The Clique: A Novel by Lisi Harrison

I must admit that I love the covers of these books. They are all cute plaids, prints, and argyle. They also have the oh so familiar pictures of girls whispering. It is this action that pretty much sums up The Clique Series. The Clique is the first book in the series, and it firmly establishes the middle school uber-rich clique of Massie (the Queen) and her followers: Dylan, Alicia, and Kristen. To establish these four as the bossy and mean eltists girls that they appear to be, the author adds in a girl names Claire that has recently relocated to the New York area because her father is friends with Massie's dad. To make her even more undesirable, Claire and her family are living in Massie Block's guest house. Together all the girls attend Octavian Country Day School (an elite all girls school that actually mentions dressing fashionably in the handbook).

The plot of this Clique installment basically chronicles the battle between Massie and Claire. Everyone is mean at some point in the book, which is how middle school feels at some points, but what I actually liked about the book is that because the point of view changes between Claire and Massie the reader is able to see that even though the girls appear one way on the outside, they all feel scared and uncertain. Everyone is afraid of having no friends. How true is that? These girls spend the majority of the book worried that they will have no friends, lose friends, or be friends with some "loser". Claire desperately wants into Massie's clique because they are the clique of power at their school, but she really does some horrible things to hang out and be accepted by some horrible girls. This book is like the movie "Mean Girls".

While I do think that this book spends a lot of time talking about the shallowness of these girls (money, clothes, make-up, boys, etc), I still found the book enjoyable. As long as when you read it, you realize that this is not realistic and that people SHOULD NOT treat each other this way, it is an entertaining read because it is so soap opera- like.

I must also admit that I checked the next one out of the library to read.

Have you read The Clique or any of the other books in the series? What do you think?