Star of The Hills, fashion designer, and now author, Lauren Conrad, was at Mall of America yesterday for the signing of her book, L.A. Candy. While I was originally supposed to do a video blog with her, her handlers decided last minute that we couldn't shoot any video.

Le sigh.

But since I had spent the better part of my weekend reading her young adult tome, I decided I should at least ask her a few questions.

The book, which is about a young girl named Jane Roberts who moves to Los Angeles with her best friend and is propositioned by the fictional PopTV to star in a reality show, is obviously loosely based on LC's experience on The Hills. Although I was incredibly skeptical of whether or not she even wrote the book (she loathed any writing assignments while interning at Teen Vogue), reading the adverb-filled prose and talking with her yesterday leads me to believe that she did, in fact, pick up the pen.

When I asked her about the writing process, she admitted that she originally went to Harper Collins to proposition them about writing a dating or fashion how-to book, but they instead offered her a chance to write a young adult series. She went through the writing process, including outlining all three books and developing her characters, with the help of her publisher, but the words all her own. “The books I love are the ones where you can really here the author's voice. I just wanted to write a really fun story," she said.

I also pressed LC to confirm that certain characters were based on her cast mates on The Hills, but she maintained that although people in her life inspired the main subjects in L.A. Candy, the characters represent generalizations of the type of people you find in Los Angeles. "The only part of the book that truly reflected my life is the emotional trip that Jane goes on."

The book is meant for young adults, however there were parts of it, including allusions to sex and underage drinking, that I wouldn't want my fourteen-year-old sister reading, but for an easy summer beach read for someone my age (mid-twenties), it is definitely a quick, entertaining read.

The next book (in a series of three) will be published in February.