My Original Post Warning: SPOILERS!Hello Dear Readers! And Happy Lazy Sunday!I'm at Scruff's this weekend but I thought I would break up the monotony of my weekend with one of the book reviews I promised you in this post. As most of you know, I was a huge fan of the Gossip Girl television series and I had been wanting to read the books. Well, I finally got a hold of them and started reading them at the end of January. I finished up book 11 recently and am finally ready to write out the review. As a fan of the show let me start by saying that the artistic license taken by the WB was wonderfully applied. I found the books to be severely.... Lacking. In everything that the show was about. For a series that is touted to be about spoiled rick kids who drink, do drugs, have sex and betray each other over and over - all before noon! - I felt like this series could have been written about the MHS class of 2000. Honestly, I'm no Upper East Sider but my friends and I accomplished just about as much as the main characters in the book series did. We just didn't do it at Barney's or on our own private sail boat. Let me explain:Blair Waldorf, Nate Archibald, Vanessa Abrams, Dan & Jenny Humphrey & Serena van der Woodson all live in posh houses in the equally post Upper East Side of Manhattan, NY. They all attend private schools an they all have parents they wish would just leave them alone. Focusing on the senior year for each of them and the summer prior to heading off to their respective Ivy League colleges, we learn what it is to be a snob as seen through the eyes of an anonymous blogger calling herself "Gossip Girl". Despite the television portrayal of these high school (into college and then post college) kids as ego eccentric, rich snobs doesn't come close to the cigarette smoking, fashion unconscious (unless it's for a party), rude and undeveloped characters. Although we are told a small bit about each main characters background, the truth is that each is vapid, clumsily written and underwhelming. I won't outright call it a waste of time to read, but at least go into expecting the series to defy all your expectations. If you are a fan of the show, don't read the books.And then there is Chuck Bass... Oh Chuck. What did they do to you in transition from book to TV heartthrob? I honestly don't know but somewhere down the road Chuck became a leading man and not just a secondary character who had absolutely no character development other than his acquisition of a per snow monkey. Straight? Gay? Rapist? High School flunkie? Ms. von Ziegsesar certainly can not be held accountable for the Chuck Bass we all fell in love with. Her version of chuck was more underwhelming than the character of Dan Humphrey. I don't know. Maybe it was simply that I fell in love with the actors playing the characters or that the show had a six season run but I honestly felt that in 11 books, she could have created an environment that would suck the reader in an not push them away. Unfortunately, if you read the books before starting on old reruns of the show, you will probably hate the show. Which is unfortunate because it really was a well written television drama. WTF?All in all I have to label this series as read at your own risk. It only took me a week to finish all 11 books and that was with having a life and reading other things as well. It didn't grasp my attention the way The Clique (Lisi Harrison) did. And those books are aimed at YA readers with a splash of snobbery as well. But at least the characters weren't one dimensional. The show will go down as one of my favorites with Chuck Bass being one of my favorite leading men. It's such a disappointment I couldn't fall in love with the books the same way.
*SPOILS*not that anyone cares.Just to add some insult to injury from my last review...The thing that bothered me the most in this book (and I now realized bothered me in the other books, too) is how no one can ever finish anything they start a relationship, a job, a punishment (Nate was supposed to go to rehab for six months, lasted a few weeks. Nate was supposed to help his coach with his house, and go to AA meetings (which they didn't even mention, so I can only presume he didn't go at all (classic Gossip Girl plot-holes)). Blair getting a job. Blair and Serena and being "fashion muses". Just to name a few.), etc.Speaking of "fashion muses"... what? I didn't understand what they were supposed to be doing or if they even were doing anything. And who the hell were those "doppelganger" girls? What exactly was their purpose?Nate being sexually harassed and blackmailed by the coach's wife. And then the coach has the nerve to say he can't go to Yale?! Hellloooooooo, all you gotta do is tell the police you're being sexually harassed! And I'm pretty sure he's underage, too!Surprise, surprise. Blair and Serena aren't friends anymore. But because Serena's in love with Nate. WHAT!? Since fucking when?! She had 10 books to declare her love, especially when she was DATING him!, or to atleast clue us readers in. Which brings up back to a classic Gossip Girl plot-hole. Way to start pulling shit out of your asshole now, Cecily. Which I'll say, apparently, Cecily didn't write this one, a "ghostwriter" did. But, case and point, your name is still on the books, I will still blame you. And with that being said, for it being a ghostwriter, I enjoyed this book (and by "enjoyed", I mean I stretched my usual one star for these books to a whole measly two stars). So I'm sitting here actually thinking this phantom writer should have been writing this series this whole time. Well, if I'm really choosing a writer for this, I'd ask a well-known good author. Scratch that again. I think I'd just nuke the whole idea of these books. Let's be honest, we all lost a few braincells reading them.But hey, Blair and Nate are back together. For now atleast. (I give it until before halfway into the next one)In the style of Gossip Girl herself...Will B and N stay together? Or will they continue to annoy me with their teenage tendencies? Will S and D ever get together like the television show got my hopes up for?Will V realize she's annoying and go away?Will J stay away?You know I hate you, kwheeeels
Do You like book Would I Lie To You (2006)?
Another fun Gossip Girl romp. This one finds most of the crowd out in the Hamptons with Serena and Blair functioning as live-in muses for the talented fashion designer, Bailey Winters. However they weren't expecting to meet their own trashy doubles. Hijinks, Blair and Serena-style, quickly follow and are quite fun.Nate is still working for his coach trying to earn his diploma and trying to stay away from the coach's very tanned wife.Vanessa is still chasing around her new charges as a nanny and when she gets a chance to go to the Hamptons and escape life with Dan for a little bit she jumps at it. But the Hamptons aren't really Vanessa, are they.What follows is a fun book. It was one of the more enjoyable in this series and that is saying something since I enjoy all of them. It's just fun fiction and that's what I take from it. Just mindless entertainment and I love revisiting the characters that make up the Gossip Girl series.
—Crystal
191 pages, fictionWhen dealing with fake vs. original, original will win, and that continues on in this Gossip Girl novel. Blair and Serena stay at a fashion designer's Hampton home, being muses, while, essentially, two knockoff versions of themselves summer there as well. Next door, Nate is being seduced by the coach's wife while he works there all summer because he stole...stuff (from the coach). Dan experiments with his sexuality a little by starting up a literay salon which ends in a makeout session. Vanessa, surprisingly, is working as a nanny in the Hamptons for a while, when she gets recruited to be the newest muse for the fashion designer mentioned above, while the knockoff, Serena and Blair are kicked out. Later on, as usual, there's big party where souls are bared with confessions. I can't remember, but at some point, Blair and Serena probably get in a fight. Overall, fluffy, light reading. Nothing too serious, and fairly easy to read. And no, it's not riddled with product placements of name brand clothing.
—Halla
Would i lie To you, in the Gossip Girl series is about friends, Blair, Serena, Nate, Vanessa and Dan during their summer. After they graduated, Serena is out from her acting days and instead is spending time with Nate and Blair. Dan is figuring himself out, and him and Vanessa are just roomates after not making it as a couple. Nate finally tells his love for Blair. Serena is in love with Nate and wants him to know that. This book is a lot more romantic than the rest of the series, it makes me think better of Nate. Vanessa went from working for a movie, to being a nanny, traveling to the Hamptons as a babysitter to going back home happy to have Dan there. But Blair, Serena and Nate are back on thier roadtrip together and maybe Blair and Nate will spend some time together. I recommend this to my friends. This book was funny and romantic.
—Alissa
