Sofia runs a blog on the school computers. She listens in the girls' room to get her gossip. Naturally she only hears part of the story then adds what she wants to make it sound juicy. She is upset when Mia, the most popular girl in school, likes Andrew, Sofia's crush. Then just when she thinks it cannot get any worse, her mother starts substituting at her school. What will she do?

I found Sofia a hoot. She is exactly like the girls who aren't popular but want to be and since she has access to blogging she hopes that she will pick up more followers for it. She also has a lot of gossip about Mia. She practices for her blog with a notebook which she loses at times. Not good because who has it, who sees it, who reads it! Fortunately she finds it but who has read it? She hopes no one but she does not know for sure. I remember Mias from my school days and it was no different back then as now.

This is fun. I enjoyed the format of a notebook as she tells her story. I also enjoyed her artwork, especially the snarky comments. They are the most truthful and school is still the same.

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.

Oh God. I can't. The writing. The writing is so so so bad.

“Who cares?” Blair said, stamping her foot. She was wearing her new black ballet flats. Very bow-tie proper preppy, which she could get away with because she could change her mind in an instant and put on her trashy, pointed, knee-high boots and that sexy metallic skirt her mother hated. Poof—rock star sex kitten. Meow.

 

There's too many things happening in these sentences. 

 

"Nate turned redder than the upholstery on the eighteenth-century French chaise next to him."

 

Can you just say that Nate turned red???

“Absolutely,” Cyrus Rose said. He clasped Nate’s shoulder with a fleshy hand. Around his wrist was one of those gold Cartier cuff bracelets that you screw on and never take off—very popular in the 1980s and not so popular now, unless you’ve actually bought into that whole ’80s revival thing. Hello?"

 

Seriously you get confused about who is speaking. The Gossip Girl or is it Blair?

 

"They were like the emeralds in the cufflinks her father wore with his tux when he went to the opera."

Brain shorts out. 

Series: Hamish Macbeth # 1

I picked this up from the library because I wanted a break from my long history audiobook and listen to something lighter for a bit. I thought I had read the first Hamish Macbeth book because I'm pretty sure my mother reads this series, but apparently not since I'd never read this book before. Oh well.

One thing that's useful to keep in mind is that this book was published in 1985 so although the nineteen year old completely naive girl (who fantasizes about her boss and about marrying the first guy who comes along in the book that shows interest in her) seems pretty ridiculous it's not quite as crazy as it would be in a more modern book. Don't get me wrong; Alice was plenty ridiculous, but I was more amused by her than frustrated by her. Her silliness made me laugh, although perhaps it was mean of me to laugh.

Oh well. I quite liked the narration and so this cute cozy mystery served its purpose.

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