Gossip Girl (Gossip Girl #1)

Meet GOSSIP GIRL, an anonymous New York teen who posts all of the latest news about her peers at her website. Readers are introduced to a variety of high schoolers whose days and nights are filled with money, cars, boyfriends/girlfriends, cell phones, agendas, parties, and more. If you're in, you're in; if you're out, you're definitely out - unless you are dating or are related to one of the cool kids.

The character with the most mystery surrounding her is Serena, a blonde beauty whose return to Manhattan sparks controversy galore as her classmates wonder why she has come back to her all-girl private high school after a year-long absence and travels overseas. Serena's estranged best friend Blair, who was just getting accustomed to being THE most popular girl, now must take a step back and share the spotlight. Not only is her popularity at stake, but so is her love life, as she worries that her boyfriend Nate only has eyes . . . for Serena.

If GOSSIP GIRL was a TV show, HBO, FOX and THE WB would all fight over the rights to it. GOSSIP GIRL takes 90210 and moves it to Manhattan. The teens are trashy and classy at all once; while they know the difference between Prada and Gucci, they don't always know the difference between right and wrong. The book is more melodrama than drama, and delightfully so. It's a beach read mixed with martinis.

Ouch. The teens in Gossip Girl are downright vicious. They are also beautiful, rich, talented, incredibly self-absorbed and petty. Even though you mostly can't stand them, you have to finish the book once you've started because it is like a train wreck or a soap opera. Once you look, you can't stop looking.

At first, it seems like Blair is the focus of the book. The poor little rich girl who used to be best friends with Serena (recently returned to the Upper East Side, after being kicked out of boarding school) had made the most of her time while Serena was away by consolidating her powerbase and becoming the "It" girl.

When Serena returns, Blair and the rest of the gang snub her and even help spread vicious rumors about her. Even Nate, Blair's boyfriend and one-time love of Serena, follows along. Meanwhile, they are partying, drinking, doing drugs and generally having a rip-roaring (very illegal) time.

Serena, we soon see, is the real heroine of the book. She's portrayed as the most beautiful flower in a field of precious blooms (if anyone happened to look close, they'd see that most of those blooms were tarnished), bewildered as to why her old friends will have nothing to do with her. She even comes to an epiphany of sorts when she realizes she doesn't really know what she's doing with her life.

Of course, not every character in this book is an empty-headed socialite with loose morals. We also have Vanessa, a rebellious filmmaker that initially dislikes Serena, until she finds out the other popular kids don't like her anymore. There's also Dan and Jenny, who are brother and sister. They go to school with the rest of the cast of characters, but they don't subscribe to the same lifestyle. Jenny, however, has secret desires to see how the other half live and she finds out in a manner she is not likely to forget.

Interspersed throughout the book are gossip girl extracts off of a somewhat fictional website: gossipgirl.net. Gossip Girl, you see, likes to dish what is going on from the inside. You don't know which character she is supposed to be, but you are supposed to believe that she hosts a website where she posts rumors and gossip about the lives of all the chosen.

I found the inserts to be a little annoying and I don't feel they added a lot to the story itself. They seemed more like a promotion tool (as gossipgirl.net really does exist, with a small amount of content put up by the publisher) than a valid addition to the story, especially since they mostly just provided a brief synopsis of what you had just read. They did add to the overall feeling of bad teens doing bad things, however.

If you liked the movie "Cruel Intentions," you are bound to like this book. Story-wise, it really boils down to be a story about acceptance and social pressure that anyone can relate to. And, even though I really didn't like most of the characters, I still want to read the next book in the series to find out what happens to them. I'll just have to read some "cheerful" things in between to get the nasty taste out of my mouth.