IT HAD TO BE YOU: The Gossip Girl Prequel
Cecily von Ziegesar
Poppy/Little, Brown for Young Readers
Fiction
ISBN: 9780316017688
416 pages

• Read an Excerpt

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you are at least familiar with the Gossip Girl series. If you were born yesterday, the first thing someone did was hand you a paperback with a glossy snapshot and a colored band going across the bottom, printed with a title and that familiar dropping P. You know Blair Waldorf and Serena van der Woodsen, the queens of the Upper East Side. You know how much they both love the same boy, the oh-so-cute and perpetually stoned Nate Archibald. You’re also familiar with the rest of the cast --- the wannabes, the classmates, the rebels. We teen girls all know the world these wealthy kids live in, even if most of us will never enter it ourselves.

After watching most of the gang graduate and the rest of the important characters go off to boarding school or other adventures, we take a step back and rewind two years. IT HAD TO BE YOU introduces us to 15-year-old Blair and Serena, who are just learning how to grab hold of the world and take charge of it.

The story begins during the winter and shows us a more vulnerable Blair Waldorf, who is inseparable from her best friends, Serena van der Woodsen and Nate Archibald. Yes, you read that right. No Archie comics-esque love triangle yet --- these kids are just a happy, sophomoric threesome. That is, until Blair and Serena both privately realize they are in love with Nate. Enter conflict.

Other favorite characters appear in this prequel as well. Unanswered questions from the entire Gossip Girl series become answered. We see Vanessa Abrams, the aspiring avant-garde filmmaker, leave her long jet-black hair behind and become the bald girl we know so well. Twelve-year-old Jenny Humphrey, as obsessed with Serena as always, starts out in the story flat-chested and begins taking herbal supplements. Dan Humphrey is a budding poet and, with the help of his developing little sister, begins writing anonymous poems that Jenny leaves in Serena’s locker. Blair’s father walks out on the family, only to return with his new life partner. Serena fights with her parents about boarding school. And Chuck Bass --- well, he’s the same old playboy at 15 as he is at 17 in the original series.

When Serena and Nate accidentally kiss one night while in the same bed as Blair, things begin to get complicated for the threesome. How will they tell their best friend that their relationship has been taken to the next level? Serena begins to feel more and more guilty when Blair confesses to Serena how in love with Nate she is. Her best friend’s life is falling apart. How can Serena steal a guy from her, too?

But maybe Serena doesn’t need a guy. Dan would gladly take Nate’s place in her life. If only poor Vanessa, who is quickly falling for him, knew that. After she and Dan share an awkward first kiss in his apartment, she’s smitten, but she doesn’t realize that the poems of his she keeps reading are meant for Serena.

I liked Gossip Girl before it got too popular. The first book was unapologetically wicked, and I loved von Ziegesar for it. Before the series became such a hit, it relied less on shoving in countless references to designers and cosmetics companies and more on the idea of the wealth the teenagers in the stories had. It was about lifestyle, not the long name of the nail polish Blair wore on her fingers.

IT HAD TO BE YOU is a refreshing addition to the series. Working as a companion to the rest of the books, it adds depth to the characters. We see a childish, vulnerable Blair. We reach further into Nate’s mind before it becomes clouded with marijuana. We watch Vanessa and Dan struggle to understand themselves and the art that will define them in the series. Only Serena remains the same sad, beautiful girl who can’t seem to catch a break because she has so many.

Any Gossip Girl fan who so much as looks at the spine of the book will want to pick it up to learn more about the delicious characters Cecily von Ziegesar created. Surprisingly, though, it may be a good read even for those who have avoided the series in the past.

    --- Reviewed by Hannah Gomez

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