This is a hard look at the not-so-pretty pressure behind a pageant childhood, which might be fine for some girls but not for Cassidy, who isn't really sure what she wants out of life because no one has ever asked her. Her mother has pushed her into pageants since she was a preschooler, and now, Cassidy doesn't feel like she can tell her mother that she isn't happy with the restraints and expectations of pageant, acting, and modeling life, but her older brother's friend Aiden encourages her to speak up and begin to explore what she wants out of life.

This is a relatively short and to the point story that gets to the heart of what it means to treat girls and young women as objects of beauty rather than as people in their own right, and how easy it is to place a value on their appearance. I was glad to see Cassidy speak up for herself, in spite of how difficult her mother was, and take responsibility for her future rather than let her mother continue to push her around. ( )