Gossip Girl: Psycho Killer by Cecily Von Ziegesar | Rating: ★★★★☆

"Best keep a safe distance. Unless you’re skilled with a knife. And — like me — you just can’t stay away. You know you love me, Gossip Girl."

As many know, before there was the CW’s loose adaption Gossip Girl was a set of bestselling novels that ran from the 2002-2007 and eventually went on to release both a prequel and a follow up/sequel novel (the follow up novel was released during the shows run, and featured plotlines that were out of character for some book characters to attract fans of the television series, and spanned through the entire college characters of all the main characters).

These novels were never meant to sound serious and are targeted at young girls who typically won’t read beyond the pages of Vogue. They are fashionable, juicy and full of humor in the sarcastic narration. And for the genre, these books certainly provide an entertaining amount of gossip, romance, friends and fashion. Did we mention backstabbing?

Cecily Von Ziegesar came back with a surprise rewrite of the first novel and really played on the backstabbing themes we’d come to known in the series. You know except this time with actual backstabbing.


Psycho Killer is cheesy, gory and actually quite fun. Given its genre, it’s very simple and light to read; you won’t have trouble breezing through this hilarious retelling of the spoiled kids we love to hate from the Upper East Side. There’s nothing realistic about it — and that’s the entire point. Cecily draws into the plotline of the first Gossip Girl novel and modernizes it a bit (remember: the first novel came out over a decade ago! Yikes! I’m getting old!) while also mixing in a few details and characteristics from the show, as well.

(Unlike in the sequel to the original series, these details make sense to the over-the-top and entertaining plot!)

Personally my favorite part of the story is towards the end when (main character), (main character) and (main character) kill (specific male character) and (specific male character)’s last words are (insert catch phrase of specific male character). Don’t follow my crappy attempt at not making this paragraph full of spoilers? Okay, okay — fine. I’m sorry. But I’m not spoiling this for anyone who has been wanting to read it! Let’s just say: it’s a hilarious and fitting end to one character.

(Fans of the television series in particular stan over this character and his death would be heartbreaking to them.)

Overall the novel isn’t for everyone — I’ll have to repeat myself in saying it’s really pretty gory — and since it isn’t canon, it doesn’t even matter if fans of the original series read it or not.

If you enjoyed the rewrite of Pride & Prejudice (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) or others of that variety, you will definitely enjoy breezing through this comical take on horror and Gossip Girl.