Gossip Girl

This is a terrible book that is making my brain leak. I used to watch this show growing up and was always Team Blair. That said, the source material is awful and I can't force my eyes to sit through this. My brain at one point I think tried to punch my skull to let me know that if I didn't' change to a different book I was not going to like the consequences.

I DNFed "Gossip Girl" at 25 percent. At this point if you haven't grabbed me, I am not going to subject myself to finishing this book.

So far it just reads like a bunch of spoiled people who are obsessed with Serena and what she did that had her come back to New York and their private school. We are clued in pretty quickly to the major players (Blair, Nate, Chuck Bass, Serena) and then some random characters that I didn't really worry about. I stopped right around when Jenny and Dan Humphrey got introduced.

So the characters, not very developed. The author jumps around too much from sentence to sentence. I think we are supposed to think of Gossip Girl of being an omnipotent narrator, but it doesn't make a lot of sense with the scenes that are set. I think that it's supposed to be third person point of view but with asides from Gossip Girl and then the Gossip Girl POV if that makes sense? It doesn't does it? You can see why I had to stop reading this mess.

The writing is not good. The way that the author chose to frame things is making my eye twitch. You can just say that someone turned red, or smelled like candy, or had an emerald cuff link. Instead it's Nate turned as red as the Louis the 14th chaise that he stood near. Or Serena smelled like cotton candy, lily of the valley, and baby powder, but expensive. I mean what the hell.

The flow is awful.

The book takes place in New York but so far we have just been in people's fancy apartments. I honestly don't care if Blair finds out or anything. I am maybe shaking my head that they are trying to reboot Gossip Girl and am shuddering about how that is going to look. ( )

So the first thing you should know is that I love the TV series (I know, I know, underage drinking, bad behavior, blah blah). While the TV series is not exactly the same as the story, it was similar enough that I felt like I was watching reruns. It had the same flippant tone, catch-phrases ("you know you love me"), high fashion, and overly mature teenagers. I wish I had read the book first, because I pretty much knew all of the characters and pictured the actresses/actors while reading even when the written descriptions did not match. All of the plot twists were ruined and any shock or awe I was supposed to feel was nonexistent. Though I can usually tolerate watching a movie/TV show after reading the book, I'm not sure it works so well the other way around. ( )

This book is some seriously trashy fun (though the voices for the characters in the audiobook I listened to were super annoying). Great writing. The narration is pretty cool- a third person that gets deep into the characters heads, with witty interjections from a birds eye view narrator every now and again. A perfect expression of teen (insanely wealthy teen) drama. The right tone of earnestness and mockery, down-to-earth and over-the-top.

I've read some negative reviews that were horrified by the book's lack of morality, but that is entirely the point. This isn't the book for 12 year old girls. The characters are about 17, and I think readers that age are old enough not to see the characters as role models. Still, there is a lot of casual drug use & a case of a serious eating disorder dealt with lightly, so if your young teen is reading this you might need to discuss those things first.

Although there are lots of scenes replicated in some way in the start of the TV series, they really are different beasts. The show is more serious, with the characters more fleshed out, more sympathetic. Think of the cast of War & Peace. The book is sort of devil-may-care, love me or hate me, with compelling but less respectable characters. Think Scarlett O'Hara. I loved both approaches. (Note: both these books were references in Gossip Girl, which gives it extra brownie points). ( )

This book was exactly what I expected and wanted it to be: a relaxing read. If you read a book with "Gossip" in the title, and expect [b:East of Eden|4406|East of Eden|John Steinbeck|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1309212913s/4406.jpg|2574991] or [b:The Great Gatsby|4671|The Great Gatsby|F. Scott Fitzgerald|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1273944449s/4671.jpg|245494], you're going to be sorely disappointed...and as disgusted as other reviewers here on Goodreads. Otherwise--have fun! That's what books like this are for! ( )

Gossip Girl
Gossip Girl, Book 1

I Picked Up This Book Because: I’ve been curious about this book for quite some time.

The Characters:

Blair, Chuck, Nate, Serena, Dan, Jenny:
70 other people (ok I exaggerate, 69 other people)

The Story:

I think I passed my prime on this one. I thought this would be intriguing but I found it annoying. The Blair, Nate, Serena triangle was dumb. Blair should have seen right away that Nate was way more into Serena. Who wants to be the one he settled for? Chuck seemed annoying but not an interesting annoying. Jenny and Dan also bored me with their idealism of Serena.

I personally found very little attracting about the 51 pages of this book that I struggled through. I’ll stick with my memories of the TV show.

XOXO

The Random Thoughts:

DNF so no rating