Breakfast at Bloomingdale's

by Kristen Kemp

Book Overview

What's it take for a girl to make it in the big city? A sense of humor, a sense of self, and a desire to succeed in fashion. A stylish novel for teen PROJECT RUNWAY and DEVIL WEARS PRADA fans. Kat's... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0439809878
• ISBN13: 9780439809870
• Release Date: August 2007
• Publisher: Scholastic Press
• Length: 299 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 8.6" x 8.3"
• Age Range: 12 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 7 and higher

Customer Reviews

Fashion savvy and sweet

Cat's a girl with a dream and a plan to achieve it. She's going to New York City to be a famous fashion designer; particularly, she wants her own label to be sold at Bloomingdale's. For all of Cat's life, that's been her dream, but now she's perfectly poised to accomplish it by entering CosmoGIRL! and Bloomingdale's The Finished Line fashion design contest. Armed with access to her late grandmother Nina's bank account, killer design and sewing skills, and a one-way ticket to New York City, Cat is all ready for her new life. But once she arrives, it's a little different and harder that she expected, and adjustments will have to be made accordingly, because giving up is not an option. The competition better look out. New and improved Cat Zappe, famous designed to be, is taking New York City by fashion storm. By no surprise, Breakfast at Bloomingdale's is all about fashion, but it's also about hard work, dreams, and relationships. Most fashion novels I've read deal with the tail end of the fashion industry, the already crafted clothes and modeling. This story gives me new respect for the designing end; I had no idea that much education, experimentation, and design went into making the finished fashion product. I also didn't know that designer hopefuls could be just as catty, for lack of a better word, as competitive models; Cat's ability to keep a cool head most of the time in these situations earned even more of my respect. I absolutely loved reading about Cat's character. She has impressive commitment and determination in reaching her goals and, more often than not, is rather smart in navigating through her relationships. I greatly admired her maturity and self control as well, and all this just made me hope she'd accomplish her dreams. Breakfast at Bloomingdale's is a thoroughly enjoyable story to read because it shows that everything, for better or worse, is interconnected, that things have a way of working themselves out in the end, and that lack of success doesn't necessarily translate into failure. I recommend Breakfast and Bloomingdale's for fans of Violet on the Runway by Melissa Walker, Airhead by Meg Cabot, and the America's Next Top Model series by Taryn Bell as well as to any teen girl, because Cat is a characters after ever reader's heart. I look forward to reading more of Kemp's writing, particularly a possible fashion savvy sequel to this sweet book.

breakfast At Bloomingdales

Imagine the thing you want to accomplish most in the world. Then imagine trying to accomplish it in a strange, new city with no family, not very many friends and only a small sum of money. That is the problem Cat Zappe has. Cat and her grandmother had always been very close, brought together by their mutual love for fashion designing. After her grandmother's death, Cat runs away to New York City to escape having to live with her mother without her grandmother, and to pursue her career in fashion designing. Breakfast at Bloomingdales by Kristen Kemp is the story of Cat's journey to become a fashion designer and the interesting adventures she has on the way. Kemp uses many clever techniques in her writing to help her readers hooked on the story. By introducing Cat's goal of winning her own clothing line at Bloomingdales at the beginning of the story and then coming up with obstacles that prevent her from meeting this goal and not revealing whether she meets it until the very end, Kemp made me want to keep reading. She also uses a lot of details and descriptions, which helped me get a picture in my head, therefore drawing me into the story. "...not because Nina had a fabulous turn-of-the-century Victorian mansion on Mockingbird Street with a Jacuzzi, party room, and three huge spaces we turned into sewing parlors on the light-drenched first floor. I stayed because Nina loved me a lot more than this poor excuse for a maternal unit did." The many details Kemp uses in describing Cat's grandmother's house emphasize how rich the grandmother was, but also the fact that Cat loved her for reasons besides her wealth. Many times when you read books descriptions of place can get boring, but because of the interesting details that Kemp uses I wasn't bored reading her descriptions. Throughout Breakfast at Bloomingdales, I was on the edge of my seat because of the all the great details that Kristen Kemp used and I stayed there until the end because of the way the plot unfolded. Her usage of details helped me picture all the places and people Cat encountered. Because Kemp didn't resolve the conflict until the end, I felt I had to keep reading to figure out what happened. I would recommend Breakfast at Bloomingdales to any teenage girl that has a dream they want to fulfill and wants to laugh.

Breakfast at Bloomingdale's By: Kirsten Kemp Book Review

Cat's world is changing tremendously and she's following her and her grandmother's dream since childhood to create a clothing line called Breakfast for Bloomingdale's. For as long as she can remember it had just been her and her grandmother Nina sewing up a storm! Her real mother never appreciated having a child so Nina became Cat's surrogate mother. Now, the one person who really loves her (Nina) has died and left Kat all alone in the world. Really, the only thing that makes sense in her life now is their dream of creating their own fashion line by winning a contest sponsored by the magical Bloomingdale's. Still truly devastated, Cat drops out of school and flees to Manhattan. But, things do not always seem to go as planned. Her boyfriend, who was going with her, decided to break up before she left. At the same moment Cat's headed to the city, determined to tackle everything on her own. Can she make her dreams come true? What kind of determination does it take to follow your own dreams? This four star fictional novel is probably best suited for teens who want to fully understand the power of achieving your goals and love anything to do with fashion. You will never be able to put this charming, smooth flowing book down! At times, Cat does seem a little selfish and childish but I could understand the situations she was trying to handle by herself. On page two hundred and seventy four Cat anwsered Muddy by saying, " I would rather you run over my chest with a lawn mower, the blades freshly sharpened." Also, at times she is unlikable because of her decisions and the way she treats people, including her mother, new/old boyfriends, and people she encounters in New York City. On page one hundred and twenty-four Cat says to Opal, "Whatever me again and you'll wear that sapphire in your eye. Got it? Now go back to Wal-Mart." Breakfast at Bloomingdale's is an excellent, modern twist on the classic "Breakfast at Tiffany's" because of Cat's and Holly's same opinions, thoughts, and taste in clothing. After all, Cat as well as Holly Golightly are just waiting for their chance to travel in style over their own lovely moon river, just in completely different ways.

Courtesy of Teens Read Too

Kat's world is rapidly changing and she's following her and her grandmother's dream or creating their own fashion line. For as long as she can remember, it's been just her and her grandmother, Nina, sewing up a storm. Nina became her surrogate mother, as her own mom never appreciated having a child. Now, Nina has died, leaving Kat all alone in the world, with just a plan at having her fashion line Breakfast appear at Bloomingdale's. Kat's moved all of her belongings that Nina left her to New York City to follow their dreams. But things don't always seem to go as planned. Her boyfriend, who was going with her, decided against the move. Now Kat's headed to the city, determined to tackle everything on her own. Can she make her dreams come true? What kind of determination does it take to follow your own dreams? Kristen Kemp pens an emotionally charged tale of a girl doing everything in her power to hold on to her dreams, the only thing that makes sense in her life. Reviewed by: Jennifer Rummel