A review by geofroggatt
Nobody Does It Better: A Gossip Girl Novel by Cecily von Ziegesar

2.0

This is the seventh book in the Gossip Girl book series. Serena and Jenny take on their new fabulous roles as rock-star model girlfriends of New York's hottest band, The Raves. Meanwhile, Dan is too busy drowning his sorrows in empty bottles to notice a mysterious French beauty who has a penchant for dirty, Jim Morrison-wannabe lead singers. Blair takes residence at the Plaza to think about her future. Dan’s characterization in the books are purposefully pretentious and satirical, but I prefer Dan’s character arc from the television show where he’s struggling with classism and being on the outside looking in, only to later become one of the elite himself. Dan’s storyline as an artist and now lead singer to an indie band is interesting, I just feel like he’s disconnected from the rest of the characters most of the time and I prefer his storylines from the show. I liked that Christian and Wade, two minor characters from the previous book, e-mail Serena in this book. It’s a small detail but I liked that it showed continuity between books and that Serena’s fleeting flings are whole people that exist in this world beyond their little trysts with her. I liked seeing Jenny embrace her model status as she looks up to Serena. This version of Jenny is much more innocent compared to her television counterpart, but I like this version of Jenny just as much as the television version, despite being two very different portrayals of the same character. I liked Aaron and Vanessa together, their personalities fit more than most couples in this series. This was the first book that felt like all the characters were from the same world and connected in some way. This was also the book where I realized that the original author had a ghostwriter take over, because there are some inconsistencies and continuity errors in this book (or at least one). This story mentions Vanessa winning the video contest, which isn’t true, as Serena won the video contest in a previous book. There was also a mention in one of the earlier books that Blair’s middle name was Paige and then later in the same book it is said to be Cornelia. Inconsistencies and continuity errors in book series are a major pet peeve for me, but I was able to breeze past these mistakes as the main storyline is very low stakes and doesn’t rely too much on any lore or history. Even though I was only slightly annoyed by these mistakes, I really hope there aren’t any more in future books.