Fugly is the new YA

Last night I went to see Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, AKA the "Fug Girls," at WORD Bookstore in Brooklyn.

If I ever get to go to the Oscars, I will email the Fug Girls and beg for their style advice so as not to embarrass myself on the red carpet. Most of the time, though, I visit their site Go Fug Yourself for the jokes, not the practical tips. Runaway blog successes are a dime a dozen now, but GFY was one of the first I remember. The site serves up examples of celebrity how-not-tos like "Scrolldown Fugs" (outfits with great tops and terrible bottoms) and "Fug the Covers" (terrible magazine design) as well as hosting the annual "Fug Madness" fashion bracket. (Vanessa Hudgens won this year.) Cocks writes posts in the voice of Britney Spears, a tradition dating back to her 2007 breakdown, and sometimes "Intern George" (Clooney) answers fan mail and random spam.

Cocks and Morgan, who now work on the site full time, met as writers at that old recap paradise, Television Without Pity, and bonded over their love of sports and ridiculous celebrity fashion. The writers have recently branched out into YA with their books SPOILED and MESSY, which they write alongside 5-6 posts a day each. I haven't read SPOILED and MESSY yet, but I gather that they follow two daughters of an aging blockbuster actor, one who grew up in Hollywood splendor, the other who only finds out about her famous parentage as a teenager.

Cocks and Morgan said they collaborate on each chapter, after trying to each write one character and finding that took too long. "I know since there's two of us people think we each write half the book," Morgan said, "but really it's more like we each write a whole book since we're always editing each other."