Tag: Books

Classic (It Girl #10) by Cecily von Ziegesar Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

I have finally made it! The last book!

This series has really been hit or miss for me and in reality, it’s been a lot more miss than hit. I wanted to like it but it did not capture the same vibe as Gossip Girl. These books are definitely for the tween market, making me absolutely not the demographic but I got them on sale real cheap on Amazon so why not read them anyway?

Also I found out that these books were written by a ghost writer, which really explains why they don’t give the same feel as the Gossip Girl books. The few books in the Gossip Girl series which were ghost written were terrible, the writer does not manage to capture the characters as well as the original author. Who knew?

But anyway, we have made it to the end and you know what? This wasn’t actually bad. I dare say I even enjoyed this one a bit. This one did give me some of those silly Gossip Girl-esque vibes which I’ve been looking for and I am glad, because I don’t think I’ve felt this way since book 2. So I’m glad we are ending on a high.

It is Valentine’s Day at Waverly and everyone has signed up online to this ‘Perfect Match’ website, which means they are matched up with someone else on campus. So obviously we have a lot of drama with our matches which are outlined below:

  • Jenny and Julien
  • Brett and Isaac
  • Isla and Sebastian
  • Tinsley and Heath
  • Callie and Alan
  • Brandon and some girl whose name I don’t remember lol (soz girlie)

So let’s dissect these further shall we? First off, thought there would be more weirdness with Jenny and Julien but they were fine. Also expected Tinsley to be annoyed about this little union like in the past but she is too busy trying to get revenge on Isla to notice lol. Not that Jenny and Julien are really anything because Jenny is dating Isaac, the Dean’s son, but they still have to honour their perfect match matches.

Not much to report on Jenny and Julien but Brett was learning a lot about Isaac. She thought she would scope him out for Jenny and report back what a good guy he was. Sadly for Brett, she sees a text on Isaac’s phone which reveals him to be less than a perfect gentleman. Aka he’s got a secret girlfriend! He promises Brett not to say anything and that he is totally going to tell Jenny….but you can guess how that goes.

Honestly, you’d think maybe one Waverly matchup would work out for Jenny but no. Isaac did not break up with his girlfriend and so she shows up at the Valentine’s dance and there’s a scene. Jenny is heartbroken and dumps Isaac plus is mad at Brett. But Jenny doesn’t stay mad at Brett because they are besties and it’s the last book so we can’t go out with unresolved drama.

Besides, Brett has bigger problems when she finds out her boyfriend Sebastian is matched up with Isla. Isla is the Dean’s daughter and Tinsley’s nemesis after she fell through the roof and blamed Tinsley for it. So while Isla has been throwing herself at Sebastian, Brett has been teaming up with Tinsley to take Isla down.

They both do some digging and find out that Isla was not always the bad girl that she pretends to be. Turns out she was a massive geek at her old school so Tinsley and Brett decide to use the old photos they found of her to embarrass her at the Valentine’s dance. Sadly, it backfires, and Isla turns out still looking good, everyone seeming to respect her transformation. Even Tinsley is impressed despite everything.

I thought this whole Isla story could potentially be more interesting. When I found out her past was not what was expected my mind went to the worst. Her being a geek was very lame. It kind of reminded me of Mean Girls 2 where they make fun of a girl being a virgin…it’s like get with the times please. I was hoping for more drama as always but I suppose it couldn’t get too wild in the last book. They still needed to wrap everything up.

As for Brett and Sebastian…well Sebastian isn’t pleased with Brett when she lets her jealousy get the best of her…again. I mean in the last book they literally had the same fight but this time Sebastian breaks up with her. This lasts all of five seconds though when Brett realises she loves him.

Honestly, annoyed that their whole relationship consisted of fighting and making up again. As is most of the relationships in this series, like can’t any of these girls just keep a man down lol. I wish something else had been going on with them if only because it’s the last book. I think it would have been nice to have at least one steady couple.

In terms of Heath and Tinsely, not much to report. Just Tinsley being annoyed when Heath wasn’t drooling all over her and was really all about Isla. But in the end Heath is who he always is and he and Tinsley remain friends with a flirtatious edge.

If anything I am really surprised that in this series, we ever saw Heath and Kara reconcile. I thought it would be nice to see Heath actually be in a relationship. Especially as it looked like he actually really cared about her and then done something stupid to cause the breakup. But it was forgotten as quickly as it started and then Kara faded into the background as she was no longer useful to the main characters. It was a shame.

Lastly what we have to talk about is my least favourite love triangle ever, Easy, Callie and Brandon. So Easy lands back at school but Callie is with Brandon now and he can’t just swoop in and everything go back to the way it was. But even though Brandon and Callie are together, they do not get matched up as perfect matches. Callie is matched with Alan, Easy’s stoner roommate and Brandon is matched with a random girl he’s never met before.

Naturally, Brandon does not care for his match, he is more interested in keeping Callie locked down. But what he doesn’t know is that Easy and Callie have definitely met up in secret and kissed. Easy, having learnt his lesson from the last time though doesn’t want to do anything more with Callie until she breaks up with Brandon so Callie agrees to do so but she’s finding it harder to do than she thought. Apparently now is the time when she is debating on who she should be with even though I thought she’d be jumping straight back into Easy’s arms without a second thought to Brandon.

Callie’s dilemma is causing her to stress out and so she decides to spill the tea to Alan, her perfect match to see if he has any advice for her. His advice is for her to dump both boys and see which one fights for her, and that’s the one that she should be with. Cut to the dance when both boys are trying to do just that, but realise Callie dumped them both over email and they agree to call a truce and leave Callie on her own. Brandon even decides to give the girl he’s matched with a chance.

Predictably, Callie is not left by herself for long because Easy does eventually come to her and the two get back together. Which is the biggest eye roll of the century honestly, they were breaking up and getting back together every other book and the drama wasn’t even interesting. So I’m glad to be done with them.

The book finishes in an epilogue where everyone is heading their separate ways for the summer and Jenny is reflecting on what a wild and fun year she has had at Waverly. And this concludes the It Girl series.

Like I said in the beginning, I am definitely not the demographic for these books lol but they were fine to read. Nothing crazy or overly dramatic happened which I feel I was missing but I think I’m just spoiled from the dramatics of the Gossip Girl TV show. That being said, even if I did read these at 13 I think I would’ve been a little disappointed. I’m amazed they managed to stretch a whole school year into ten books tbh if the series had been half the size it probably would’ve been more enjoyable.

But it’s finished now and I can move on to other things, like frantically trying to read 3 more books to complete my reading goal this year lol. Wish me luck x

Devious (It Girl #9) by Cecily von Ziegesar Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

We have two new students at Waverly and they are providing a little bit of fresh air. Sort of.

It’s now January in Waverly and everyone is working on a project for ‘Jan Plan’ which is basically an excuse for the students to do whatever they want since they have no classes.

In this one we are introduced to a new girl and boy who are the children to the new Dean. So first up, we have Isla who is our classic troublemaker. She instantly befriends Tinsley and convinces her to help with her Jan Plan project. The two hit it off as Tinsley is also one to be a bit of a troublemaker, plus her relationship with Julien was getting a bit boring so she was thankful for a distraction.

Honestly, was expecting something a bit more scandalous for them than photoshoots wearing random clothes in domestic situations but is what it is. Things turn south for Tinsley when she not only breaks up with Julien but also gets in trouble with the Dean as Isla’s ideas for the photoshoot go too far.

Isla thinks it’s a good idea to go up onto the roof and take photos but Tinsley thinks it’s a bad idea. Isla doesn’t care and goes up onto the roof and ends up falling through the skylight. Yeah. This was wild to me honestly. I don’t know what I was expecting but it was not a girl falling through a roof. But here we are. Anyway, Isla is fine as she lands in the arms of a familiar stranger, but is quick to turn on the waterworks and blame Tinsley for the accident in front of her father.

Gotta love a girl who thinks on her feet. Naturally Tinsley is pissed but all she really want to do is make up with Julien. Too bad for her that Julien is not interested in hearing her excuses and so they break up for good. Which, I guess was bound to happen. I mean I think it would have been nice to see her keep a boyfriend but it just wasn’t meant to be.

Also that stranger that saved Isla? Easy Walsh of course. We thought he was gone for good when Callie dumped him in New York but I guess not…and you all already know I dislike him so I was not happy about this.

Speaking of Callie, she was trying to find someone new to date and finally move on from Easy but she just ended up hooking up with Brandon…again. Brandon and Callie were together before she got with Easy and he’s been in love with her ever since. Even though Brandon has a girlfriend, that does not stop Callie from throwing herself at Brandon and him inevitably giving in.

Brandon’s girlfriend sees him cheat on her with Callie because Brandon was in the middle of video calling his girlfriend when Callie burst in and kissed him so now his relationship is over but at least he has Callie…for now. Just wait til she finds out about Easy…honestly this is not my favourite love triangle, if only because it legit wasn’t really a triangle because Callie and Easy were together and Brandon was just pining over Callie but I am looking forward to it being over.

As for Brett, she is finding out that her new love interest, Sebastian, had been hooking up with A LOT of girls before she came on the scene and she was PISSED. And was on the verge of breaking up with him until he told her that he was breaking it off with all the other girls because the only person he wanted to be with was Brett. Which is cute and I actually want Sebastian and Brett to work out, but at the same time they have only been dating for five minutes so I am not sure what actually happens with them.

And finally we have Jenny, who is getting in close with the Dean’s son, Isaac. He convinces his dad to let Jenny work on her Jan Plan project solo which is usually not allowed for junior pupils which automatically makes him a keeper for her. And they hit it off so well they throw a house party together, the very same one where Isla fell through the roof.

Obviously after a commotion, the campus police are called as Isla’s fall causes security alarms to go off. Everyone scatters from the party but the Dean is able to identify people from their belongings they left behind in haste. Everyone that is, except for Jenny Humphrey. Looks like her flirtation with Isaac has saved her from getting into trouble, which makes her super disliked by everyone.

Feeling guilty about the situation, Jenny actually goes to the dean to confess she was the one who threw the party just so she could get in trouble with everyone else. Lame but expected for Jenny.

And that is where we leave things. Almost everyone in trouble and in lockdown for the rest of January.

This book was fine. I was hoping for more drama with the new kids to be honest. I mean sure, falling through a roof is drama but like it wasn’t enough for me lol. On the bright side there is only one book left and so the series will be done. I will admit this series is definitely a tween one and young for me to be reading but I thought since the Gossip Girl books were fun and scandalous this would be the same. I was wrong. But I’ve come this far so I can’t give up now lol. See you for the finale!

Adored (It Girl #8) by Cecily Von Ziegesar Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

It’s Christmas at Waverly! Thanksgiving forgotten, everyone is back in school and trying to find the perfect gift for their secret Santa. Or rather secret satan.

Honestly, this book was a hot mess lol. Brett gets roped into organising secret Santa and a Christmas party and is not having any fun at all. Meanwhile Heath decides to turn this secret Santa thing into secret Satan so everyone is buying each other sex toys and sending male strippers to class and it’s very chaotic. How no one got expelled is beyond me. But it’s just the lives of rich teenagers innit?

So in between hearing about everyone’s outrageous or boring presents, we have Brett’s new love interest Sebastian cleaning his act up to try to get the attention of the other girls at Waverly to make Brett jealous. And he succeeds. Sebastian ends up going out with Callie, who is looking for a new boyfriend ever since she was dumped by Easy. This does not last long because Callie is hoping to transform Sebastian into the perfect boyfriend and Sebastian is about none of that. Long story short, Sebastian and Brett end up together and Callie is single. But she actually ends up accepting that?

Not that I buy that for a second, Callie will definitely have a new boyfriend soon, she’s not the kind of person who can be without a man.

Meanwhile Tinsley finally thinks everything is perfect with Julian, until he mentions the fact he’s not a virgin anymore. This causes Tinsley to spiral and assume the worst – aka that Jenny is the one he lost his virginity to. This makes sense because it’s a teen drama and this always happens. It causes Tinsley to be mean to Jenny again and also to dump Julian because she can’t be with him when he’d supposedly been with Little Jenny Humphrey. Ugh.

This does not last long because Jullian clarifies that he was not with Jenny and was with an old girlfriend from junior high and Tinsley convinces herself it doesn’t count so all is well in the world. And she becomes friends with Jenny again.

I was actually expecting more from Tinsley to be honest. I think I’ve always wanted her to be a true mean girl but in reality, none of these girls are that. Like when we started this series I was expecting some TV show Blair Waldorf or Alison DiLaurentis type drama but none of that exists here and it’s sad. I think if we had that, the series would be way more interesting. But it is what it is.

The only other thing going on was Jenny feeling like a reality TV star when these freshman girls decide to film her for a school project. Ultimately nothing happens with this because even though the freshman girls realise Jenny is not as wonderful as she thinks she is, and upload an embarrassing compilation of her online, she’s still the most popular girl in school when she has friends like Tinsley, Brett and Callie.

So all is right in the world. The book ends with the four girls living their best lives dancing on a table and despite how average this series has been, I do appreciate the moments where the girlies are getting along. This one also hints that we are in for a treat in the next book – new students at Waverly. It’s either going to be good or bad or average but it was getting a little boring around here. Let’s see how the new people shake it up. I’m hoping for something good but am also excited about wrapping up this series and moving onto something else lol.

Infamous (It Girl #7) by Cecily von Ziegesar Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

It’s a Thanksgiving special! Though not as exciting as the Thanksgiving episode of Gossip Girl. But it was interesting to read about the girls somewhere other than Waverly.

Tinsley, Jenny and Callie are headed to the city for the holidays and instead of spending Thanksgiving with their families, they end up at a party being thrown by a fellow Waverly Owl. Classic. Though probably more interesting than actual Thanksgiving with the fam.

First off, Callie plans to stay in NYC because she finds this letter from Easy in her bag and he leaves her a promise ring and she’s so excited, she’s practically planning her wedding. Yawn. I was over this relationship since the first book. Thankfully for me though, Callie also seems over the relationship lol. By the time she is meant to meet Easy on the top of the Empire State building (hello Chuck and Blair vibes) she realises she isn’t ready to be in that serious of a relationship and so dumps his ass. Honestly, I’m glad.

I take it this means Easy is out of the picture for good considering he was shipped off to military school or whatever and snuck out to be with Callie. And now she doesn’t want him so. I think it’s over. He better not try winning her back again because we have been on this rollercoaster for too long and I don’t care for it lol.

Next we learn that Jenny and Tinsley can actually be good friends to each other? Who knew? I like this friendship though hopefully it keeps up. Tinsley gives Jenny some advice to not fall in love with every guy she meets after five minutes and to just have fun. Which, Jenny tries to but naturally she finds this cute guy at the party she hits it off with. Cue the eye rolls. I imagine he sticks around for the next book but can’t see him lasting longer than that.

Meanwhile, Tinsley comes face to face with an old rival at the Thanksgiving party – Sleigh Monroe-Hill. I know her name is literally slay. Apparently she was a bigger bitch than Tinsley when she was at Waverly, throwing all of Tinsley’s belongings out their 4th floor window and ruining it all. Yikes.

I was expecting major drama between Sleigh and Tinsley but it was so lack lustre. All that happened was Sleigh trying to convince Julian (the freshman Tinsley was in love with before he hooked up with Jenny and Tinsley set fire to that barn lol) that she is the better match for him than Tinsley. Yawn. And she doesn’t even have to try hard to be a nicer girl than Tinsley.

The only thing that made Julian realise Sleigh was a fake was him mentioning that he’d hooked up with Tinsley before and I guess Sleigh went a bit psycho? Nothing crazy though. I mean it sounded very tame. I was expecting way more for an ex-nemesis appearing. I needed more sneaky girl fighting and drama. But there was nothing. Just Tinsley pretending to be nice for five minutes and Sleigh just existing. Ugh.

While the girls are going through all of this in NYC, Brett is in Jersey with her family who are acting so normal and boring because her sister has brought the in-laws over for the holidays and is trying to make a good impression. In typical cliche fashion, Brett tries everything she can to expose to the in-laws the truth about who her family really is to scare them off. She succeeds but at what cost? She ends up apologising to her sister and making up. Nothing super crazy here either.

I suppose it was good to see Brett embrace her family and their nouveau-riche tackiness. And she has a new love interest – Seb, this Jersey boy who she would usually be repulsed by but she realises he’s actually not that bad. Again, not sure how long he will last as a love interest but we will go along with it for now.

And last but not least we had an adventure with the boys – Heath and Brandon. Basically, Brandon’s girlfriend Sage breaks up with him for not being masculine enough – yeah the early 2000s are wild. So Heath decides him and Brandon should stay on campus to try and hook up with one of the teachers’ twin daughters. It’s so random but I didn’t hate their side story. From the experience, Heath realises he still misses Kara and Brandon I think just is proud of himself for hooking up lol.

And so that is where we are at the end of Thanksgiving. Honestly, this one was fine. I mean the whole series has been fine lol. I guess I expected some more drama or something and I know I am so not the target demographic for these books, but even if I was reading this at fifteen I know I’d need more drama. But it’s fine. Three books left. Still not sure where we leave this unless somehow Jenny ends up being expelled or something but we’ll see. Here’s hoping something a little more interesting happens soon as well lol.

Tempted (It Girl #6) by Cecily Von Ziegesar Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

This one was kind of boring. None of the storylines sold me and that sucks.

So the book opens with a Halloween ball. Fresh off of the Miller farm fire and Jenny being saved from expulsion, we are getting ready for a party. Yay. Sadly this party does not serve as anything except for a way to show Jenny is the new Queen Bee in town. Eh.

I mean I usually like a Waverly party, they mean chaos and scandal but we didn’t get very much of either. Just Jenny winning the costume contest over Tinsley – which to me wasn’t too hard if Tinsley arrived late and no one had time to even notice her. And then Kara and Heath showing off as the new It couple – which by the way is so gross. And the only other thing worth mentioning is Easy being annoyed at Callie and them breaking up – AGAIN lol.

So yeah, nothing crazy. And the party is over before we know it.

We do get this random drama where Easy is drunk and climbing a tree which then crashes into the window at Dumbarton causing a lot of flooding lol. No idea what that’s about but it basically gives us five minutes of Brett being forced to room with Kara because Kara’s room flooded. Though nothing dramatic happens there.

Really all that drama surrounding Kara and Brett was so disappointing. I thought we were going to get real LGBT love here but all we got was them kissing a bit and then Brett deciding she still loved Jeremiah and Kara hooking up with Heath. Ugh lame.

What ends up happening is that Brett lied to Jeremiah and said she never kissed or hooked up with Kara and he finds out the truth and dumps her. Because there’s nothing we love more than a man who’s insecure about his girlfriend’s sexuality. And Kara ends up dumping Heath because he exposes a secret of Brandon’s and she’s not cool with that. So not sure where they go next but I hope Brett and Kara don’t go back to going out again because I don’t need it. Not that I need another Brett and Jeremiah makeup either lol. Bring some new love interests in please.

Speaking of annoying on/off again couples we have Easy and Callie. Bleh. At the Halloween party Easy tells Callie she’s a spoiled brat and this causes her to spiral – as always. So Callie flees from the party to go to a spa which her mother has arranged for her to go to which is sus AF.

And it is sus because Callie is not going to a spa, she is actually going to a rehab lol. It is a real tough one which involves sending the girls out alone in the middle of winter to fend for themselves for the night? Wild. Anyway yeah basically Callie thinks she’s going to die there but then Easy swoops in and saves the day. Lame.

Though it also looks like Easy is in trouble with the Dean because he was not supposed to leave campus but he did to rescue Callie. But honestly, don’t see him leaving. Like, he’s annoying and his relationship with Callie is one of the things I dislike most about this series but he’s a main character. He does not disappear. Despite the fact I wish he would. The drama with him and Callie is so dull and repetitive.

That brings us into Jenny and Tinsley’s story. I know, they have a story together can you even believe?

So Jenny meets this boy at the Halloween party who is pretending that he is the one that paid off the Millers and stopped her from getting expelled but we know it can’t be him because well, it doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t last because Jenny finds out it was actually Callie who saved her. Yeah I know, Callie, the roommmate that hates her! Who would’ve thought?

That’s the reason Callie gets sent to rehab, because Callie asked her mom for money and her mom assumed it was for drugs lol. So Callie sends an SOS to Tinsley and when Tinsley is on her way to rescue Callie, Jenny runs into her and decides to tag along.

The girls unsuccessfully try to get to Callie but get stuck in the snow – so Jenny texts Easy and he manages to rescue Callie. And while Jenny and Tinsley are stuck together then Tinsley realises that Jenny isn’t all bad after all. So they’re friends now? But for how long?

And that’s where we end things. It just seemed a bit of a let down to be honest. Nothing was really gripping me. Even Callie being away at rehab was interesting for maybe half a second, her being rescued by Easy was so boring for me. That being said, if Easy somehow does get expelled I would love to see it but I fear that won’t happen.

On the bright side, I am looking forward to all the girlies being friends for once, my guess is it won’t last that long but I just feel like we need some positive girl vibes and fun. So I hope we get more silliness in the next one. In the meantime, I’ve taken a break from the series for a bit to read some other things, but I’ll be back soon! There’s only a few more books so I hope to finish this series out before the end of the year.

Reckless (It Girl #3) by Cecily von Ziegesar Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

This one was not as exciting as I thought it was going to be. I think I was expecting more Gossip Girl-TV-esque drama with backstabbing and girl fights and rumour spreading. There was none of that.

Despite the fact Tinsley and Brett are sharing a room and hate each other as well as Callie and Jenny there is not a single hint of any drama from this. All girls tend to ignore each other as much as possible when in their assigned living spaces and that’s boring. I needed chaos and people messing with each other’s stuff. But nope. The most we got was Callie flinging Jenny’s hair ties all over the room. Lame.

What we did get in this book was two Dumbarton parties, a new girl added to the friend group and discovering Tinsley is not the calculating manipulating ice Queen I thought she was. Which is a little bit sad to be honest.

So yeah Heath has decided since it’s sponsor weekend or something like that and all the teachers are going to be too busy schmoozing to get school funding it was time to throw a huge keg rager. So he orders up some kegs and decides to store them in the girls’ dorm room until it is time to party.

Unfortunately for him, the girls decide to party a lot sooner than anticipated and have a rager on the roof. Which is all fun and games before a teacher discovers them and decides to lock the girls down in the dorm all weekend. So they have to stay inside. Which is totally fine because they still have a bunch more kegs hidden in one of the dorm rooms. So another party ensues.

And the boys can’t bear to miss out on the party action so they sneak into the Dumbarton dorm using tunnels underneath the school. Which is kind of fun. Again this vibe is very silly Gossip Girl universe.

All the drama unfolds at this party where all the girls have decided to raid each other’s closets and drink keg beer. First of all we are introduced to new girl Kara. She is a girl who Brett and Jenny have deemed the ‘girl in black’ until she speaks out and has a voice. Apparently she was nicknamed the Whale by Heath a few years ago because she was overweight and went into hiding ever since. Which is rude of Heath. But she ends up getting her own back by throwing beer over him and becoming friends with Brett, Callie and Jenny. Cute.

Jenny finds out through a game of I Never that Easy took Callie to dinner with his dad even though Jenny is his current girlfriend and Callie is his ex. Gross. Basically the girls stop hating each other after realising that Easy is the problem. I gotta say this was the most mature response to the situation. I was not expecting that. But also I am proud of them for realising they shouldn’t let this fuck boy come between them. Chicks before dicks and all that.

I hope Easy ends up choosing neither of them and going back to the art-hole he crawled out of he is actually annoying lol. I hate everytime we see anything from his POV. Like I get it, tortured artist boy might be in love with two girls but can’t make a decision. It’s boring. I don’t need it.

We also discover at this party that Tinsley is a virgin! Shocking and scandalous for the times but also just surprising because it’s been implied that she’s the kind of girl who has no issues hooking up. Turns out that’s not her, she has fun flirting with boys but often finds after they’ve kissed all the magic is gone. So she loves a chase but not being in actual relationships. Real.

Plus Tinsley is not really a “mean girl”. She gave off vibes that’s who she was but I guess she’s really just a normal teenager lol. She can be manipulative when she wants to be but she’s not giving off the same bitchy vibes of the girls on the Gossip Girl TV show. Which is sad because I wanted that. If anything this book showed she can be vulnerable as she may or may not be starting up something with a cute freshman boy.

Don’t know how to feel about this character development. I mean I guess it is realistic but it’s not exciting enough for me lol. So we’ll see if it lasts.

Also, Brett and her boyfriend Jeremiah break up which is surprising because I thought they’d be together forever. Turns out Jeremiah slept with someone while he and Brett were broken up and she’s pissed he lied. And to go along with that, the girl Jeremiah hooked up with snuck into the Dumbarton party to look out for him. She was trying to be a good friend by making sure Brett wasn’t going to hurt Jeremiah when in reality the opposite happened. And then this random girl ended up making out with Brandon in the tunnels lol.

And I think that covers everything. Now all the girls are angry at Tinsley since she’s the one who spilled the tea about Callie and Easy at dinner. Brett and Jenny have always disliked Tinsley but now even Callie is on the outs with her. So I guess it’ll be interesting to see what happens next. I assume Tinsley will be fine without Callie, she seems like she would be or at least appear to be when all she wants is her friends back. And then who knows if the other girls will forgive her?

Well I predict they do and it’ll probably be really easy since that’s how teenage girls work sometimes. Other times it goes the opposite way where they’ll hate each other forever but that doesn’t seem in the spirit of this book series. Anyway, I’m hoping for something fun next time. I think this series is going to continue being hit or miss for me as we go on.

Notorious (It Girl #2) by Cecily von Ziegesar Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

It Girl Tinsley Charmichael has returned to Waverly and she is wasting no time settling back into her role as the Serena van der Woodsen of the school. Well actually, she gives off more Blair vibes to me in terms of her leadership styles but there is no mistaking she is the It Girl everyone is pining over.

This book was so good. I really enjoyed it! I am not saying it’s literary art but in terms of storyline, it was fun and gave me true Gossip Girl silly vibes. And I think it was better than the first book since we got all the introductory awkward stuff out of the way we can just dive into the story.

First of all, I want to say, I can’t believe Tinsley was expelled because she was the only one who told the truth about the E thing. Like I was not expecting that, I thought for sure maybe Brett or Callie had sold her out or something more dramatic than her confessing lol. If anything it seemed dumb of Tinsley to confess to being on drugs in the first place, it doesn’t seem like the kind of girl she is. But I guess it doesn’t matter too much because she is back.

She is back and looking forward to returning to her normal life with her two best friends, Callie and Brett but only one of them is happy to see her. Callie is the Blair Waldorf to Tinsley’s Serena and I’m not going to lie, I kind of hate their friendship.

Callie is a hot mess in this book because her boyfriend Easy has dumped her for her roommate Jenny Humphrey. So all she does is mope around and hang on to Tinsley’s every word. Not to mention the fact she has an eating disorder which they mention a lot. Apparently, Callie just doesn’t eat and is very thin and it’s very concerning. I don’t know if it is going to be like Blair’s eating disorder in the original book series where it’s mentioned once or never again…I mean this is mentioned quite a few times which makes me hope it gets resolved. But also seems unlikely. Either way it’s alarming and I don’t love it.

On top of Callie being Tinsley’s lackey, she is desperate for Tinsley’s approval which lead her into almost having a threesome with Tinsley and Heath?! Ick. Heath is the school’s Chuck Bass figure and nothing about that is OK.

But with Callie by her side egging her on, Tinsley thinks she can do anything. Including run a secret society and dictate who the girls in the society should hook up with. Not going to lie, the secret society idea was fun. I liked this but it was short-lived when everyone gets caught at the Ritz by the Dean lol.

So the ending of the book was kind of silly and abrupt I liked it. It reminded me of reading the Gossip Girl books when things would wrap up kind of nicely and there wasn’t really consequences. Because that’s just the world we’re in. Not to mention Callie and Tinsley seeing that the Dean was having an affair with another faculty member – the scandal. We live.

Though not everything is roses and sunshine for Tinsley and Callie as they are being split up by the Dean. He has decided to put Callie and Jenny in one room and Brett and Tinsley in another. Yikes.

Tinsley and Brett are on the outs because Brett didn’t tell Tinsley about her thing with Mr Dalton. Which thankfully didn’t actually go anywhere because Mr Dalton dumped Brett before anything could happen. Sadly, he dumped her for Tinsley because he’s icky like that.

Tinsley decided that because Brett wouldn’t tell her her secret, the logical thing to do would be to flirt with Mr Dalton instead and make Brett jealous. the plan backfired though because Brett wasn’t interested in getting Dalton back, she actually wants to get back with her boyfriend Jeremiah. So Tinsley hooked up with a teacher just because, well, she also did it for Callie because she thought she could use her relationship with Dalton to get Callie’s ex, Easy expelled. That didn’t work out for her either.

Mainly because Easy saw Tinsley and Mr Dalton together and he decided they needed to be exposed. So Dalton ended up getting fired. Serves him right for being a creep.

The only other thing going on in this book is Easy and Jenny getting together which is cute. However, they probably won’t last long if Jenny now has to room with Callie full-time. The girls might end up killing each other because Callie is furious about Jenny swooping in and stealing her man. But that’s what we love about teen dramas.

All in all a fun read. I’m looking forward to learning more about Tinsley and how she operates and I am interested to see how all the girls cope with their new living arrangements. If anything I thought more drama would have come from the four of them sharing a room but that seemed fine when Jenny and Brett spent as little time in the room as possible lol. But oh well, things can’t always be as dramatic as we want them to be. Looking forward to where we go next.

The It Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

It’s been forever since I blogged anything. But I am back to start a new review series on the Gossip Girl spin-off book series called the It Girl. This series follows Little Jenny Humphrey as she leaves her old life in NYC and attends boarding school.

So I don’t really remember a lot about the Gossip Girl book series other than I feel like Jenny wasn’t actually mentioned that much. Also that the series was quite unserious and there wasn’t really a plot it was just rich people doing scandalous and frivolous things just because.

This book series however has more of a plot which I am enjoying and I had some thoughts about reading that I thought I’d stick in a blog post instead of my usual Goodreads reviews. Plus I do want to try to get back into blogging a bit more so why not start with something easy?

First of all, one thing I was surprised about was all the things Jenny had gotten up to in the Gossip Girl series because I certainly didn’t remember any of it lol. It was also weird to read Jenny as this naive freshman who was just always in the wrong place at the wrong time and got herself into these crazy situations that lead to her expulsion from Constance. Like that is not the Jenny Humphrey I know and love.

The Jenny Humphrey I know and love will always be the TV show adaptation Jenny. Early seasons Jenny vs Blair had my full attention back when I watched the Gossip Girl TV show and to this day, one of my all time favourite episodes is Blair’s sleepover from season one. So to see Jenny being this shy and awkward girl trying to make a new start at a boarding school was weird.

So let’s dive into Jenny and her new life at Waverly shall we?

As always with a new book series there was a bunch of new characters thrown at me and it took me a while to figure out who mattered and who did not. As this book series is a spin-off we do not have Gossip Girl commentary between chapters, instead we have snippets of IM chats between students so lots of names and gossip are thrown around early on.

But I sussed the main people we care about are:

  • Callie and Brett – Jenny’s new roommates and supposed best friends. Though an incident last year saw their third best friend, Tinsley, expelled while those two got off scot-free.
  • Easy – Callie’s boyfriend but also Jenny’s new love interest? Drama.
  • Brandon – Callie’s ex who is bitter because Easy stole Callie from him (supposedly)
  • Eric Dalton – new teacher and someone Brett is definitely interested in
  • Heath – basically the Chuck Bass of the school

Everyone else was just noise and names of people who kind of blended together in my head while reading lol

In terms of the storylines this book I thought they were good. A nice dip into this new world we are in and the dynamics. I gotta say I wasn’t so much interested in Jenny as I was everyone else lol. Like Jenny’s story is fine, new girl at a new school trying to make an impression and falling for her rooommate’s boyfriend Easy like…fine.

But I wanted to know more about Brett and Callie and what happened with Tinsley. Basically Brett and Callie are fighting the whole book but like not fighting? More like ignoring each other and being weird because they both think the other ratted on Tinsley and got her expelled. Turns out neither of them said anything about Tinsley and so they end up becoming friends again lol.

I’m not going to lie, I think the author did a great job at portraying the thoughts these girl’s had about one another and just about teenage girl life in general. We’ve all had those times where you want to be normal with your friend but she’s acting weird so you act weird etc. it happens. Also you just start and stop being friends over the dumbest things. It’s so real.

As for the boy drama – well, I don’t think Easy and Callie should be together – they give off very Nate and Blair vibes. In that Easy doesn’t really wanna be with Callie and starts flirting with Jenny and liking it. Meanwhile Callie told Easy she loved him over the summer and he didn’t say it back. And that’s very similar to how Nate and Blair were in Gossip Girl – moreso on TV than in the books but yeah that’s what I get. And so I am waiting for that to just stop being a thing.

I’m still not sure what the vibes with Brandon are other than he’s still in love with Callie. He seems like the nicest and most normal guy around to be honest. Don’t know how much he will be around but he was friendly enough with Jenny and seems open to getting back together with Callie so we see what happens.

And then there’s the Brett and Eric thing which you know gives me the ick because it’s another teacher/student relationship and we frown upon those. Like especially in this one because Eric clearly points out the age difference and then tries to justify it by saying when they’re older it won’t matter as much. Ick. Brett thankfully doesn’t have sex with him but she almost did and who’s to say she won’t? I hope she doesn’t.

But overall, I enjoyed this a lot. It’s easy to read – despite all the outdated designer and fashion references that go over my head. Plus I do enjoy petty teenage rich kid drama. It’s the basis of most of my TV show loves lol. So I am looking forward to seeing what happens next, especially because this mysterious Tinsley has reappeared after her expulsion. She’s already giving Serena van der Woodsen vibes and we haven’t even met her yet.