, babysitting, and overnights with her best friend behind, she enters a world for which she is unprepared
- GenresYoung Adult
256 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1990
20 people want to read
About the author
Erika Tamar
22 books4 followersErika Tamar is the award-winning author of nineteen books for children, including The Junkyard Dog, winner of the California Young Reader Medal and the Virginia Young Readers Award, and The Midnight Train Home, winner of the Western Writers of America Spur Award for best juvenile fiction.
She was born in Vienna, Austria. In 1939, after witnessing Kristallnacht and suffering under Jewish exclusionary laws, her parents sent her and her brother Henry, ages 4 and 9, away to strangers to save their lives.
They traveled to the U.S. in June 1939 as two of fifty children personally rescued by Jewish Philadelphians Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus, a rescue effort featured in the HBO documentary film and book, 50 Children, by Steven Pressman, and supported by documents housed in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
By late August, they were adopted by a foster family and traveled to Houston, Texas, until her parents, Dr. Julius and Pauline Tamar, arrived in New York in November 1939, at which point they were reunited.
Erika tells this story herself in an oral history on video housed at the USHMM.
A lifelong New Yorker, Erika grew up in Washington Heights in Manhattan as the daughter of the neighborhood physician and graduated from the Bronx High School of Science.
She was born in Vienna, Austria. In 1939, after witnessing Kristallnacht and suffering under Jewish exclusionary laws, her parents sent her and her brother Henry, ages 4 and 9, away to strangers to save their lives.
They traveled to the U.S. in June 1939 as two of fifty children personally rescued by Jewish Philadelphians Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus, a rescue effort featured in the HBO documentary film and book, 50 Children, by Steven Pressman, and supported by documents housed in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
By late August, they were adopted by a foster family and traveled to Houston, Texas, until her parents, Dr. Julius and Pauline Tamar, arrived in New York in November 1939, at which point they were reunited.
Erika tells this story herself in an oral history on video housed at the USHMM.
A lifelong New Yorker, Erika grew up in Washington Heights in Manhattan as the daughter of the neighborhood physician and graduated from the Bronx High School of Science.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 20, 2023
It took a long time for me to find this early '90s YA novel again. It'd been quite a while since my adolescent self once read it, and I couldn't remember the title or the author's name. But I remembered how the hot-pink paperback book cover looked...
I also remembered the gist of the plot, similar to another novel I'd read around that time about a teen model, Crystal by Walter Dean Myers.
Neither one of the novels are the upbeat, happily-ever-after type, and I wanted to find High Cheekbones again for remembrance but not nostalgia. The language, with the (sometimes repetitive) uses of "hell" and "damn" and a few other words for nonliteral purposes, wasn't to my personal taste back then or now. And while the tone of the novel isn't the incredibly dark and depressing type I typically can't get through these days, even with the story's rather "PG-12" handling of matters like drug use, underage drinking, sugar daddies, grownup-and-teenager attraction, parental neglect, and mental illness, it hasn't exactly been fun reading or rereading for me and this book.
Yet, I like the novel (and better appreciate it now) because reading it back then helped to confirm something about my adolescent self. The kind of fast-lane social "thrills" that first entice Alice never appealed to me, and how her story pans out played a part in shaping the overall idea for me that how I felt was okay. A bright, full, wholesome kind of life was what I wanted, and that was okay.
Sometimes, it isn't so much about getting pleasure out of a story but rather about what the story shows or confirms to you...
I also remembered the gist of the plot, similar to another novel I'd read around that time about a teen model, Crystal by Walter Dean Myers.
Neither one of the novels are the upbeat, happily-ever-after type, and I wanted to find High Cheekbones again for remembrance but not nostalgia. The language, with the (sometimes repetitive) uses of "hell" and "damn" and a few other words for nonliteral purposes, wasn't to my personal taste back then or now. And while the tone of the novel isn't the incredibly dark and depressing type I typically can't get through these days, even with the story's rather "PG-12" handling of matters like drug use, underage drinking, sugar daddies, grownup-and-teenager attraction, parental neglect, and mental illness, it hasn't exactly been fun reading or rereading for me and this book.
Yet, I like the novel (and better appreciate it now) because reading it back then helped to confirm something about my adolescent self. The kind of fast-lane social "thrills" that first entice Alice never appealed to me, and how her story pans out played a part in shaping the overall idea for me that how I felt was okay. A bright, full, wholesome kind of life was what I wanted, and that was okay.
Sometimes, it isn't so much about getting pleasure out of a story but rather about what the story shows or confirms to you...
March 18, 2012
I read this book when I was young and I can still remember elements of it: a young girl is discovered outside of a supermarket because of her pretty face and high cheekbones and enters the treacherous world of modeling in the late 1980s. My mother read it afterward and she enjoyed it as much as I did. I highly recommend it. Definitely a classic young adult novel.
December 17, 2016
The book "High Cheekbones," by Erika Tamar, is a fiction intended for young adults. The storyline bases off of a young lady's experience through going into the extremely packed model industry.
In the beginning, the story starts off with a young lady named Alice Lonner. She lives In a pretty complicated family life ; her mom is an unskilled person so it's extremely hard for her to find a job, a dad that recently left, and a brother who is involved in many health problems. Alice gets discovered by a man who works in a famous model agency. As Alice start to find her way into the modeling industry, she falls in love with the man who discovered her. Soon, she is caught in a serious family situation that makes her rethink her modeling career and "love life"
Overall, I really liked the book because it gives us an idea of how the modeling industry is like and how complicated life can be when you're really involved with "life". It was believable. For example, Ed Sheeran, even though he is a singer, started from being homeless but after an attempt at his future, he became one of the top singers. This book was actually one out of the ordinary for me. I've never read this type of book so this is a first. A new type of book to my reading challenge !
In the beginning, the story starts off with a young lady named Alice Lonner. She lives In a pretty complicated family life ; her mom is an unskilled person so it's extremely hard for her to find a job, a dad that recently left, and a brother who is involved in many health problems. Alice gets discovered by a man who works in a famous model agency. As Alice start to find her way into the modeling industry, she falls in love with the man who discovered her. Soon, she is caught in a serious family situation that makes her rethink her modeling career and "love life"
Overall, I really liked the book because it gives us an idea of how the modeling industry is like and how complicated life can be when you're really involved with "life". It was believable. For example, Ed Sheeran, even though he is a singer, started from being homeless but after an attempt at his future, he became one of the top singers. This book was actually one out of the ordinary for me. I've never read this type of book so this is a first. A new type of book to my reading challenge !
October 3, 2016
i thought that the book was good. Its interesting and entertaining. If your interested in the model industry this book kinda gives you an idea of what life as a model would be.
September 4, 2014
I read this when I was 8 or 9 and remember really enjoying it.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews