I've been reading the GG series since book 3 came out, and well, I hate all the characters, and their choices, but can't seem to stay away. It's just because the books are exceptionally well written for what is basically trash fiction. The reason I'm writing this is the reviewer before me made a point that they couldn't understand what's happened in the last two books. What's happened is that Cecily Von Ziegesar had only intended the series to run to 8 books. Now she's concentrating on The It Girl series, and starting from book 9, she's handed Gossip Girl over to a ghostwriter (notice the books now say "created by" instead of just "by"). I myself couldn't really tell before I found out, since I feel this ghostwriter has captured the tone of the books perfectly. They do have a few problems-the constant dropping of storylines and characters practically mid-sentence comes to mind...