Oh. Em. Gee.

So I'm sure I'm more than a little behind on this, but I got two of the GG books through work and decided I'd start reading them.

OMFG! Is it just me, or are these some of the poorest written books EVER? Don't get me wrong, I love GG, the TV show at least. But the books just don't cut it. I realize that these are marketed to a much younger audience than myself, but hey, so is the show.

My argument? These books read like one long, terrible, product placement ad. To describe things strictly by a luxury brand is a cop out in writing. How much intelligence does it take to write sentence after sentence about the new Coach, Prada, Christian Louboutin (feel free to insert any designer you like here) shoes, etc. that these UES kids are wearing, buying, coveting, etc. They may as well include a catalogue in the back of the books so that after you read them you can also purchase all of the items (and there would be A LOT) that S, B and Little J wear. On top of this being a poor, and not very writerly way to develop a story, how much of the desired audience of these books can actually afford these things? How many of them truly even understand what and who some of these designers are?

Personally, I feel the show accomplishes something similar in a much more tactful manner. Instead of constantly dropping designer names, they drop New York names! That's the point. We already know they're wealthy, so it's much more important to have a more real connection by means of actual faces and places related to and present in the city. They go to actual NY restos, clubs, lounges and stores. They hang out with Tinsley Mortimer, etc. They DO NOT go around saying things like, "omg B, I love your Tory Burch headband...Coach flip-flops" or "hey Chuckles, hang on 2 seconds so I can adjust the camera angle to zoom in on the Prada logo on your sandals."

Thoughts?

Ciao,

B