The Clique Books: appropriate for tweens?
The Clique Series Book Review
By Lindsay Ferrier of Suburban Turmoil
The first novel of The Clique series opens with 13-year-old rich b@!#h in training Massie Block giving her mother a dressing down before flouncing off to her sleek, chic all-white room.
The book goes downhill from there.
Wealthy 12-year-old Massie Block and her privileged clique of friends, known as the Pretty Committee, spend all of their time shopping, talking about boys and parties, and being mean to girls who don’t fit in. They don’t ever face consequences for their bad behavior, nor do they mend their ways, a fact that infuriates many parents when it comes to MTV writer Lisi Harrison’s popular young adult series.
However, I think of the The Clique as beach reading for tweens., and not so different from my own fifth grade collection of Sweet Valley High novels. If your adolescent daughter enjoys gossip magazines and shows like “My Super Sweet 16,” there’s an excellent chance she’ll be a fan of The Clique, and you might as well grin, bear it and use the series as a lesson in how not to act.
Although I wouldn’t ban a tween from reading the series (my oldest stepdaughter has a few Clique novels in her own bookshelf, but says she didn’t like them), I also wouldn’t buy them for my girls unless they were specifically included on a wish list. If you do find yourself reluctantly purchasing Clique novels for your daughter, take a few deep breaths and dig into them yourself. You’ll definitely want to address some of the issues the series raises, such as materialism and the inevitable “mean girls” we all encounter in junior high and high school.
Remember, too, that by the time your child is old enough to enjoy these books (I’d recommend them for ages 11 and up), she’s also old enough to realize that the “humor” in Massie and her friends is that they remain static throughout the series, despite the fact that the reader begins to want them to “see the light.” The author also makes it easy to dislike Massie and company, and realize that the glamorous life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
