The Exile of Gigi Lane by Adrienne Maria Vrettos (English) Paperback Book

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"Heathers" meets "Bring It On" in this story of a high school queen bee who falls from glory.

FORMATPaperback LANGUAGEEnglish CONDITIONBrand New Publisher Description

As incoming Head Hottie of the exclusive clique called the Hot Spot, Gigi Lane knows it is her responsibility to see that the ducklings at Swan's Lake Country Day school fall into line. But when one classmate exposes her as a "mean girl," Gigi slowly and wretchedly falls to the bottom of the high school social ravine. Gigi's first-person account of her plummet from popularity is insightful yet naive, set in a humorous, satiric world.

Back Cover

"Monroe elegantly shows that altruism is not one simple thing, but many distinct things, and that ... [it] is not adequately captured by models based on rational self-interest."-- Martha C. Nussbaum, The New Republic "In her adventurous new book ... Monroe takes mainstream economics, psychology, and evolutionary biology to task for assuming self-interest is the key to human behavior.... The Heart of Altruism is an important achievement, for it sketches a partial route past the whirlpool of selfishness."-- Michael Collins, The New Leader "Analytically brilliant and extremely moving. [Monroe's] case studies are gripping and her demonstration of the actual existence of altruism, in contrast to self-interested behavior. . ., is wholly convincing."-- Albert O. Hirschman, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

Author Biography

Adrienne Maria Vrettos grew up on a mountain in southern California, where she rode dirt bikes and made a mean double-mud pie. Her first novel, Skin, was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, an ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers, and a New York Public Library Top 100 Books for Reading and Sharing selection. Her second novel, Sight, was an ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers and a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age. She is also the author of The Exile of Gigi Lane and Burnout. Adrienne lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York, and you can visit her online at AdrienneMariaVrettos.com.

Excerpt from Book

CHAPTER ONE Who Says Dung Can''t Be Fun? First-years'' final duty announced! (You''ll want to hold your noses for this one.) I''m Gigi Lane and you wish you were me. Oh my God , that has to be the most powerful affirmation in the history of the world. Dictators don''t have affirmations that good. I tap my fingers on the steering wheel to its undeniable rhythm. I''m Gigi Lane and you wish were me. I could rule the world with an affirmation like this. But I think I''ll start with Swan''s Lake Country Day School for Young Women. My head nods, my fingers tap, my butt muscles pulse to the music of my affirmation as I cruise the predawn streets of Swan''s Lake. I stay on Pleasant Street, aptly named because, according to The Guide to New England Private Schools , it "winds its way up and down the wooded hills of Swan''s Lake, interrupted only by picturesque hilltop farms." It''s at the top of one of these hills that I pull over to the side of the road for a much needed moment of what my mom, in her bestselling self-help book Meet Your Tweet: The Girlie Bird''s Guide to Finding Her True Heart''s Song , calls an affirmation confirmation. Turning off the car, I slip off my seat belt and get myself into the official Girlie Bird affirm and confirm meditation pose: legs crossed, arms bent to form the "wings that will carry you home." I close my eyes, steady my breathing, and listen to my heart. I''m Gigi Lane and you wish you were me. I wake up when my head hits the steering wheel, and frantically look at the clock, relieved to see I was asleep for only two minutes. I yawn and rub the crust out of my eyes. Thank God for natural beauty. Otherwise I''d look a wreck after three nights in a row of just a few hours'' sleep. I yawn again, rest my head against the steering wheel, and gaze out the window over the valley to the wooded hill on the other side. Rising up from the early morning mist, standing proud and tall and sure, is the reason I''ve spent the last seven months in a hamster wheel. It is a mansion made of brick and marble and limestone, a gorgeous patchwork of architectural styles, its two turrets standing guard on either side of the steepled roof. From here, in the dim light of dawn, I can barely make out the stone steps leading up to the double doors. And above the front doors: a circle of stained glass, twelve feet in diameter, inlaid with the pattern of the Swan''s Lake crest. I wait, holding my breath. Beyond the school I can see the sun inching its way above the horizon, and in just moments it is shooting through the stained-glass crest, glinting and sparkling, sending all the colors of those carefully cut pieces of glass spinning out across the valley, and straight into my heart. I know that there are those who are bitter about their own academic experiences (gym class rejects, etc.), who think that my love for Swan''s Lake marks me as a pitiable yet attractive creature who has gotten so caught up in the circus that is high school that I truly don''t care about anything else. I ask you this: What else is there? And please don''t bore me with "There is life after high school," that medicating sentiment clung to by girls who cry in the bathroom at school dances. Of course there''s life after high school! There is college and all that''s beyond. But I''m not in college, am I? No! I''m nearing the end of my third year of high school, and may I be stricken with cystic back acne and a lazy eye if I waste one minute of my high school career pining for the future like some pathetic nerd. If there''s one thing I hate about nerds, it''s their inability to live in the moment. The future is now ! Why is it only the pretty people who realize this? I glance at the clock again. If I don''t pick up my best friend, Deanna, and get us to school by five a.m., there''ll be hell to pay. They hate it when we''re late. Fiona says it makes her question her selection decisions, and she hates questioning her decisions. Swan''s Lake is like any other high school. We have the usual cliques: the Greenies, the Gizmos, the Deeks, the Bookish Girls, the Glossies, the Cursed Unaffiliated, and so on. And, like any other school, there is a top secret group of senior girls that work with an international network of alumnae to keep the Swan''s Lake power structure intact. Also like at any other high school, the Glossies and the Cheerleaders are top tier: You can''t get any more popular. Until senior year, that is. From your very first day of kindergarten at Swan''s Lake, you hear the rumors. A whisper on the jungle gym, a low murmur on the story time rug. As the years go by, the rumors gain traction. Details. There is a secret club, they say, and everyone knows its name, but only its members are allowed to say it out loud. You relish the danger of whispering it to one another in the last bathroom stall, the one marked OUT OF ORDER. "The Hot Spot," you whisper with gummy-bear breath, pulling the end of your braided ponytail out of your mouth. By the time you''re in eighth grade, your braids abandoned for carefully brushed curtains of hair, your skin nicked and scabbed from newly gained permission to shave your legs, a precious few inches of actual cleavage pushing against your crisp, white triangle bra, by this time you know that every year the Hot Spot has a leader. She is called Head Hottie, and on the day you are taken across the street to tour the Upper School, you see her. She is standing on the landing at the top of the grand staircase that stretches up from the main entrance to the first-floor classrooms. There is a girl on either side of her. Together, the three make up the Hot Spot. They are watching you, all of you, as you file through the front doors, trying not to gasp at the car-size chandelier hanging overhead. The Head Hottie watches as you''re led into the front office. She studies each of you and then whispers something to the girl standing on her right. The girl nods and makes a note in the back of an oversize, leather-bound book. It''s called the Hottie Handbook, and there is only one copy, bound in black leather, handed down from Head Hottie to Head Hottie every year since Swan''s Lake was founded. If you''re lucky enough to be one of those eighth graders whose name was written down in the back of that book, and if you''re further lucky enough not to have your name crossed out later due to an unfortunately horizontal growth spurt or a sudden increase in ugliness, you will be like me. One of the chosen. A Hottie Hopeful. Who cares that being chosen means spending your junior year proving your worth and your loyalty by performing maddening duties like using Wite-Out on any piece of paper in the recycling bin that has less than three lines of text on it? It''s Fiona''s right to make us do these things. She''s Head Hottie, and Cassandra and Poppy are her second and third in command. We''re their Hopefuls. We''ll do whatever it is they want us to. Exhaustion and paper cuts are temporary. The Hot Spot is forever. Once you''re in, you''re in for life. Like the mob, but with better fashion and less murder. As soon as you make the jump from Hopeful to Incumbent, you become part of the Network. It sounds so ... classified. And it is classified. Fiona won''t even tell me how exactly it is the whole Network thing works, except to say, "Shut your piehole, Lane! You''ll know about the Network when I decide you need to know about the Network." Want a Swan transferred to a vocational high school with a major in industrial plumbing because you don''t like the way she laughs? Done. Freeze the family assets of a Swan who fouls you during gym, causing her tuition check to bounce? No problem. Have a Swan deported, even though she was born in Kansas? Enjoy your "native" Ireland, Katie Pretovka! Head Hottie is always the most popular girl in school, closely followed by her second and third: in my case my best friend, Deanna, and our hanging participle, Aloha. There is no way someone with substandard social standing could handle, much less deserve, the sort of power we stand to inherit. I am sure that I am not the only one who is sick and tired of the vulgar media backlash against popularity. Filthy propaganda texts like Mommy, Why Don''t They Like Me? How the Quest for Popularity Is Killing Our Daughters ; snuff films profiling the "evil" popular girl who ends up publicly humiliated at the hands of a vindictive nerd; photographs, collages, folk music, sculpture, dance ... there is an endless list of tools "artists" use to slander, defame, and otherwise vilify popular girls. And you know what I say to them? You''re welcome. Without popular girls like me, artists would have nothing to rail against, nothing to lament in whiny songs, no angst or anger or feeling. At least art is benign. What''s harder to handle is the myths. Myth #1. Popular girls are the reason you''re unhappy. No. You are the reason you''re unhappy. In my mom''s bestselling self-help book Chicken No More: The Girlie Bird''s Guide to Facing the Truth she says that what holds most people back from success is--get ready--themselves. She says if you can''t face the truth about your shortcomings, you will never overcome them. I will give you an example: Daphne "Dog Face" Hall. She''s a classic Art Star, one of those girls that wear Converse sneakers and are always crying in the art

Details ISBN1442421215 Author Adrienne Maria Vrettos Short Title EXILE OF GIGI LANE Language English ISBN-10 1442421215 ISBN-13 9781442421219 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY FIC Year 2011 Publication Date 2011-06-07 Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2011-06-07 NZ Release Date 2011-06-07 US Release Date 2011-06-07 UK Release Date 2011-06-07 Pages 368 Audience Age 12 Publisher Simon & Schuster Edition Description Reprint ed. Imprint Simon & Schuster Audience Teenage / Young adult We've got this

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