Monday, November 5, 2012

Gossip Girl: Because I'm Worth It

I have a book review due for my rhetoric class and my book is 200 pages of screenwriting tips (the assignment was a book of about 100 pages). It's a lot of material, so I've been focusing on that. It's worth 15% of my average and has to be at least 4 pages so yeah, I'm sorry. :( I am still squeezing in the fifth book (about halfway in). I'll do the book review next Monday. I might even throw in the paraphrased version of my screenwriting book. We'll see.

Author: Cecily Von Ziegesar

Pages: 235

Publisher: Little Brown and Company

Summary:
A better format for me to explain what's going on is to do it by characters. Here we go (keep in mind, the book starts off in February):
Blair: In an attempt to look more credible for college, Blair becomes the co-head to new peer groups during lunch with 5 freshmen girls. She is actually nice enough to set up Jenny (who's in the group) with a cute guy Jenny spotted in Barney's but only hints at Jenny to check her e-mail. She cuts her hair in a more sophisticated Audrey Hepburn bob for her second Yale interview with a cute alum named Owen.
Serena: Enjoying every moment of her new romance with Aaron, Blair's stepbrother. She even gushes about it in her session with her peer group that she runs with Blair. Serena goes to Les Best's Boutique to try to buy him a ski jacket she liked, but ends up getting personally invited to be in his show for Fashion Week (in exchange for the jacket). At the show, she stirs up a lot of gossip when she hits the runway wearing an "I love Aaron" t-shirt, which embarrasses him (which is when he leaves the show). Serena is having such a good time, she doesn't seem to notice even at the after parties. After this, they just break up when she's in the middle of another photo shoot for a perfume and she sheds a tear, which prompts the designer to name the fragrance "Serena's Tear".
Jenny:  She's one of the girls in peer group and discovers a new friend in Elise, one of the girls there with her. Since Dan is busy and she's no longer with Nate, she figures she needs friends. They quickly become inseparable, but Jenny notices Elise's "quirky" nature. She wants Jenny to paint a portrait of her in the same pose as Rose from Titanic (naked) and actually encourages them to experiment with same-sex kissing (which Jenny doesn't really like). You found out later that Elise is acting out because she thinks her dad is having an affair...later the reader finds out it's Blair. Good news strikes when she checks her e-mail and the guy from Barney's e-mailed her. She rides the bus all day with Elise until she finally meets him.
Nate: Calls Blair out of desperation when he finds out his weed dealer left the city. Later on in the story, we see that Nate actually runs into Mitchell (the dealer) and tries to buy some weed from him, but at this point, Mitchell is working with the cops. They bust Nate for possession and he's forced to go to rehab. While at rehab, he meets Georgina Sparks.
Vanessa: After finally swiping Dan's V-card, her sister Ruby interrupts to tell her the good news that she got into NYU's film school. Ken Mogul gets in contact with her again and invites her to the Cult for Humanity show in Fashion Show, where she lands a seat originally for Christina Ricci. Her film is used as the backdrop for the show, and everyone starts to rave about Vanessa becoming the next film prodigy. Ken meets up with her to invite her to South America for a Cannes documentary but Vanessa declines, opting to start her own name instead of helping someone else. He storms off but she catches a glimpse of the flyer he had with Dan's name on it and decides to meet up with him there. She then finds out why Dan has been ignoring her.
Dan: Dan gets his first taste of fame when his poem "Sluts" gets published and Rusty Klein wants to be his agent. She invites him to the Better Than Naked fashion show and signs his first autograph while in the back of the fashion show. He also meets a yellow-teeth beauty named Mystery who is also a poet. They sparks fly and so does the fidelity card. Dan feels guilty so the entire time, he's blowing off Vanessa and sends her a half-assed poem on Valentine's Day. Mystery is also Rusty's client so she sets them both up to read poetry together and Vanessa shows up to find him practically having sex on stage.
Giant side-note: everyone thinks Chuck is gay for some reason.

Thoughts: 
I left out some stuff but as you can see, there's a lot going on with each character. It's getting a little harder to read the books so I feel maybe it's because of a lack of character development. In the first couple of books, everything was well thought out and made to make each character unique. Now, the newer characters seem to be very superficial. Rusty really gets on my nerves but I guess the point is to prove how fake agents and "Hollywood" can be. I also don't understand why Jenny had to be dragged into the experimentation. However, the book does mesh all the story lines rather well and the surprises really are unexpected. This isn't my favorite book, but it's still decent.

'til next time, stay classy ♥
-M

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