Gossip Girl by Cecily Von Ziegesar

From the book:

Welcome to New York City's Upper East Side, where my friends and I live, go to school, play, and sleep--sometimes with each other.
S is back from boarding school, and if we aren't careful, she's going to win over our teachers, wear that dress we couldn't fit into, steal our boyfriends' hearts, and basically ruin our lives in a major way. I'll be watching closely...
You know you love me,
gossip girl

Wow - young adult books have changed a lot since I was a young adult (don't ask how many years that has been). Or maybe there just weren't too many young adult books and I moved on to adult books. Either way I think that it's wonderful that there are so many young adult books out there for adults and teenagers to choose from. So - I heard about this series and wanted to read it. The first one was definitely interesting. It seems so different from how it was when I was a teenager, but then again I didn't live in New York or have extremely wealthy parents, so these kids are different from me. Nonetheless, I enjoyed reading about them. Remove the fast and rich lifestyle and they have the same problems as any other teenager, plus there own set of problems. This book does not glamorize the life of the rich, but shows how these kids are like other kids. They are insecure, they do dumb things, they fall in love, make tough decisions and decide on the path their life will take them. They have trouble with friends and with boyfriends, they pick on other kids, sometimes they are picked on. Their parents fight, divorce, date, sometimes act like parents and embarass them.

So I really enjoyed reading about Blair, Nate, Serena and the other characters. The book centers around gossip that is reported and how it can be expounded upon and everyone seems to believe it. Thankfully as the reader you have a little more insight into the characters and you can see that the gossip hurts. But it sucks you in. I flew through this book and have the second one on the way so I can learn more about this crowd. It's a worthwhile, fun read and I can't wait to read more about them.

Rating: 4/5
Reading level: Young Adult
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 224 pages
Publisher: Poppy
Publication Date: April 1, 2002
ISBN-10: 0316910333