Secrets of the Model Dorm

Everything that could be expected in a novel about aspiring models is present: casual sex, drug usage, club hopping, backstabbing, and though Kerlin, an ex-model, and Oh, a DJ and music consultant, are familiar with the lifestyle, they manage to make it a chore to read about. Heather Johnston, newly arrived to Manhattan from the modeling minor league in Miami, is determined to prove to herself and her doubting family that she can succeed as a model. The agency that represents her provides her with the use of a downtown apartment, which she shares with a handful of other aspiring models, including Svetlana, a calculating Russian possessed of a dubious grasp of English. While out one night, Heather meets a dashing French nightclub owner, Robert du Croix, who shows unusual interest in Heather as a person, not merely a body. Svetlana, though, is obsessed with Robert as well. Something akin to drama ensues, but even the frisson of titillation that should accompany a book about desperate models is lost to flat prose and crude stabs at character development. (Jan.)