Everything we need to know that leads up to the the first Gossip Girl book, is in this book. Serena, Blair and Nate are the best of friends. But Serena starts to realize that she's loved Nate all along and is trying to figure out a way to tell him and Blair, but Blair's family life is crumbling. Her parents are separating and we see the reason behind what started her eating disorder. Serena doesn't want to bring any more tragedy to Blair's life and doesn't tell Blair that her and Nate belong together. Nate thinks that he loves Serena too, but when he's kissing Blair, he loves her as well. Who will he choose? We see Dan's first work of poetry and his addiction to smoking. Jenny buys breast enhancement supplements online and realizes that they may have been a huge mistake. Vanessa didn't always have a shaved head, in fact, her hair was coveted by many. But she bravely shaves it off and we see how her and Dan meet and form a beautiful friendship.

This prequel was entertaining but WAY too long. There are some plot holes in the story line. I'm pretty sure in the first book, it's mentioned that Chuck has a brother (I could be wrong) but in this one, it is mentioned that he is an only child. We still never found out how Serena and Georgina know each other. I totally forgot about Georgina's character until I was reading the skiing chapters and I remembered her from one of the previous books. Blair and Serena's friendship seemed really strong in this book but not as strong through the rest of the series. We also see how Nate's smoking addiction got started. And we still don't know who Gossip Girl is!

I still have one more book to read, but I'm still overall really disappointed in this series. I wanted to see manipulation from Blair. I wanted to see Blair and Serena's friendship strong like it sometimes is in the show. I much prefer the show to the book series. Stay tuned for one more book review to come!

The entire "Gossip Girls" series could have the same review--the show if better. You can clearly tell in most of the writing that von Ziegesar intended it to be more of a script than a novel. Still a great story.

I love this!! Again, books about the very wealthy and privileged are ones I love! and getting to see the backstory for a lot of the books was SO great!

The thing about this book is that it is a little too young for me now. when I was in high school I used to read this series but now I am 23 and it just doesn't have much appeal to me anymore. It was a good prequel to the series. I want to read the alternative first book about Blair and Serena being murder suspects or whatever.

3.5