I Will Always Love You

November 10, 2003
For anyone who's ever wished to be a fly on the wall observing a clique of super-rich, super-shallow teens on Manhattan's Upper East Side, this audiobook offers the perfect opportunity. Ricci has the easy, unaffected attitude to play cool observer/participant in a milieu of hard partying and harsh social climbing. As fans of her films might expect, Ricci nails the slang and contemporary phrasing. Talk of sex, alcohol and money abounds—replete with occasional expletives that make the raw language ring true. An e-mail note from Gossip Girl (read by deLuca), someone who is anonymously part of the scene, opens each chapter and, in an unusual twist, listeners can read similar entries or do their own dishing at www.gossipgirl.net
. At the book's heart, the Blair-Nate-Serena triangle and all its tangents will likely have teens and young adults transfixed. The success of subsequent Gossip Girl print novels, in addition to the proliferation of new TV shows like Rich Girls
and the recent documentary Rich Kids
, indicate a continuing appetite for such fare. The Gossip Girls books have also been repackaged for adults, demonstrating their crossover appeal. All told, this sharp production adds some spice to the gossip-fiction menu. Ages 15-up.

July 1, 2010
During four consecutive winter breaks after high school, now-familiar New Yorkers Blair, Serena, Nate, Chuck, Dan, Jenny, and Vanessa date one another, fight, break up, and reconcile--wearing designer clothes and carrying iPhones, of course. Little happens, and even Gossip Girl seems lost for material; readers are likely to tire of a story too shallow to justify the length.

(Copyright 2010 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)