Information about Gossip Girl

Gossip Girl

The first of the Gossip Girl series of novels
Author	Cecily von Ziegesar
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Young adult
Publisher	Little, Brown
Publication date	2007 (first volume)
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)

Gossip Girl is a series of novels by Cecily von Ziegesar written for teenagers. Gossip Girl is also the nom de plume of the narrator, and the title of the first novel of the series. There is also a TV series airing on The CW Wednesdays at 9:00 and on CTV (Canada) Tuesdays at 7:00 E/P.

Plot summary

The series follow a group of socialite teenagers who live in the glamourous and sophisticated Upper East Side of New York City. These rich teenagers live the high life - they shop, party and drink. But as teenagers, they deal with sex, drugs and problems with their friendships and relationships. The narrator is an unseen character who runs a blog about the lives of these teenagers, and is always on the lookout for the scoop on everything and everyone.

Cecily said in an interview that the Constance Billard School for Girls, the series' elite all-girls school, is based on her prep school the Nightingale-Bamford School for Girls. She has not stated what private schools are references for the book's fictional boys' schools, St. Jude's and Riverside Prep.^[1] "The school is completely based on Nightingale," von Ziegesar told ABC News. "But I exaggerated to make it more entertaining."^[2]

Books

The books are published by Alloy Entertainment, New York, and distributed by Little, Brown, and Company and Bloomsbury Publishing. The complete series have been published in paperback with the last book, a prequel It Had To Be You published in hardcover. From Would I Lie to You? on forward, the book series is ghost written.

1. Gossip Girl
2. You Know You Love Me
3. All I Want Is Everything
4. Because I'm Worth It
5. I Like It Like That
6. You're the One That I Want
7. Nobody Does It Better
8. Nothing Can Keep Us Together
9. Only In Your Dreams
10. Would I Lie to You?
11. Don't You Forget About Me
12. It Had To Be You

Major characters

Blair Waldorf: Blair is described as a 5'4" and slender, with brilliant blue eyes and a fox-like face. During the first three books, her hair was long, but she chopped it into a pixie cut in Because I'm Worth It. A hopeless romantic who idolizes Audrey Hepburn, Blair's sensitive side contrasts with her tendency to be bitchy and controlling. She is rather vain, though her friendship with uber-girl Serena van der Woodsen causes her to be insecure at times. Blair uses her charm, money, and social clout to get whatever she wants. Her father, once an uptight lawyer, now lives in a French chateau with his various gay lovers and his adopted Cambodian twins, Ping and Pong. Her mother is flaky, society hostess Eleanor Waldorf Rose, who married Cyrus Rose. She has a younger brother, Tyler; a step-brother, Aaron; and a baby half-sister, Yale (who Blair named after her favorite school). She has a turbulent relationship with Nate Archibald throughout the series, losing him to other girls several times, including Jenny Humphrey and her sometimes-best-friend Serena. Blair now attends Yale University, the school of her dreams. She is portrayed by Leighton Meester in the TV series.

Serena van der Woodsen

Serena is 5'7", pale long blonde hair, big dark blue eyes, slim, and ethereally beautiful. She is described as "Perfect". She is very smart, but is constantly being told she is not working to her full potential. Like her sometimes-best-friend Blair Waldorf, she and her family are prominent in New York society. Serena dabbled in modeling before landing a starring role in Breakfast at Fred's, a remake of Breakfast at Tiffany's. Serena keeps a steady string of admirers, including Dan Humphrey, Nate Archibald, Aaron Rose, and an entire a capella group at Yale, the Whiffenpoofs. Despite the copious attention she receives from the opposite sex, Serena constantly longs for true romance. Serena is much less demanding and uptight than Blair; however, she shares with Blair the tendency to be self-centered. Her brother, Erik, attends Brown; her parents rarely appear in the series. She is portrayed by Blake Lively in the TV series.

Nate Archibald

Nate is a wealthy, good-looking lacrosse player at St. Jude's school. He is described as having wavy golden hair and sparkling, emerald green eyes. His mother is a French socialite and his father is a former Navy captain. He smokes copious amounts of marijuana, he was once caught and sent to rehab for buying a dimebag in the park. He has dated a number of girls including Jenny Humphrey, Serena, Georgina Spark, and Lexie, but his only serious relationship has been with his on again/off again girlfriend Blair. Due to the fact he stole his lacrosse coach's Viagra, he only got his diploma with the help of Blair and her alumni father's connections. Although he was originally planning to attend Yale University for his lacrosse-playing abilities, he eventually left sailing across the world with his father's Navy mentor, Captain Chips White, to figure his life out. He is portrayed by Chace Crawford in the TV series.

Dan Humphrey: A thin, sensitive, chain-smoking, caffeine-addicted poet who often sees the darker side to things and has said his favorite word is "death". Dan is a romantic whose imagination runs off wildly at the worst times. He over-analyzes and is easily frustrated. He is romantically linked to Vanessa Abrams, who appears to be the love of his life, but he hasn't always been the best boyfriend. Prior to his relationship with Vanessa, he spent two years being in love with Serena van der Woodsen. He has had several writing-related jobs, including a poem called "Sluts" published in the The New Yorker; an internship at Red Letter, a prominent literary magazine; and a short stint as songwriter/lead singer for indie-rock sensation The Raves. He has a very close relationship with his sister, Jenny and his father Rufus. His absentee mother returns in the final book, only because she believes that he is gay. Dan is attending The Evergreen State College in Washington State. He is portrayed by Penn Badgley in the TV series.

Vanessa Abrams

Vanessa is a budding filmmaker. With her shaved head, and all black attire, she is the polar opposite of her Constance Billard classmates. Her parents are a pair of hippie artists and live in Vermont, while her sister, Ruby, is bassist for the band SugarDaddy. She has a shaky relationship with Dan Humphrey. After Ruby comes back from a world tour with her new fiance, Piotr, Vanessa moves in with the Humphreys, further complicating the relationship. Her life's ambition is to be a filmmaker; she is rather successful, as well. She is portrayed by Jessica Szohr in the TV series.

Jenny Humphrey: At age 14, Jenny is the youngest of the Gossip Girl characters. She has wild, curly brown hair and an enormous DD chest on her tiny 5' frame. She is the younger sister of Dan Humphrey. Jenny is an aspiring artist and holds a secret desire to be a model like Serena van der Woodsen, whom she eventually befriends. She often tries to fit in with the rich girls at her school, even though she does not hold a place in their social sphere. Despite her lack of social clout, she stole Nate Archibald from Blair Waldorf at one point. She often goes on wild and embarrassing exploits to set up an image for herself- for example, accidentally starring in a photo shoot for an article entitled "Does Breast Size Matter?", getting a scandalous video of her and Nate Archibald circulating on the Internet, and spending a little too much time with a popular indie rock band called the Raves. She ends up going to boarding school, Waverly Academy, to reinvent herself as the "It Girl", a la Serena. She is now the main character in a spin-off series called "The It Girl." She is portrayed by Taylor Momsen in the TV series.

Chuck Bass

A rich, lust-driven antagonist whose list of the finer things in life is short: sex and alcohol. He once came close to taking advantage of a vulnerable Jenny Humphrey in a bathroom and tried to sleep with an inebriated Serena van der Woodsen. Nobody is certain about his sexual orientation. Chuck has an obnoxious pet monkey named Sweetie, who can often be found perching on his shoulder and wearing coordinated outfits. Everyone, quite frankly, despises him, but because his bank account and good looks have just always been part of the latest party, they just shrug off his egotistical antics and accept him for what he is: a rich party animal. He ends up going to military college, because he didn't get into any of the normal ones he applied to. He is portrayed by Ed Westwick in the TV series.

Carlyle Triplets

Due to the main characters all going off to college or embarking on various adventures (starring in sequels, sailing around the world, going to boarding school, etc), the Carlyle triplets, currently known to Gossip Girl readers as A, O, and B, will be replacing them. Their mother, Edie Carlyle, is an old friend of Eleanor Waldorf-Rose's, and the family will be moving into the Waldorf-Rose apartment when they move to Los Angeles.

TV series

Main article: Gossip Girl (TV series)

The TV adaptation, also titled Gossip Girl, was picked up by The CW.^[3] Josh Schwartz, the creator of The O.C., is executive producer for the project.^[4] Blake Lively plays Serena in the upcoming show and Leighton Meester will play Blair. Blair and Serena's shared love interest, Nate Archibald, is played by Chace Crawford. Taylor Momsen plays Jenny Humphrey, although there are a few physical attributes that differ between the TV character and the book character, such as the book character's DD bust size and curly brown hair, in contrast with the TV character's smaller bust size and straight blonde hair. Penn Badgley plays Jenny's brother Dan Humphrey, and their father, Rufus Humphrey, is played by Matthew Settle. Ed Westwick plays the character Chuck. Kelly Rutherford plays Serena and Eric's mother, Lillian van der Woodsen. Blair's mother, Eleanor Waldorf, is played by Florencia Lozano. It has not yet been determined if Blair's stepfather, Cyrus Rose, will be a character in the TV series or not. Nan Zhang plays Kati Farkas and her friend Isabel Coates is played by Nicole Fiscella. Kristen Bell, star of Veronica Mars, narrates the show as the "Gossip Girl" herself. Vanessa Abrams, a main character in the books, will be included in the television series and played by Jessica Szohr (What About Brian?).^[5]

On October 92007 Gossip Girl was picked up for a full season of twenty-two episodes.^[6]

Criticism

The criticism of this series primarily revolves around whether the events depicted in the story are appropriate for the teenage audience the books attract. American author and feminist Naomi Wolf calls the books "corruption with a cute overlay," and goes on to claim that "sex saturates the 'Gossip Girl' books...sex via Juicy Couture, blasé and entirely commodified.^[7]

Pam Spencer Holley of the American Library Association [ALA] represents a different point of view by claiming to be simply "happy to see teen girls reading." Confident that young girls will move onto more well-viewed literature, she points out, "Unless you read stuff that's perhaps not the most literary, you'll never understand what good works are.^[8]

After making this claim, Holley later went on to encourage teens to read through the creation of a list to recommend to "both avid and reluctant readers", who are looking for books like Cecily von Ziegesar's Gossip Girl series: "The books on this list are perfect for when your readers have finished with every 'Gossip Girl' title in your library and are clamoring for another book like the Gossip Girl," said YALSA President Pam Spencer Holley.^[9]

References

External links

• The Official Gossip Girl Book Website
• The UK Gossip Girl Website
• The Alloy Entertainment Gossip Girl Website
• GirlPosse Review of Gossip Girl
• "Confessions of an EW Parent; Livre Free Or Die; EW's Books Editor Asks: What Do You Do When You Hate What Your Daughter is Reading?", by Tina Jordan, Entertainment Weekly, 24 January 2007.
• Video clip from the Gossip Girl pilot.
• Full Episodes available online for Gossip Girl.