uh..I don't what to say.This book is deathly inappropriate..I loved some of the characters though..like Vanessa,the only sensible one here and Serena's sweet too.I never thought lives of 17 year old people would be like this!!!!!!..inappropriate,again..but I read it just to spend my free time. ( )

This was a slog, I probably would have loved it when I was a teenager or 12 year old. YA can be good, but I don’t think this was it. I kept having to remind myself that it was YA and not adult. ( )

Well.

I can't say this has aged well at all. And was I ever that young at seventeen? There's an odd mix of youth, sex and swearing - which is probably more to do with how much I've aged in the last decade - but I felt it worth noting at least.

This was sort of entertaining? But also not really at all? I do think we've come a long way as a society regarding attitudes and acceptable behaviors towards and about women. The casual slut shaming, derogatory comments and even sexual touches are no longer left to linger silently - I won't deny it still happens but I definitely think we're more likely to speak up and out about it than we were.

Regarding the book itself - any love I have for the characters is more to do with lingering nostalgia over the television show rather than the book - because frankly none of them were particularly likeable. They were whiny, self-centered and kind of flat. The television show has doubtlessly also not aged well but it's also very different to the book series. Plus I'm a Chuck/Blair fan - I never liked Nate on the show and I absolutely hate him in the book. I don't get what Blair even kind of sees in him.

When I first read this I rated 3 stars but upon rereading I can't go higher than 2 stars - there's just not enough depth to the characters or the plot to warrant more. ( )

There are some books that we’re obsessed with in high school that stand the test of time and remain part of our permanent internal library, but there are others which don’t quite hold their gleam when raised to the light of an adult understanding. I hate to say it, because Gossip Girl was so iconic in the history of YA publishing (and television), but this book is part of the latter category and isn’t quite as pith-ily amusing as I wish it was. The television series stands on its own because of the styling and brilliant actors, but without the verbal intonation and New York visuals the book falls a touch flat. In this first book, we’re introduced to all of the main characters: Serena and Blair, Chuck and Nate, and Dan and Jenny, and we get touches of their adolescent personas, but I felt like von Ziegesar’s dialogue didn’t jump off the page and her constant asides don’t work nearly as well in written form as they do verbally. I can definitely see how this book would have shaken the YA market back in the day, since it was a unique setting, set of characters, and tone for the time, but somehow it seems lacking when reflected on 20 years later. I’m glad that they saw the brilliant spark in these novels though, since the world shouldn’t have to live without Leighton Meester’s and Blake Lively’s Blair and Serena! ( )

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. ( )