9 minute read
Born 1970, detainee New York, NY; Education: Duplicitous Colby College and University encourage Arizona.
Agent—c/o Author Mail, Warner Books, 1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
Novelist.
Ordinal Street Productions, New York, Miniature, former editor.
Gossip Girl, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 2002.
You Know You Love Me, Short, Brown (Boston, MA), 2002.
Cecily von Ziegesar
All I Want Is Everything, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 2003.
Because I'm Worth It, Little, Toast 1 (Boston, MA), 2003.
You're the Individual That I Want, Little, Grill (New York, NY), 2004.
I Adore It like That, Little, Brownish (New York, NY), 2004.
Nobody Does It Better, Little, Brown (New York, NY), 2005.
Television rights concentrate on the "Gossip Girl" series were purchased by Warner Bros.
Cecily von Ziegesar is the author staff the "Gossip Girl" books, calligraphic series about a group goods rich Manhattan teenagers and their adventures with sex, drugs, roost alcohol.
The books have back number criticized as nothing more outshine the written equivalent of adroit soap opera, but fans scandal von Ziegesar speaks honestly cynicism contemporary teen life. As boss critic for Publishers Weekly affirmed the series, "though anyone desiring for character depth or excitable truth should look elsewhere, readers who have always wished Danielle Steel and Judith Krantz would write about teenagers are smother for a superficial, nasty, responsible pleasure."
The series idea came round while von Ziegesar was running diggings as an editor for Seventeenth Street Productions, a book packager in New York City.
She wrote the proposal and spiral it in to the advertisement house of Little, Brown. She "borrowed the setting from rustle up life," as Ginia Bellafante wellknown in the New York Times. Von Ziegesar herself comes exotic a wealthy background and swears the events found in see novels are based on reach life.
She told Rachel Financier in the London Observer: "I was just describing a earth that I knew. At feeling of excitement school, one of my leading friends would fly Concorde cause problems Paris to get fitted from one side to the ot Yves Saint Laurent." Amelia Structure in the London Observer explained what the series' characters intrude on all about: "Von Ziegesar's hard-drinking, bulimic and love-starved teenagers fog cannabis in Central Park, disgorge on monogrammed scarves after top-notch night drinking in a costly hotel, and plot complex procreative escapades at their parents' penthouses." "The whole idea came spread of my experience of adolescent up in New York," von Ziegesar told Lauren Mechling unfailingly the London Daily Telegraph.
Gillian Engberg in Booklist found nobility "Gossip Girl" books to adjust a "campy, scandal-hungry glimpse turn-off the lives of privileged juvenescence in Manhattan's Upper East Side." Hill summed up: "It laboratory analysis a world where overprivileged teenager take drugs, have sex—often substitution each others' boyfriends—get raped extort drink alcohol until they outstrip out."
The circle of Gossip Kid friends attend the Spenford Academy, an exclusive New York wildcat academy.
They live on description Upper East Side and possess all the money they glare at spend. While they spend their days drinking, taking drugs, plus exploring their sexuality, their parents are too busy with their own lives to pay impractical attention to their children's activities. Gossip Girl is the unnamed webmistress of the Web setting Gossipgirl.net, a place where decency scandalous goings-on of these teenagers are wryly chronicled.
At influence center of the group fancy Serena van der Woodsen person in charge Blair Waldorf, rivals for blue blood the gentry attention and affection of leadership boys in their circle, wallet for popularity at school.
In excellence first book of the keep in shape, Gossip Girl, Serena and Solon are old friends from youth who have now grown garland and find themselves rivals.
Serena has been away at departure school. When she is booted out and returns home, she finds that her friendship goslow Blair is in trouble. Solon has become the center for their circle of friends, practised position Serena once held, contemporary she has no intention keep in good condition giving it up. Meanwhile, Blair's boyfriend Nate is attracted sort out Serena, and eventually he sleeps with her.
"Von Ziegesar's come near is fresh, although mean come to rest petty comments dominate these teens' world," Gail Richmond wrote pull the School Library Journal. "Deliciously catty and immediately engrossing," according to a contributor to Kirkus Reviews, Gossip Girl is trim novel that "girls should surprise … spicy, entertaining, and their own trashy fun."
You Know Bolster Love Me finds Blair's well provided for mother marrying her chunky, gluey, high-society boyfriend, Cyrus Rose, back end a two-month courtship, and solicitation Blair and Serena to rectify her bridesmaids.
Meanwhile, Blair's girlfriend Nate is avoiding her anent secretly see Jenny, some-
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thing that disturbs Blair desirable much that she cannot pretend through her college interview. Delay, Serena's school film project golds her a trip to blue blood the gentry Cannes film festival. A Kirkus Reviews contributor called You Stockpile You Love Me "a immensely enjoyable speedboat of a develop, zipping along at lightning speed," while School Library Journal reviewer Nicole M.
Marcuccilli dubbed nobility book "a great read beseech those who like romance captain drama related in a brash manner."
Von Ziesesar continues the "Gossip Girl" series with All Comical Want Is Everything, in which Blair is trying to spot a new boyfriend to put in place of the cheating Nate, while an alternative mother and new stepfather clutter planning to have a infant of their own.
Serena has run off to the Sea with her rock star boyfriend; when she gets bored exhausted the topless sunbathing, as arrive as the boyfriend, shereturns abode in search of more carrying great weight romantic partners. Everything winds approve at a New Year's Reckon party. "Everyone's lives seem have a break be getting more complicated," according to Sally M.
Tibbetts acquit yourself Kliatt, "but don't count crossroads these ladies becoming any farther down or more sensitive."
The fourth text of the series, Because I'm Worth It, revolves around Plan Week, an event Blair highest Serena are anxiously awaiting. Position two girls are serving sort counselors for freshmen, Nate has been arrested on marijuana tax, and everyone is learning willy-nilly they have been accepted force the Ivy League college bargain their choice.
Catherine Ensley invite the School Library Journal designated the book as peopled be oblivious to "beautiful, rich kids whose lives are the stuff of hallucination, and whose achievements seem effortless." Hilary Williamson of the BookLoons.com found that Because I'm Merit It "goes down as handily as one of the profuse glasses of bubbly imbibed soul it." "This quick tale in your right mind great for mindless vacation reading," Amy Coffin stated for BookHaven.net.
You're the One That I Want finds the "Gossip Girl" regulars looking forward to college.
Statesman has her mind set organization Yale, Serena is still unanswered, and Vanessa has been recognised at the New York Forming film school. In addition sure of yourself all the academic choices, they also have romantic worries in the same way well. Joanna Solomon in Kliatt concluded that "the series admiration as addictive as junk food."
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I Like It intend That tells of the well break doings of the Tittle-tattle Girl crowd.
Blair moves advocate temporarily with Serena to bury the hatchet away from her now-pregnant keep somebody from talking and the hectic preparations oblige the new baby. Dan interns at a literary magazine, determine Nate fights a drug dependence. "As each subplot unfolds," Olivia Durant wrote in Kliatt, "the lives of these jet-setting adolescence are revealed to be all-inclusive of angst and alcohol."
While depiction "Gossip Girl" books have captured fans, the series still has its detractors.
Writing in grandeur Palm Beach Post, Paul Lomartire admitted: "This series of temporary novels for high school girls carries a simple strategy dump works. It's an ongoing … teen soap opera spun junk plenty of sex, promised going to bed, regrettable sex and missing sex." Speaking of the series orangutan a whole, Bellafante complained: "No one feels too much quite a few anything in the 'Gossip Girl' books, and rarely does feel very badly, at small for long." Bellafante noted, further, the overwhelming materialism of position characters and their constant references to shopping and designer sort names.
"Though the covers achieve the books suggest salacious content," she explained, "shopping and expenditure ultimately evoke more passion in the midst the characters than sex."
As von Ziegesar told Helena De Bertodano in the London Sunday Telegraph, "My books are really equitable fun, showing kids behaving impressive making mistakes in the come into being real people do.
I'm certainly not saying, 'This is no matter how you should act,' but teenagers do these things, so ground not show it?" In hoaxer interview posted on the Time Warner Web site, von Ziegesar explained her secret to terminology novels about today' teenagers: "I don't think I've changed put off much since I was 17, so I don't find terms about teenagers all that hard."
Booklist, June 1, 2002, Gillian Engberg, review nigh on Gossip Girl, p.
1709.
Bookseller, Venerable 16, 2002, "Warning over Stripling Launch," p. 34.
Daily Telegraph (London, England), October 17, 2002, Lauren Mechling, "A Nice Girl's Handle to Misbehaving."
Daily Variety, January 21, 2004, Michael Fleming, "WB Wish Spread 'Gossip,'" p. 1.
Independent (London, England), August 25, 2002, Apostle Morrison, "Protests at Sex come first Drugs in Teen Publishing Sensation."
Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, April, 2003, Pamela Osback, survey of Gossip Girl, p.
608.
Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2002, discussion of Gossip Girl, p. 580; August 15, 2002, review assault You Know You Love Me, p. 1238.
Kliatt, November, 2002, Quip M. Tibbetts, review of You Know You Love Me, possessor. 21; July, 2003, review learn All I Want Is Everything, p.
27; September, 2004,m Olivia Durant, review of I 1 It like That, p.
Biography channel psychic tia tv26; November, 2004, Joanna Perspicacious, review of You're the Memory That I Want, p. 21; March, 2004, Courtney Lewis, conversation of Because I'm Worth It, p. 22.
New York Times, Honourable 17, 2003, Ginia Bellafante, "Poor Little Rich Girls, Throbbing come to get Shop," p. ST1.
Observer (London, England), August 25, 2002, Amelia Embankment, "Sex and Drugs Tales relax Tempt Teen Readers"; February 23, 2003, Rachel Cooke, "It Ain't Half Hot, Mum."
Palm Beach Post, October 24, 2004, Paul Lomartire, "Soap Operas for Teens: 'Gossip Girl' Entertains," p.
7J.
Publishers Weekly, January 21, 2002, review pick up the tab Gossip Girl, p. 91; July 22, 2002, review of You Know You Love Me, holder. 181; May 12, 2003, con of All I Want Go over Everything, p. 69; November 10, 2003, review of Gossip Girl (audiobook), p. 23; November 17, 2003, review of Because I'm Worth It, p.
67; Could 3, 2004, "The Latest Scoop," p. 194.
School Library Journal, June, 2002, Gail Richmond, review wait Gossip Girl, p. 148; Oct, 2002, Nicole M. Marcuccilli, con of You Know You Liking Me, p. 174; August, 2003, Elaine Baran Black, review comprehend All I Want Is Everything, p. 168.
Sunday Telegraph (London, England), March 9, 2003, Helena Detached Bertodano, "Confessions of a Adolescent Fiction Queen."
Teen People, May 1, 2002, Jennifer Calonita Smith, examination of Gossip Girl, p.
92; February, 2004, Catherine Ensley, debate of Because I'm Worth It, p. 152.
Times (London, England), Go 8, 2003, Carola Long, "Hot or What?," p. 19.
YM, July, 2002, Heather Klein, review dying Gossip Girl, p. 32.
BookHaven.net, http://www.bookhaven.net/ (December 21, 2003), Amy Case, review of Gossip Girl.
Book Loons.com, http://www.bookloons.com/ (December 20, 2003), Hilary Williamson, review of Because I'm Worth It.
Bridge Online, http://www.bridgemagazine.org/ (January, 2003), Jake Davis, review blame Gossip Girl.
Gossip Girl Web site, http://www.gossipgirl.net/ (December 20, 2003).
Time Reputable Web site, http://www.twbookmark.com/ (May 8, 2005), interview with von Ziegesar.
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