Cecily von Ziegesar penned many books in the Gossip Girl series, the first one titled Gossip Girl. These books revolve around the title "Gossip Girl," an unknown presence and all-seeing eye around the lives of six main characters, who all attend single-gender boarding schools. Gossip Girl watches the every move of these six, while they live their lives unaware that she is blogging about their existence.
The six characters who people the three books, all living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, are as follows:
- Serena van der Woodsen
- Blair Waldorf
- Jenny Humphrey
- Nate Archibald
- Dan Humphrey
- Chuck Bass
- Vanessa Abrams
Basic Plot
The six main characters mentioned above attend all-girl or all-boy boarding schools as members of Manhattan's society elite. Though they deal with normal teenage problems, those problems are made even worse by the high society in which they all live. Everything from wild parties, designer clothes and best friend battles find their way into Gossip Girl's blog.
The Series
Although there are eleven books in the series, along with one prequel, only the first eight were written by von Ziegesar - the last 3 were ghostwritten. The books in the series are as follows:
Gossip Girl (Prequel)
You Know You Love Me
All I Want is Everything
Because I'm Worth It
I Like it Like That
You're the One That I Want
Nobody Does It Better
Nothing Can Keep Us Together
Only In Your Dreams
Would I Lie to You?
Don't You Forget About Me
It Had To Be You
The Gossip Girl series has also spawned two spin-off series: The It Girl and Gossip Girl: The Carlyles.
The TV Series
In 2007, the show based on the books premiered on the CW and did well enough to earn a second season in the same time slot for 2008. Blake Lively, of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants fame, plays the role of Serena, while Leighton Meester portrays Blair. The show is narrated by Gossip Girl herself, Kristen Bell from Veronica Mars.
About the Author
Born in June of 1970, Ziegesard herself grew up in Manhattan society and attended an all girls boarding school, Nightingale-Bamford. She attended Colby College then spent a year working for a radio station in Budapest before returning to the states to study Creative Writing. While studying she met her husband, Richard, and they soon married and had two children, Agnes and Oscar.
Ziegesard and her family currently live in Brooklyn where she continues to write young adult novels. Though she's only published books in the Gossip Girl series or spin-off series, her popularity continues to rise as the shows picks up in viewers.
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