A Fair Trade Book
Title: The Clique
Author: Lisi Harrison
Author's web site: https://lisiharrison.com/
Date: 2004
Publisher: Little Brown & Company
ISBN: 0-316-70129-7
Length: 220 pages
Quote: "'You can always invite her to join in on your plans,' Kendra suggested...'Impossible.' Massie shook her head. 'We can't just call up the spa and add another person at the last minute.' Massie looked away. 'Not that we'd want to.'"
Massie's car pool to her posh private school is more than a car pool. It's a tight little social clique of four very rich seventh grade girls who consider themselves the social leaders of their school, plus Claire, who is also well off and whose father is Massie's father's friend...and who is new at their school. The Clique don't like having to include a new girl in anything they do. Hilarious hostilities fly.
Well...to the reader they're pretty hilarious. Why would anyone, however new to any school, want these spoiled, shallow, hostile little brats for friends? Why does Claire let the hostility bother her? Why doesn't she go home, find something to do, and get a life? Other than trading hostilities with The Clique, that is. Nevertheless, all five girls are very young and easily hurt, despite a realistic if not exaggerated lack of empathy to anyone else's sensitivities, and they make each other cry throughout this novel...that grew into a series.
Obviously, Harrison and/or her informants were aware of a lot of nonviolent ways seventh grade students hurt each other's little feelings. For me, the first volume of The Clique was more than enough, but some readers want to collect the whole series.
For those who want to know how Claire "would score double gossip points" before realizing that, in the cell phone conversation, "she was the victim of a five-way!" (a conference call)...here's the novel that spawned the series, and the movie.
You may be able to find better prices, but, if you want to collect The Clique books secondhand and show due respect to a living author, buy'em here for $5 per book + $5 per package. There are fourteen Clique books; at least four of them will fit into each package for a total of $25, of which Lisi Harrison or a charity of her choice will receive $1 per copy sold here...$4 if you order four books in a $25 package.
Book image from Amazon: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5106o1xCoEL.jpg
(Wordpress tags were: adolescent human social behavior, junior high school clique, mean girls in grade seven, middle school clique, teen fads and slang.)
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