The Exile of Gigi Lane (review)

"I'm Gigi Lane, and you wish you were me." Such is the reassuring repeated "affirmation" of Gigi Lane of the posh Swan's Lake Country Day School; at the close of her junior year, Gigi is preparing to be elevated to the position of "Head Hottie," from where she and her two sidekicks will rule the school as the "Hot Spot" throughout their senior year. The plan goes horribly wrong after one of Gigi's lieutenants proves a turncoat, seizes the top role for herself, and forces Gigi to the bottom of the social ladder. As she undergoes a humiliating rejection by all the Swan's Lake cliques, Gigi realizes that the usurper Head Hottie is betraying the role and destroying the school, and she determines to take down her nemesis. The plot suggests a campy Heathers-style satire of popularity, and there's certainly plenty of lampooning going on; the rigid taxonomy of Swan's Lake cliques, from Cheerleaders and Glossies to Vox Foxes (producers of the newspaper), Lacrockies (sporty types), and the Whompers (participants in faux-medieval hand-to-hand combat), is fascinating and funny in its formal categorization. The book lacks the tautness, pace, and humor necessary for a successful sendup, though, rambling along laboriously through Gigi's senior year. It doesn't compensate with characterization (despite her best friend's claim to the contrary, Gigi's really no nicer than the girl she dethrones) and it can't get itself together on the point: there seems to be nothing ironic about Gigi's eventual re-ascendance, despite the fact that the structure she finally rules was thoroughly discredited during her time in the wilderness. Readers will be better off with Kristen Tracy's smart, lacerating Crimes of the Sarahs (BCCB 3/08), but the weirdly intricate school structure and the smarter-than-she-seems Gigi may suffice to engage those looking for tasty private-school politics.