Book Review: Sealed with a Diss

Title: Sealed with a Diss

Author: Lisi Harrison

Publisher: Little Brown

Date: 2007

ISBN: 978-0-316-11506-3

Length: 248 pages

Quote: “They had spent weeks fantasizing about this mysterious room and all of the things they would do with it once it was theirs.”

In the real world there are schools where just one student club, and not the others, have access to a special room or house. At the university I attended it was the Scholars, the ones who maintained the highest grade-point averages, who were allowed a separate house to work—in the daytime, but they could stay in it between nine o’clock and midnight—on special art and science projects. At the fictional Octavian Country Day School it’s the “alpha” clique in grade eight who, supposedly unbeknownst to the teachers, have the key to the old bomb shelter, which they’ve rigged up with all kinds of goodies including a spy-cam to see into the Briarwood boys’ school’s “Emotional Sensitivity” classroom. Claire, Massie, Alicia, and the rest of the Pretty Committee are in line to inherit this room from the graduating DSL Daters, but by way of initiation they have to bring dates to a party and Massie has to help Skye, the leader of the DSL Daters, reconnect with Chris, the boy Skye fancies. Massie likes Chris too, if only because Skye does, and her goal throughout this story is to bring Chris and Skye together in such a way that Skye will feel that Chris would rather be with Massie. Whether Chris really would prefer to be with Massie, or even whether Massie would prefer to be with Chris, are lesser considerations. Massie is that kind of girl.

All five Pretty Committee girls are about to learn an important lesson about petty spying: While we obviously don’t want government spying on us because the motivation for government to do so would be to violate the Bill of Rights, we also don’t want to spy on our friends, any more than we want to be spied on by them, because there are reasons why they tell us what they want to tell us about themselves, and the added insights we gain by spying aren’t likely to boost the relationship. Claire, who officially has a boyfriend, has the most painful time learning this lesson. While her friends merely baffle the boys they’re trying to impress, Claire sneaks a peek at Cam’s cell phone and sets herself up for major misunderstandings.

If you liked the other Clique novels your collection needs this one. Personally, I’m underwhelmed by the series . That Lisi Harrison has publicly admitted having written this series as a sort of vindictive parody of some former co-workers, and earned enough money from the series that she doesn’t need to work with the said co-workers any more, makes the meta-message of this novel “Living well is the best revenge.” I suppose that gives it some redeeming social value but, personally, when I think of series of school stories, I miss the clueless but basically well-intentioned quality of the teenagers in Clueless or The Facts of Life.