This book is so flawed I can’t believe it was published. It was poorly researched, awkwardly constructed and ethically bankrupt. If I had a kid I wouldn’t let her near this book (or worse I would insist that we read it together so I could use it as an object lesson on what not to do.) Since I have no kids of my own I am tempted to "lose" the copies we have in stock somewhere in the warehouse (with its sequels. I can’t believe this piece of gosa has sequels.)

Here’s the idea. Massie is the main spoiled brat. She lives in Westchester and attends an exclusive private school called the Octavian Day School (largely referred, much to my amusement, as OCD.) She has 3 close friends who are only her friends because they are afraid not to be. Massie is one of the most vicious characters I’ve ever seen. In a normal book she would have been the villain, but not here. Massie’s big upset and cause for the book arrives in the form of her father’s best friend’s family. They are moving to Westchester for a job and moving into Massie’s family’s guest house until they find a house of their own. And this family happens to have a daughter named Claire who is the same age as Massie and school starts in a couple of days. This girl seems to be a really nice, normal girl.

Well, if you can’t see what’s coming you apparently never went to middle school. Massie hates Claire sight unseen and does everything in her considerable middle school power to destroy her. It doesn’t help that this is a never never land school with no dress code where the girls (who all come from families who have more money than God) study their fashion magazines more carefully than their history books and the nice girl used to go to public school so she really doesn’t have the wardrobe.

At first Claire tries to play fair. If these girls won’t like her she’ll make other friends. I’ll give the author credit here, she assessed the importance of the choice of lunch tables perfectly. I feel the need to point this out because I believe it was the only thing I noticed that was done well. Claire makes friends with another girl, but she still wants to get into Massie’s clique. She starts her slide into the darkside by using her new friend Layne’s brother (who Massie thinks she’s developing a relationship with) to make Massie jealous. Massie retaliates by making friends with Layne, pulling her away from Claire. Claire continues her slide by sneaking into Massie’s bedroom and using her IM to play mind games with the rest of her clique. And the way that plays out relies so much on coincidence that it’s nothing like believable.

Junk happens, Massie has some minor epiphanies that she’s being nasty and Claire really does learn to be nasty. In the end, the two girls end up hiding from their embarrassing parents under a bush at a function and talk. Through this whole book Massie has sniped at Claire and Claire has gone from honest bewilderment to sniping back, but being embarrassed by their parents just transcends all the problems of 2 people in this crazy mixed up world, doesn’t it?

Let’s see, my first problem was that it was poorly researched. Massie rides. Not too surprising for a rich brat in Westchester, but I’m surprised she’s still riding a pony in 7th grade. You’d think her parents would have sprung for a horse by now. What really surprised me was that this pony could out run a horse on a trail. And imagine my shock when this hard working, hot pony started glugging down cold water with no ill effects. That made me completely forget how weird her tack was and the fact that it magically appeared on the pony. And she’d not wearing a helmet. No stable in the world, especially in a sue happy environment like Westchester, would let a rider go out without a helmet. Plus, an English riding habit looks dumb without the cool velvet hat. (I assume she was riding English by the presence of a crop, but based on the research the author did she could have been riding Western and just carrying a crop she didn’t need for no reason other than it had a designer name on it.) The author spent too much time studying Vogue and not enough time researching the rest of her backstory.

On to badly constructed. As far as I can tell, no one proofread this story. Around page 30 an 8th grader became a 9th grader between pages. I flipped back to be sure. And when the group arrived at school, Massie was ignoring our girl by talking to an 8th grader. When our girl wouldn’t allow herself to be ignored and longer the 9th grader walked away. If you just did a double take, you were paying attention. This is just the first time that happened, not the only time, but after that I stopped remarking on it. I just figured it was another bonus to a bad book. The writing style, if you want to call it that, is reminiscent of how I used to write in 7th grade, before I developed a style. I have read "somewhat helpful" reviews here that had more personality and style than this. Massie’s character change from hating Claire to being big pals with her seems like it was pasted into the manuscript after it was finished. I didn’t see any real change in Massie’s character. And the other characters in the clique appear to be modeled on the Spice Girls (though they might have been modeled on the Sex In the City Girls, I’m not sure.) The 3 girls in Massie’s clique seemed most like Sporty, Posh and Sexy (though Sexy really only resembled Sexy Spice in hair color. I think she would have grown up curvy.) She could have at least ponied up the money for some Acme characters to go with her Acme plot.

Ethically bankrupt. I think the author read Queen Bees and Wannabees and got the wrong idea. These girls don’t have friendships, they have mutually beneficial acquaintances that are presented as friendships. I wouldn’t want anyone to get the idea that these kids had any kind of emotional bond and I pity the characters and anyone who believes this is what friendship is. You don’t have friends because you need them, you have friends because you like them. Even if they’re weird. (Especially if they’re weird.) Layne is weird and she’s the only girl in the book I could connect with at all. They also play very nasty. In the very beginning of the book one of Massie’s friends purposely gets red paint on Claire’s pants to make it look like she got her period. Other than this being nearly impossible to do without Claire noticing, it’s also extremely nasty. The last time I came across this ploy was in Carrie and that girl destroyed her school over it. When Claire gets into the act she ratchets up the mind games to a whole new level. She subtly makes Sexy Spice believe she’s fat, she gets Sporty to reveal that she’s really a "poor" scholarship student, and she openly uses Posh to buy her stuff in an effort to buy her friendship.

I absolutely would not want a kid to read this book. From beginning to end it teaches all the wrong lessons. Sure it’s got very cool designer names and shows the kind of lifestyle that many people are fascinated by, but it’s badly done and it portrays bad stuff. My guess is that this was published because the author works for Mtv and lunches with the right people. She probably thinks the life she portrayed in the book is the way things are. My guess only, you know. But she must have gotten where she was by being in the right clique because she didn’t get there by being good.


Recommended: No