Diane Leslie's first novel, Fleur de Leigh's Life of Crime, chronicled young Fleur Leigh's glamorous misadventures in 1950s Hollywood. "Tr s charmant indeed," Entertainment Weekly praised this Library Journal and Los Angeles Times Best Book of 1999. Fleur de Leigh in Exile finds fifteen-year-old Fleur in diminished circumstances. She transferred mid-semester to Tucson's Rancho Cambridge West -- the cheapest boarding school in all the United States -- where frail students convalesce in the arid clime and dine on the mess hall's "adobe melt." "Think of yourself as a conquistador," her B-movie actress mother urges, but Fleur's eyes are widened to the evils of prejudice and the burdens of combating it. After a night of dorm-room high jinks, Fleur and friends band together as the "Four-Letter Four." Sentenced to a civic-minded punishment deep in the desert, the "doomed do-gooders" encounter a grave situation far removed from Fleur's upper-class upbringing. Serious issues abound, but in Diane Leslie's world even the most painful moments are tinged with comedy. Diane Leslie's writing is "enchanting, believable, and wickedly funny" (Denver Post). Witty and fresh, Fleur de Leigh in Exile pits Heartland against Hollywood in a tale whose courageous heroine is as endearing in exile as ever before.
Fleur De Leigh In Exile is a novel by Diane Leslie, this book is the sequel to the book Fleur De Leigh's Life of Crime. This book is a story of the fifteen year old Fleur who got sent to a bad and cheap boarding school called Tucson Rancho Cambridge in the middle of no where. Her mother is an actress and likes to tell Fleur what to do. Also her high class friend Daisy comes to the same school. Things go bad but in the end they it is all good. I would recommend this book to other readers. You should read the first book first so you know the background of Fleur and her life. The writing quality is very good. I like the style of writing. The woman's issues that are addressed in this book are issues of acceptance by the girls in the new school, and academics. When fleur first gets to the school she in not accepted, and she doesn't like it. While being showed around the dorm by the other girls one of them said, " Gosh! Wow! You aren't a snob!(10)" That girl didn't like Fleur because she was wealthy and had different customs then them. The other girls need to learn how to respect Fleur and her differences. An example of an issue of academics would be when Fleur was asked to pick a book from the library, "To be honest, I chose Noblesse Oblige because it was the least batter book on the shelves.(36)" They had the problem of using old weathered down books and not being able to use new and good books. Women should be aware of this book because it will teach them good life skills. Overall this book was very good and is a good book for teenagers.
Hilarious
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 21 years ago
Fifteen-year-old Fleur De Leigh is back in this new novel, which has her leaving her posh Hollywood home, and trekking all the way to the cheapest sleep-away academy in America. And boy are there some peculiar things happening. Her roommate enjoys sleeping in the barn with the horses, and the headmaster's ambition is to play Abraham Lincoln in the movies.Fleur De Leigh is a likeable character, who I'm sure many females between the ages of 12-18 can relate to. She's humorous, and gets into plenty of mischief with her best friend, Daisy. Diane Leslie has created a character that we can all laugh at, with her crazy antics, whether at home or at sleep-away school. I'd recommend this book to anyone who's looking for a fun read.
Fleur returns - to be sent away! A great read!
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 21 years ago
This is such fun - the sequel to Fleur de Leigh's Life of Crime is just as polished and rewarding, though structurally it's more of a traditional novel than the nanny-driven, short-story-like chapters of Life of Crime. Abruptly exiled from Hollywood by her parents to an Arizona boarding school, Fleur ("the de is silent") Leigh continues on her life's journey in her enchanting and word-wise manner. Ever determined to apply what she has learned both in school and from her resoundingly in-their-own-world parents about the proper ways of wending herself in the world, Fleur is a delightful narrator through her school-year-of-horrors at the "cheapest boarding school in the United States," providing a reading experience of the highest order: entertaining, enlightening, heartening.
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