I'd seen my students reading it. I'd seen commercials for the upcoming TV show. When a friend was talking about how she needed to get the latest installment of the series, I thought, maybe there's something about this whole "Gossip Girl" thing.This series is aimed at high school students, but I think it's the tweens who'll really love the book. I do believe, however, that those older maybe be a little bit more appropriate for some of the content and language used. Call me old-fashioned, but I just don't think that teenagers should have easy access to some of the topics in the book.
Pretty much a chick-lit book for teenagers, Gossip Girl is Laguna Beach in book form. It follows the daily lives of upper-class high school students in New York. Students who attend the best private schools in the city, are preparing for their AP exams and looking to get into the top colleges because their too-busy and never-there parents expect nothing less. There is a webpage, gossipgirl.net created by "gg" herself which outlines the escapades of the main "group" in the school. The cool kids, as it were. Like I said before, it's Laguna Beach.
Anyway, it's an extremely read. Perfect for TTC commutes into town. Small little novels with short chapters, really easy to put your bookmark in and move on with your real life. And light! Perfect to stick in a bag without weighing it down (I tend to put too much stuff in my bags).
I miss the days of The Babysitter's Club. Fun little series, innocent in the content, but still fun. Sure, times change and priorities and "hot topics" change, but I just don't think that a book that involves a bulimic main character (and no mention of the negative effects of it), lots of free-flowing alcohol (some parents in real-life may not approve, I say real-life, because the parents in the book encourage the behavior), drugs and sex is the best thing for kids.
Just my opinion. Then why am I ready to read the second book in the series? Well, just like Laguna Beach, it's addictive. A little part of you wishes you grew up like them, but at the same time is completely happy not to have some of their problems.
Come to think of it, I guess there are some good issues that one could take out of the book (although they're not discussed in-depth). Things like, why the kids are drinking, smoking and doing drugs. The different pressures that arise from their social standing. The effect that their parents have on them. That stuff is kind of neat to think about. I don't really think that raising these issues is a main focus of this book, but I guess, as an educator, and one who's been exposed to some of these issues...well, I guess I'm grasping at straws here.
I would personally not recommend this book to all children, but for others out there, sure, read it. It's flaky enough, if that's what you're looking for in a book. The guilty pleasure kind of thing.
- picture courtesy of www.chapters.indigo.ca
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