Prep Cool

Cinderella Cleaners #2

by Maya Gold

This week at Cinderella Cleaners, someone has dropped off a private-school uniform. Diana has always wondered what it would be like to attend a posh academy…and now she has the chance to find out. Her best friend's cell phone is stolen, and in order to catch the culprit, Diana has to sneak into super-snooty Foreman Academy. But she never counted on mayhem, mean girls, and a pop quiz! Can Diana convince everyone she's a prep-school student before the other shoe drops?

Genres: Childrens, Middle Grade, Realistic Fiction, Young Adult, Chick Lit, Fiction, Contemporary

155 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2010

About the author

Maya Gold grew up in New Jersey, a few towns north of Diana’s home in Weehawken. Now she lives in upstate New York with her fashion–forward teenage daughter and a very friendly dog. Maya writes books and magazine articles, and in her spare time, she coaches a high school drama club. Cinderella Cleaners is her first series for young readers.

Reviews

[Majohn Williams]

I think this book was OK. I say that because it really have any action in it. This book was about a girl name Diana and her bestfriend Jess, they had a friend name Will whoo had a gig with his older brother's band, and they performed at a private school dance. This girl named Brooke had took Jess phone and started to send embarrasing pictures to everybody in her contact list and also sent rude text messages. I think that Diana was a good bestfriend because she had worked at a cleaners with her fater and somebody from the private school had a uniform that had to get cleaned, Diana used that to get into the school. She only did that to help her bestfriend get her phone back because it was really her fault that the phone got took in the first place. So, she pretended to be the girl that dropped the unform off, to get get into the school and she met up with the girl who dropped off her uniform, it was unexpected. But the girl and her friends helped Diana out by sneaking into the girls dorm to go to Brooke's room to get Jess phone.

[Jennifer Wardrip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewed by Theresa L. Stowell for TeensReadToo.com

The adventures of Diana Donato continue in the second book of the CINDERELLA CLEANERS series.

Diana has a number of new stressors in this segment. For one, her French class is driving her crazy. She can handle the classroom activities, but when it comes to tests, she's a mess. Further, she's still having problems with her stepmother, and she's starting to wonder if her grandparents left the area because of Fay rather than because they wanted to retire. Worse yet, her dad's business, Cinderella Cleaners, is having financial troubles, and she can't tell anyone (even her dad) that she knows.

Diana's biggest problem occurs after Will, the new guy at school, invites Diana and her best friend, Jess, to watch him play with his brother's band at a dance at the elite Foreman Academy. Not surprisingly, the school grounds are fabulous, and the dance seems to be going better than expected, especially when Jess meets Jason, a student at the school, and they hit it off. While Jess and Jason dance, Diana watches over Jess' purse, which holds her prized new cell phone.

Diana takes the opportunity to snap some pictures of her friend dancing with Jason, sure that Jess will love them! But, while Jason takes the girls on a tour of the campus, Diana leaves their bags next to some of the musician's equipment. The next day, Jess tells Diana that the phone is missing.

Diana lies about having used the phone, afraid that Jess will be angry with her. Things start to escalate as all of Jess's friends begin getting nasty text messages and copies of goofy pictures the girls took. Diana knows that she has to rescue the phone before Jess finds out that she used it just before it was stolen. In desperation, she "borrows" a Foreman Academy uniform from the cleaners and goes on a quest to save her friendship.

Diana continues to struggle with doing the right thing in this novel and must learn some hard lessons about being honest and being a good friend. Readers will enjoy following Diana and her friends through their exploits in this amusing series, and they might even learn some life lessons along the way.

[Emma Xoxo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED this book since I love the Cinderella Cleaners series in general. When Jessica's phone gets stolen at a posh academy they went to on a Saturday, the blame is all pointed towards Diana. She's the one who left Jessica's bag alone when Jess asked her to hold it for her. It turns out to be Brooke, the blonde girl who was really rude to Jessica in the posh school's bathroom. Diana decides to somehow sneak into the posh academy before things turn out to get to the worst. Brooke is sending mean text messages to all of Jessica's contacts, and next thing Diana knew, she was going to send out pictures that Jessica didn't know Diana took. So when at Cinderella Cleaners there's a uniform from the posh academy, Diana sees her chance. You should really read this book and finds out what happens! Characters opinion: Diana is lovely as always, helping her friends, and starting to form a crush on Will. Jessica is really nice, like Diana, and will always be friends with Diana. Fay is an arrogant person. Who really needs a life other than ruining Diana's. Brooke really needs to learn how to act nice for at least one day. Will, he turns out to be a rocker bass player!!! I rate this book 5 stars!!! *****

[Ashleea · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book follows the previous book in a great series. This book is very well written and easy to read. It also is very relatable to teenage lives. I would say this is a great book along with the first book and I will continue to read the series. I would recommend this book to anyone between fourth and eighth grade. Overall this is a very great book to read with lots of relatable events and I would recommend it to people looking for a great book.

[Mckenzie 11-12 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book because Dianna worked really hard from where she worked at ( Cinderella Cleaner's) and she went threw a tough time with her best friend's phone had been stollen and the popular girl was making fun of both of them. But after that everyone knows that there's always going to be a happy ending but I liked the book it was great1

[Kayla]

I think that it is a good book so far

[Sophia E Rider · Rating 2 out of 5]

Prep Cool is the second book in the Cinderella Cleaners series, telling the story of Diana Donato and her friends who each wind up in various Cinderella-esque mishaps. In this version, Diana and her best friend Jess are invited to see their friend Will's play at a fancy prep school dance. While there, Jess dances with a boy named Jason, who is also the crush of a preppy popular girl named Brooke, leading Brooke to enact her revenge by stealing Jess's phone. To rescue the phone and her friend's reputation, Diana has to sneak into the boarding school and steal the phone back without getting caught.

I definitely preferred the original to this one, however, this story had a lot more in the way of technical prowess. The writing was much more concise and clear, just the storytelling in general seemed much improved to the previous version. However, I enjoyed the plot of this one a lot less, plus the pacing issues from the original carried through into this one as well. I will say, though, the escape portion of the book is by far the best part and, at times, is genuinely distressing, as it sincerely seems uncertain if the characters will get away with their schemes by the end, as the last book showed it wasn't afraid to offer up consequences for the character's actions.

There were quite a few new characters and unfortunately, I did not get attached to a single one of them. I wish they would have been given more time to develop as characters, but their screen time was completely overshadowed by boring filler that was completely unnecessary. And, if we're talking about characters, I really wish the other characters would be developed more as well. I knew more about Jason than I knew about Ethan, Will, Sara, or Amelia, and Jason had like two chapters of character development. The last book had this flaw as well, though, but I had hoped it would be rectified before they brought in new characters into the mix.

This was certainly a fun and quick read, but it wasn't a very good one, which is why I gave it two stars. I recognize that I am certainly not the target demographic for this, but I enjoyed these as a kid and I still enjoy them now, I just can see more of the story's flaws. And while this is certainly a flawed book, I liked a lot of things about it, from the improved writing to the time at the Academy, there is a lot to like, and I had a good time reading it, so that's what's important.

[Evelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

it really shows that it doesn't matter the place your in even if you go to a fancy prep school if the people are really mean then you would most likely want to be somewhere where the people are nice.

[gail ♛ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I definitely enjoyed the first book more than this one, but it wasn't terrible. I loved reading about Diana's new adventure and mischief she gets herself into. It did not disappoint.

[Desmond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very sweet and awesome

[Karen Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Snappy dialogue but way too fast-paced. I was expecting more prep school stuff but the thing about this book is that it crams all the events in the span of a few hours because realistically, the main character can't borrow the outfit for longer than that since she works at the cleaners after all. I was a little miffed that the cleaners even allowed this kind of "borrowing" to happen 😭😂 and the conflict which was due to the MC's fault felt like a missed opportunity to truly dive into prep school. The conflict was resolved too quickly in a goofy spy cameo where she just attends classes pretending to be someone else. There was no immersion at all. You'd think the MC would get bullied more harshly but all she experienced were stereotypical rich mean white girl meanness. The antagonist were ho hum and stereotypical with not much nuance other than being mean, rich preps. Still, I felt satisfied being able to read this as an adult since I once saw it in primary school and couldn't afford the book although it intrigued me.

[Lily Ballenger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book.

[Katie Fitzgerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Fall play is over, but Diana is still stuck working at Cinderella Cleaners. Her dad is softening a little bit, though, because he does let her out of the house long enough to see her friend Will - the cute boy she keeps saying she doesn't like, despite behavior that says otherwise - play with his band at a local private school. While there, she and Jess try to blend in with the rich kids, and Jess even dances with one of the cute boys! Diana uses Jess's phone to take pictures so that she will have a souvenir later on. But when they get home, Jess's phone is missing, and worse, someone is using it to send hate messages to her entire contact list. With the help of the crew at Cinderella Cleaners, Diana decides to disguise herself as a prep school girl, and sneak back into the school to retrieve Jess's phone from the mean girl who stole it.

This second book reveals the formula that I suspect will permeate the other books in the series. Diana is not a great role model - she breaks rules, goes against her parents' wishes, steals, tells lies, and even hurts her best friend with her carelessness, but she has good intentions underneath it all, and her hi-jinks are appealing precisely because they are so risky. I'm not sure this is a formula than can sustain itself over multiple books, because a dry cleaning business can only provide so many convenient disguises, but even with this obvious gimmick, this was still a good, solid pageturner with just the right amount of suspense and friendship drama.

[Chloe Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book was pretty good. Not the best book in the series but overall, pretty good book. I personally couldn't put it down but it wasn't my favorite. It is a book about how this girl named Dianna (Main character) and her friend Jess go to this private school dance that their friend Will is playing in the band at. Jess ends up losing her phone so Dianna has to get it back because there are two mean blondes at the private school that took it and are sending mean texts and pictures to everyone on her contacts list. You will have to read the book to figure out how Dianna fixes it but I will say that you never would have suspected how she got the phone back. Dianna is a really good friend in the end!

[Kiserbookworm · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I first started this book I viewed it a super cookie cutter. But as I read on it started to get unique about halfway through it.I started to read and think and realized this book is the true definition of how far a girl will go to please he BFF after SHE screws up.This is a touching story that has you turning the pages so fast that you are surprised when it's over.So pick up a copy of Cinderella Cleaners Prep Cool and you will be truly amazed on how fast time flies when you are enjoying a good book so pick a copy today!

[Madeleine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just like all the other books this one was superb. I love this series because all of the books are very interesting and you can't wait to read the next one. This book in the series is when the main character's best friend gets her phone stolen at this concert at a very fancy school. Then the main character gets a uniform and pretends to be her friends cousin who goes there. She gets the phone back and a lot of stuff happens after that and in before that event in the book.

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book was a four because it kept me wanting to read on and on.And I liked this book because in the middle of the book there is a probelm and in the end she solved it and would do anything to get her best friends cell phone back from the two blonde girls who stole it.Diana knew it was her fault she left it at the dance so she had to get it back.Or her relationship with Jess,her best friend was over.

[Mirandaaaa]

I think this book was pretty fun .. im doing my book report on it. .. And well .. i enjoyed it and i think your able to see were the writer was going.. and well it was a very nice story about a girl my age .. i pretty much enjoyed it .

[Angelina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This week at Cinderella Cleaners, someone has dropped off a private-school uniform. Diana has always wondered what it would be like to attend a posh academy--and now that her friend insists that Diana helps find her stolen cell phone,she has the chance to find out.

[girlie_girl1068 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prep Cool was another good book in the Cinderella Cleaners. I like how Diana snuck into Foreman Academy into Brookenzie's dorm room and got Jess's cell phone that Brooke stole at the dance at Foreman Academy when they went to see Will play in his brother's band.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was Great!!!!!!

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

For fluffy fun, this book is good. Second in a series, so you'd probably want to read the first one first.

[Pacific · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is good but not as well written as the first one. The plot line is kind of dull, and once again this is a tween book.

[Shazzer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy this series - good characters, nice fantastical situations. A be-your-own-fairy-godmother kind of thing.

[10-11 Lexie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this book was just like the first. Good but not great. Bad but not horrible. I enjoyed parts of it.

[Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Same story as the first. At least she's not going to a movie premire pretending to be someone else.

[Tfeenstra]

cute story

[Courtney jacksson]

it cool so far

[Elena F.]

better than the 1st!!!

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I LOVED IT!