Shocker: Kendall and Kylie Didn’t Really Write Their YA Novel
Here’s a shock: Kendall and Kylie Jenner didn’t really write “Rebels: City of Indra,” their dystopian YA novel that came out last month—but they did kinda-sorta help.
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The L.A. Times published an interview with Maya Sloane, the book’s ghostwriter, and it was revealed that along with their creative director Elizabeth Killmond-Roman, the teenage reality stars created a “broad two-page outline describing the futuristic tale about two girls with superpowers who are secretly twins. Sloan was hired to execute that vision, using Kendall and Kylie as inspiration for the book’s protagonists. The sisters took her along with them to New York Fashion Week and let her hang in their hotel room while they texted their friends.” (Yes, the sisters have their own “creative director.)
To be fair, the Jenners never claimed to have written the novel without assistance, despite the fact that Sloane’s name is absent from the cover. Kendall told “Good Morning America” that they received “some help” because “we obviously can’t write a sci-fi novel on our own,” but it seems they didn’t write any at all, as the L.A. Times acknowledged in a particularly telling paragraph:
“While Sloan actually wrote the book, Killmond-Roman took pains to emphasize the girls’ involvement in “Rebels.” They had numerous Skype and Face-Time sessions with Sloan, she said, and the group all marked up drafts with extensive notes. “People are trying to take this away from the girls,” [Sloane] said. “But most art is collaborative. It was never, like, ‘Maya — go off and write 10 chapters and send them back to us.'”
The 37-year-old Sloane—who’s also the co-author of the upcoming novel “The Rich Kids of Instagram” based on the juicy anonymous account on the social media site—isn’t too concerned about being labeled a certain type of writer, despite the fact she holds two MFAs and has taught at nine different colleges and universities.
“People are going to want to say I’m a YA author now, but it’s not like one day I can’t write a literary novel — whatever literary means,” she told the L.A. times. “As if there are these Greek gods dictating what literature is? None of the students I teach read — even the really smart ones. They read magazines and blogs; everything is becoming really visual. So I can talk to you about Tolstoy and I can talk to you about ‘Divergent.’ I refuse the snobbery.”
Still, don’t expect to see her on “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” any time soon.
“They didn’t ask me to be on the show, and that didn’t hurt my feelings,” the writer said. “Besides, I’d have to lose 15 pounds.”
Head over to the L.A. Times now to read the entire interview, and let us know if you’ve read Rebels: City of Indra.
