After reading five Gossip Girl books, I have really started to have a better feeling for the characters. Although I feel like all of them are extremely spoiled, it is easy to forget this while reading. Personally, I have completely different experiences than the characters in Gossip Girl, so it was hard to get into the books at first. Now that I have read five of them, I feel like I am a part of the story. I have gotten used to the character's exorbitant lives and have been able to look past it. At this point, I can analyze the characters more and discover how they fit into the book.
Blair Waldorf is completely dramatic and over the top. At first, she really annoyed me in the books. She is constantly talking about her life as a movie and tries to play out her life as if she were in a script. Somehow, she is still the smartest girl in her senior class and has dreams of going to Yale. I feel like the author may have intentionally made Blair over the top, so that readers would hate her when they first read about her. When she fails miserably at her Yale interview, I did not feel bad for Blair, because I felt like she had it coming to her. She just seems too perfect. As the books progresses, her life seems to keep throwing her curve balls. By the end of the fifth book, readers certainly feel bad for Blair and even may feel sorry that they hated her so much in the first place. It is this style of writing that makes the books so alluring and helps to add to the gossip theme.
The series is aptly named Gossip Girl because of the gossip that surrounds the storyline, but the author's writing really helps to contribute to the theme. After reading the books, the reader may even find themselves gossiping about the characters. Throughout these books, the author will throw something (or someone) else into the plot to liven things up right when things start to settle down again. These characters never get a break. They end one dramatic moment and another one comes right after it. This is so crazy because they are all in high school and drink, smoke, and do drugs. Apparently that isn't enough to make a story though.
I wonder if the gossip and storyline would be nearly as interesting with a group of middle class kids. I think the author chose to write about extremely privileged kids because nothing is too outrageous so she could potentially never run out of ideas. If the books were about middle class kids, it would seem extremely unrealistic to read about their mansion on the slopes of Sun Valley or their penthouses in New York City. It is almost as if the allure of the books comes from these things though. Everyone seems to have some kind of a dream to make more money than they do now or even be rich someday. By reading these books and immersing yourself into them, it is as if you live the life of a rich person. Even Dan and Jenny who are supposedly "lower class" in the Upper East Side have a nice loft apartment that seems run-down only because it wasn't properly kept up by their father.
Although it would be nice to think that the characters are completely humble about their money, this was proven untrue in these books. Jenny started dating Leo and instantly wondered where he lived. When she found out he lived in a rundown two bedroom apartment with his parents, she quickly ran away from him. For me, it's hard to believe that people out there can be so stuck up. Leo was completely nice to Jenny. He never did or said anything that would make her think less of him as a boyfriend. Her decision to leave him was purely based on where he lives and the amount of money he has. I feel like Jenny's dad would be really upset if he were to find out about this, but that's just how life is when you live on the Upper East Side with Manhattan's elite.