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Thursday, August 14, 2008

The Elite by Jennifer Banash

Title: The Elite

Author: Jennifer Banash

Summary:

From the top, you can see everything…except yourself.

When Casey McCloy steps into the elegant Bramford building, she’s overwhelmed. Fresh from the Midwest, she’s moved to New York’s Upper East Side to live with her grandmother and attend the prestigious Meadowlark Academy. Here all that matters is who you know. The girl to know is Madison Macallister: popular, pretty, platinumblond. She’s not just Casey’s new classmate and neighbor; she’s an icon. So Casey aims to get in with Madison and her gorgeous gal-pals from the start. As the reigning queen of coolness, Madison is capable of destroying reputations with one welltimed whisper. Better to be on her good side.

But after a city-haute makeover from her new frenemy Madison, Casey is wearing the right clothes, saying the right things, and meeting the right people—including Drew, the boy-about-town who Madison thinks belongs to her and her alone.

Rating: 3.5/5

Review:

This was an extremely quick read, which makes it automatically at least semi-good in my book. Another good thing is that yes, it is different from your typical ritzy, fashion-obsessed Gossip Girl novel. But it still is a novel about the upper-class, it just has a bit more depth to it than Those Other Novels.

But now I have to say, there was nothing notable or exciting about the book. I wasn't blow away, even a little. It was cute, it was fun, it was good. But it wasn't something that I remember well now, a couple weeks after finishing it.

But this is the hard thing about the book, and also the reason why I can't do my typical Good/Bad review for it. There was nothing good about it, but there was nothing bad, either. It was sort of neutral for me. I don't regret reading it, but I wouldn't necessarily want to own it or read it again.

I have read many good reviews for this book, which is why I'm telling you all that you should still read it. My only suggestion would be to check it out from the library or find a cheap way to get it, rather than buying it new from a bookstore.

However, I'm still glad to say that I'll be reading the sequel when it comes out.

6 comments:

Axa said...

I still haven't read this one.

Amanda said...

I haven't read this book but it sounds good.

Kelsey said...

I felt the exact same way! EXACT! But you just had a better way of saying it on paper. I got the book from Jennifer herself so I felt a bit bad giving it a mediocre review. I'm glad I'm not the only one though.

Em said...

All the brand names in the book were distracting for me. Did that bother you too?

Chelsie said...

Kelsey: I got the book from Jennifer too, and while it kind of bothers me that I didn't like it as much as I wanted to, I would be even more bothered if I wrote a fake review. So I just had to go out there and say what I felt...

Em: Brand names don't particularly bother me... I'm not sure why, it might be because I'm a reader of the A-List series, so I'm used to excessive use of brands and designers. Compared to the A-List, this book was fairly mild with using brand names.

Chelsea said...

I really liked The Elite!

Em, I didn't think there were many brand names...at least not enough to distract me.

Anyway, I loved the characters and the backstories they all got, and I can't WAIT to read the sequel to learn more about them.

Sorry you didn't like it as much, Chelsie, but personally I loved it. :)

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