New Times Bestselling author and Emmy Award nominee Elise Allen is joining the popular crowd by having her YA novel Populazzi optioned by Wind Dancer Films.

Populazzi is Allen’s debut solo novel.  She also co-wrote the New York Times bestseller Elixir with Hillary Duff.  Publisher’s Weekly says: “In her first solo novel, Allen offers a smart mix of hilarity and tragedy in this Macbeth—meets—Mean Girls tale.” While Kirkus Reviews adds “The story unflinchingly depicts the dark and dangerous side of high-school popularity, making it a captivating read.”

Synopsis:

Cara has never been one of those girls: confident, self-possessed, and always ready with the perfect thing to say. A girl at the very top of the popularity tower. One of the Populazzi. Now, junior year could change everything. Cara’s moving to a new school, and her best friend urges her to seize the moment—with the help of the Ladder. Its rungs are relationships, and if Cara transforms into the perfect girlfriend for guys ever-higher on the tower, she’ll reach the ultimate goal: Supreme Populazzi. The Ladder seems like a lighthearted social experiment, a straight climb up, but it quickly becomes gnarled and twisted. And when everything goes wrong, only the most audacious act Cara can think of has a chance of setting things even a little bit right.

From Dete Meserve, President of Wind Dancer:

The book is hilarious — the perfect mix of darkly twisted, sexy, and gut wrenchingly real. We were immediately drawn to it, and couldn’t stop flipping pages. We knew right away we wanted to bring it to the screen.

Do you think Populazzi could be the next Mean Girls?