Solid teen pop that is secretly kinda smart. Very catty, we're in on the joke. If you take more than three days to read it you need to move on. ( )

It's the month of June and Serena's playing a modern version of Holly Golightly in a movie, Blair spends some time in London with Marcus, Nate's doing construction in the Hamptons, and Dan & Vanessa are living in the city breaking up and getting back together and whatever. I'm a little tired of how quickly these kids jump into and out of relationships, but I still can't wait to find out what crazy stuff they do next. ( )

The book was a modern day soap opera that has strong language, sex, abuse of drugs an alcohol, spoiled rich girls spending money, and the narrator is from a blog named Gossip Girl who is not known. The story fits some parts of the young adult characteristics including writing from the viewpoint of a young adult, very fast-paced, many subjects involved, characters are from many different backgrounds but not cultural, the characters are very optimistic with a few accomplishments but many bad decisions that are not resolved with better outcomes, emotions that young adults deal with are very prevalent, and the characteristic of pleasing the mother is somewhat there but only a little. The book is definitely a realistic and controversial story. The characters are similar in many ways including young and naïve when it comes to making decisions. Adults are almost non-existent. The storyline is left opened for a continuous series so all of the problems seem to remain with many questions unanswered. The problem with Serena’s acting was tidied up a little too neat and with no adult intervention. This is not a book I would recommend to any young adult because of the influences and messages it conveys. If I were a librarian I do not think it would be ordered for the collection. As a parent I would have to be a censor.

Another fun read in this series. ( )

I have really enjoyed this series up until this installment.

Was it my mood while reading it? Have I just read too many of these? Has the TV series created an overload on these characters?

I am not sure what the reason - but this 9th installment of the series was a big disappointment for me. Instead of the quick and frothy read all the others were for me - this was sluggish and boring. I had to force myself to plug through it.

So sad! ( )