Lucky Girl

A 12-year-old dancer leaves her troubled family to pursue her Hollywood dreams in Tagle-Dokus’s uneven debut. Lucy Gardiner only wants to dance and not think about her depressed father, her mother’s failed dreams as a playwright, or her older brother, Joel, whose ambition to make art is complicated by a drug addiction. She wins a dance competition and lands a spot on a reality competition show, where one of the judges, a seasoned pop star named Bruise, is instantly drawn to her. Bruise writes a song for Lucy, who performs in the accompanying music video, and the song becomes a huge hit. Lucy’s parents then sign over guardianship to Bruise, and as she becomes a teen, she lands acting gigs as well as more dance roles. She also slips into an unhealthy co-dependent dynamic with her solipsistic guardian, who pulls her away from her family. When Lucy hears news of Joel’s overdose and their mother’s breast cancer, she’s torn between her new life with Bruise and reconnecting with her family. The author uses clever narrative devices to convey the dizzying effects of reality TV production on Lucy, such as presenting multiple versions of events on set, but there’s little momentum to the story or character development. Still, Tagle-Dokus crafts a canny tale of the vagaries of show business. Agent: Lauren Scovel, Laura Gross Literary. (Nov.)