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The paragraph that follows is in the style of Gossip Girl. Yes, I am mocking the novel.

—SIGHTINGS
K hiding behind a huge pair of Chanel’s in Holly’s Coffee sipping an espresso macchiato and reading Cecily von Ziegesar’s Gossip Girl. Let’s hope that she doesn’t lose any brain cells, a side effect of reading anything by von Ziegesar—but GG is so worth the risk! Let’s also hope that K is able to fit into her skimpy Pucci numbers after that macchiato. L informs me that a quick trip to the bathroom—if you know what I mean—will keep K from getting fat. Good. No one likes a fatty. ♥

So goes the novel… Gossip Girl revolves around the lives of privileged teens living in New York City’s Upper East Side. The vast majority of GG’s protagonists are spiteful and superficial: they are as deep as the ink on paper after a girl signs her name with a Montblanc fountain pen. In the GG world, how does one react to someone saying, first, that her best friend snorts Comet (a cleaner) and, second, that her best friend was late to school because she got pregnant and had to have an abortion that morning? With a smile. XD

Oddly, Gossip Girl’s annoying and despicable characters make the novel interesting. They create drama… Drama is entertaining. Cecily von Ziegesar’s writing style isn’t bad, either. It’s chic. Gossip Girl also wins in the field of boredom. It may annoy you; it may insult you; it may you make feel dumber; but, bore you? It won’t bore you.

Also, if you read Gossip Girl, you may

• learn that peregrine falcons aren’t like woodpeckers
• feel as though your IQ has plummeted
• increase your knowledge of high-end fashion brands (Fendi, Pucci, &c.—this is a pleasant counter to the above, no?)

If you read Gossip Girl, you may will notice its incessant name-dropping. Gauloises? Check. Gucci? Check. Prada? Check … Is Gossip Girl some sort of secret advert for cigarette companies and fashion designers? If the constant barrage of labels added to the novel’s descriptions, it would be understandable. But it doesn’t. It’s just irritating and makes Gossip Girl even more ridiculous.

Blair had tucked the postcard into her old Fendi shoe box with all the other mementos from their friendship.

Who keeps mementos in an old Fendi shoe box? Rich, snotty, label-obsessed people do not keep precious mementos in old shoe boxes, Fendi or not. Storing things in shoe boxes is an obvious faux pas (for snotty people). Mementos belong in designer boxes—not shoe boxes!, but memento boxes—especially made for keeping mementos. There’s no need to point out that Blair has a Fendi shoe box, unless she’s going to do the right thing with it…

Anyway, I recommend Cecily von Ziegesar’s Gossip Girl to those who don’t give a toss about realism and who just want to read something quick, fun, and dramatic. However, if you happen to live in Manhattan on the Upper East Side, if you’re a student who does a lot of charity work, if you’re a student enrolled in AP classes, or if you attend(ed) an Ivy League university, beware! Because you may find Gossip Girl offensive.

On a random final note, Gossip Girl would be really good—potentially—if it was written as a satire. Don’t you think?