Colors Insulting to Nature

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Author(s)

Cintra Wilson

Publisher

HarperCollins Publishers

Genre(s)

General Fiction

Age Range

16+

Release Date

August 10, 2004

ISBN

0007154607

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Look deep into your heart, Gentle Reader. Deep, deep, deep; past your desire for true love, for inexhaustible riches or uncontested sexual championship, for the ability to fight crime and restore peace to a weary world. Underneath all this, if you are a true, red-blooded American, you'll find the throbbing desire to be famous. Liza Normal wants fame worse than air, food, sleep, or self-preservation. Her talents are slim, but she's been raised on a crash diet of Hollywood "I-can-do-it " mythology, game-show anthems, and Love's Baby Soft- scented teen dreams. According to the delusional logic inherent in these value-starved sources, the key to Making It Big as a pop star is to simply want it badly enough and Believe in Yourself (and to follow the B-movie template for becoming one of life's golden winners -- see page 20). And so, innocent Liza's disco-ball fantasies are bowled down the yellow brick road, on a direct collision course with that whirling hall of hammers: Reality. She endures a wretched series of mishaps on the road to failure: disastrous love affairs, scorching humiliations. But Liza, a far better human than the two-dimensional starlet she thinks she wants to be, is indestructible. In Colors Insulting to Nature, Cintra Wilson has fused ahilarious yet strangely touching coming-of-age story with a blistering satire of our celebrity-debased culture. In a world where unknowns compete to wear their ethical pants around their ankles on TV, where actors become presidents and plucky American Idols claw their way to stardom over the corpses of the dreams of a million wishful losers, Colors Insulting to Nature shocks us into seeing ourselves as we truly are, not as wethink we look when we make that French pout face in the mirror. Not since John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces, Martin Amis's Money, or, yes, Rabelais's Gargantua and Pantagruel has an antihero peeled away the lamination of our society with such savage glee and empathy. Laugh, cry, cringe with self-recognition: Colors Insulting to Nature is a brilliant achievement.

In Colors Insulting to Nature, Cintra Wilson has fused ahilarious yet strangely touching coming-of-age story with a blistering satire of our celebrity-debased culture. In a world where unknowns compete to wear their ethical pants around their ankles on TV, where actors become presidents and plucky American Idols claw their way to stardom over the corpses of the dreams of a million wishful losers, Colors Insulting to Nature shocks us into seeing ourselves as we truly are, not as wethink we look when we make that French pout face in the mirror. Not since John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces, Martin Amis's Money, or, yes, Rabelais's Gargantua and Pantagruel has an antihero peeled away the lamination of our society with such savage glee and empathy. Laugh, cry, cringe with self-recognition: Colors Insulting to Nature is a brilliant achievement.

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An Interesting Read

July 20, 2004 (Updated: June 30, 2026)

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Reader reviewed by Ria

From a young age, Liza Normal was introduced to the wonderful world of stardom. Her mother, Peppy Normal, took Liza to every audition she could to turn Liza into a star. But Liza didn't find a place in Hollywood with the help of her mother.

Peppy opened up the Normal Family Dinner Theater and set up an acting program. It was there that Liza met the love of her life, Roland Spring, whom she would continue to love for a long time. When the play Peppy put on turned out disastrous, Liza was sent to the local high school. It was at the high school where Liza met Lorna, who would later become her best friend. During her short lived high school career, Liza also experienced her first relationship with a boy named Tanto.

While Liza skipped senior year and got her GED, her older brother was diagnosed with a mental illness in which he hid himself from the human race and avoided contact with everyone. Peppy decided to reopen the theater and Liza left.

Slowly, Liza was introduced to the world of acting. She met DelVonn, who helped her get her first acting gig. During this show, she met her first boyfriend, ChoCho. Being with ChoCho was a mistake, and soon she dumped him and went to stay with Lorna, who had moved into Elf House. For money, Liza started writing adult stories. Since Lizas acting career hadnt been going anywhere, she developed a new character, Venal DeMinus, who became an instant hit.

Liza was sent into a rehab center when her drug addiction became really bad. There, she met Bernardo, a member of an ex-boy band Guyzer. She felt that her career would take off now that she had the right sources. Unfortunately, Lizas relationship with Bernardo fell apart and Liza was left with nothing and had to go back to Peppy. Liza continued to write Venal DeMinus stories for a living and it soon adapted into a live show in Las Vegas, where she moved. And after all those years of pining after Roland Springs, she found him again and started a new relationship.

I thought that this book was very interesting. It took me a while to get into the story. It started to get more interesting near the middle. I think that Lizas life was very interesting, if not somewhat unbelievable. Her encounters and adventures were humorous. This book reminded me of the Fleur de Leigh books. I didnt like the ending very much, but I do think that this book will be a great summer read. I wouldnt recommend this book to everyone. I would give this book 3 stars.

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