Gossip Girl

This bit of fluff is apparently intended for teenaged girls from middle school to high school. A vapid exploration of meaningless relationships; shallow, materialistic girls; and their preoccupations, the production is like listening in on a teenaged girl's conference call. Why a talented actress like Christina Ricci consented to be attached to this recording is a mystery; she seems disconnected from the material, endowing it with distance and coolness. Maria DeLuca provides the "gossip" in a voice hard to distinguish from Ricci's. The full GOSSIP GIRL product line is also on a Web site, which one concludes is a popular watering hole for teens. D.J.B. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

November 10, 2003
For anyone who's ever wished to be a fly on the wall observing a clique of super-rich, super-shallow teens on Manhattan's Upper East Side, this audiobook offers the perfect opportunity. Ricci has the easy, unaffected attitude to play cool observer/participant in a milieu of hard partying and harsh social climbing. As fans of her films might expect, Ricci nails the slang and contemporary phrasing. Talk of sex, alcohol and money abounds—replete with occasional expletives that make the raw language ring true. An e-mail note from Gossip Girl (read by deLuca), someone who is anonymously part of the scene, opens each chapter and, in an unusual twist, listeners can read similar entries or do their own dishing at www.gossipgirl.net
. At the book's heart, the Blair-Nate-Serena triangle and all its tangents will likely have teens and young adults transfixed. The success of subsequent Gossip Girl print novels, in addition to the proliferation of new TV shows like Rich Girls
and the recent documentary Rich Kids
, indicate a continuing appetite for such fare. The Gossip Girls books have also been repackaged for adults, demonstrating their crossover appeal. All told, this sharp production adds some spice to the gossip-fiction menu. Ages 15-up.