Book Review: Massie

Title: Massie 

Author: Lisi Harrison 

Publisher: Hachette 

Date: 2008 

ISBN: 978-0-16-02751-0 

Length: 123 pages plus advertising material 

Quote: “Massie Block…was used to the glare of the spotlight. She craved it. Chased it.” 

Massie Block is the leader of the Pretty Committee, otherwise known as The Clique, a massive block to other people’s enjoyment of her posh but apparently not very successful prep school. (Though the stories mention that the original Clique represent Carole Jackson’s “four color seasons” and Massie is the black-haired, pale-skinned Winter, an Author’s Note in one of them has also mentioned that the photos on the covers are just whatever teen models the agency sent.) Massie is rich, bossy, bratty, and mean. Her parents aren't exactly people who love, either. 

So of course, when one of her little friends at the country club scores low enough to cost Massie’s team the trophy, Massie sabotages the girl’s last event and destroys her expensive clothes into the bargain. As a result she’s suspended from the club, and her parents order her to get a job to pay for the damage she’s done. Let’s just say that although Massie’s first steady job lasts about a week and is likely, if any other prospective employers find out about it, to keep her unemployed for the rest of her life, it’s funny. 

Massie is a parody of all the Queen Bees of all the cliques on Earth—I can’t believe Harrison ever knew anyone quite so awful—but in this “Summer Collection” novelette, the first of the sub-series where the Clique girls separate for the summer and develop their own characters, Massie outdoes herself. 

If you can enjoy reading about characters who are mischievous but not characters who are consistently mean, The Clique series is not for you. Harrison has explained that she wrote this series to vent her feelings about a grown-up clique she encountered on a job. You probably have to have had a bitter experience with a clique of some sort to find much enjoyment in these books. But look at the sales numbers! Evidently a lot of people do.