Josie Foley, home-schooled loser, finds solace in one thing in her miserable life: music. When U.S.A Talent auditions hit the East Coast her geeky, only-friend urges her to leave their small hometown and attend the forbidden event.
Josie is suddenly hurled into L.A.'s underbelly, an unfamiliar world of drugs, parties and crime introduced to her by the bewitching and mysterious Vanessa. Along the way, she encounters an assortment of strange, dangerous new friends that accompany her on a once-in-a-lifetime journey. There's Dante, the unhinged drag queen; Christian, a hot Sunset Strip rocker; Mickey Solomon, Hollywood's favorite drug kingpin; and SNL, the spoiled little rich girl in pink.
But as Josie and Vanessa grow closer, terrible secrets start to surface-secrets that even the malleable Josie cannot ignore, threatening the friendship she always dreamed of. As the show comes to an intense climax, she begins to question what reflections are real-even her own-and discovers that nothing here is what it seems.
It takes a sour dose of reality for Josie to realize she never needed acceptance to be a star...but is it too late?
A shocking plunge into a raw and realistic Los Angeles, IF YOU COME TO CALIFORNIA is a fictional black market tourist's guide for anybody who has ever had a Hollywood dream. An entertaining but painfully truthful coming-of-age set in a time when "soda pop is out and Four Lokos is in," Josie guides us through a year in the turbulent life of a teenage Millennial.
