Melissa de la Cruz

Mel's Shopping Diary

Gossip Gurlz and Good Books…

October 10, 2007

I have been meaning to post about the ahhhsome Gossip Girls TV show! As a big fan of the books, I was very excited to watch this! I love the show, but I agree with the New York Times--the books are MUCH better. But who cares?? It's still a great show! The main thing that I think is "off" is that they made the main character Serena, probably because Blake Lively (who is gorgeous) plays her and she's the most famous actress they have on the show.

But c'mon now, the books were about BLAIR. BLAIR was the flawed, evil, lovable, bulimic, insecure, too-human character. She's been relegated to cardboard-cut-out evil. Lame! Serena was just some beautiful blonde who was always happy and carefree in the books.  Oh well. Also, I don't heart the parental storyline. Eccch. Keep the story on the bright young things not the wrinkly (or Botoxed) old folks. I love Chuck. I love Nate. And Dan is hot too. And what about those uniforms?? I love Serena's knee-high boots and tie-on-t-shirt look. Whoever is the stylist for the show is doing a Pat-Field worthy job. This is the new 90210. Let's hope it runs twenty seasons!

Who watches 90210 reruns on the Soap network? You know you do!

What else..my dear friend Liz Craft and her writing partner Sarah Fain (authors of the hilarious and touching "Bass-Ackwards and Belly-Up" have a new show on TV--The Women's Murder Club based on James Patterson's bestselling books. I can't wait to see this!! Yay! It's on at 9pm on Fridays on ABC, and I predict a big big hit. Tune in!!

I've been batting a thousand with books lately, and by that I mean books I'm reading! Here's what I've recently enjoyed:

THE PINHOE EGG by Diana Wynne Jones. I read an article on Slate a few years back about how there was this great fantasy author who was nowhere near as famous as JK Rowling and that it was a shame, and how we should really read her books. And so I did, and I love all of them. I realized what I love so much about her books aside from how sly and cool and subtle they are is that they also project this totally ideal version of the countryside. A countryside that really does not exist anymore. It's like countryside-porn, you know, all home-made pies and little villages and stuff. I totally lapped it up because hey wouldn't we all want to live in this beautiful, quiet rural place?

The short answer, my friends, is no.

My husband comes from the rural countryside, and it's beautiful. There are farms, home-made peach and blueberry pies, horse farms, no one locks their doors, etc, etc. And it is deathly, deathly, deathly boring. Mike couldn't wait to get out of there and get to New York City. Grime and graffiti and all its glory! Still, I enjoy the books and like to imagine that I am the kind of person who would enjoy the rural countryside instead of the kind of person who is allergic to silence, greenery and insects and wears Blahniks to picnics and then complains about how the grass has ruined her heels.

Sometimes when I read popular novels I realize that I so sympathize more with the villain. I am the bitchy, fashiony, evil girl that the sweet protag hates. But whatevs. Like in Devil Wears Prada? I would totally be Emily Blunt ("when I feel faint, I eat a little cube of cheese") rather than the Anne Hathaway character (who has no memorable lines for me to quote). And BY THE WAY, that movie was great except that in the end, when Andie works at some dumb newspaper and it's like the best job ever??  No way! As all journos will tell you, Conde Nast pays more!

SKIN HUNGER by Kathleen Duey. Another awesome YA Fantasy read. Gets under your skin, literally. Unputdownable.

DRAMARAMA by E. Lockhart. I've been feeling kind of low lately. It kind of hit me the other day that I really do live in L.A., and most of my friends live in New York, and I am just not in New York often enough. And we don't really get to see our L.A. friends all that often. Most of the time Mike and I are just so worn down from childcare, career anxiety and architectural obsession (we're getting the curtains in the house custom-made right now, a grueling process of choosing one-or-two track systems, to automate or not to automate, fabric and light allowance, all these tiny tiny issues and because there are so many choices, all our windows--we practically live in a glass house--are naked) that we have no time to really enjoy our life. Which is lame! I realize I have first-world problems. I realize I have no right at all to complain.  But you know that song Mo Money Mo Problems?  Life was so much simpler when  all we had to do was buy some cheapo bamboo blinds from Urban Outfitters and hang them and that was the end of it.

With money comes the anxiety of spending it correctly. Are we turning into those tacky awful people whom we used to hate when we were younger and poorer?

Don't answer that!

Anyway, that was my state of mind and it was a relief to lose myself in Dramarama, which is funny, upbeat and reminds me of me and my best friend Morgan when we were younger and cooler and used to think of ourselves as Liza Minelli and Michael York from Cabaret.

Anyway. Life IS a Cabaret my friends. So go out and live it! Or you can just sit on the couch and watch Gossip Girls, that's good too.

xoxo
Mel