College interviews, romantic troubles and a fancy wedding photographed for Vogue dominate this second installment of von Ziegesar's frothy but fun series about rich Manhattan prep school kids and the gossip Web site tracking their lives. Blair Waldorf's mother is marrying her "seriously tacky" boyfriend on Blair's birthday and has chosen the bulimic overachiever's former best friend Serena as a bridesmaid (Blair will be maid of honor). Meanwhile, "hunky" Nate avoids Blair (he's secretly seeing chesty Jenny Humphrey), and the compounded stress makes her act like a "freakshow" during her Yale interview. Blonde bombshell Serena is disturbed by poet Dan's intense affections, struggles through her own interview at Brown and scores first prize in a school film contest. The plot culminates at the wedding, where the girls' boy troubles come to a head. As with her Gossip Girl, von Ziegesar creates a complete world: the characters get drunk, shop and indulge in spa treatments plus, the film contest prize is two tickets to Cannes. While this is still strictly a guilty pleasure, the story lines are better developed in this volume and the characters show more growth. But it's their outrageous lifestyles and antics and the snide omniscient narrator that will keep readers turning the pages. Ages 15-up.
Grade 9 Up-In the spirit of Gossip Girl (Little, Brown, 2002) comes You Know You Love Me, which deals with the same New York City friends. The novel runs much like a soap opera, except that the main characters are all rich and snobby chic 17-year-olds who want what they want and let nothing get in the way. Blair's mother has just announced that she will marry a short, stubby man of high society, Cyrus Rose, after a two-month courtship, and Blair must deal with a whole new family life, including Aaron, a dreadlocked hippie stepbrother. She has disowned her best friend, Serena, who slept with her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend, Nate. He has begun to return the affections of ninth-grader Jennifer, whose brother, a hopeless romantic, is pining over Serena. Gossip Girl is a chat room for relaying information to and about the group. A great read for those who like romance and drama related in a sassy manner, complete with obscenities and some alcohol, drugs, and sex.
Nicole M. Marcuccilli, Glenview Public Library, IL
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