The Clique



The Clique, a series of middle-school novels by Lisi Harrison, revolves around the lives of the Pretty Committee: Massie Block, Claire Lyons, Dylan Marvil, Alicia Rivera, and Kristen Gregory. These spoiled seventh-graders (later eighth-graders) consider themselves the experts of fashions of Octavian Country Day School, and aren't afraid to let other students know what they think of them. In a nutshell, a series in which the Alpha Bitch and her Girl Posse are the protagonists.

The books are bestsellers, and a direct-to-DVD adaptation of the first book was released in fall 2008.

Drinking game here.

Canonically, the series is as follows:
 * Charmed and Dangerous: The Rise of the Pretty Committee
 * The Clique
 * Best Friends for Never
 * Revenge of the Wannabes
 * Invasion of the Boy Snatchers
 * The Pretty Committee Strikes Back
 * Dial L for Loser
 * It's Not Easy Being Mean
 * Sealed with a Diss
 * The Clique Summer Collection
 * Massie
 * Dylan
 * Alicia
 * Kristen
 * Claire
 * Bratfest at Tiffany's
 * P.S. I Loathe You
 * Boys R Us
 * These Boots are Made for Stalking
 * My Little Phony
 * A Tale of Two Pretties


 * Abhorrent Admirer: Todd, for Massie and Alicia.
 * Adaptation Decay: The Movie tries to make Claire seem much more on top of everything than she really is (Especially with Glambition). It also makes her nicer (Actually stopping Massie from embarrassing herself with Chris Abeley instead of sitting around and watching) and changes the ending entirely.
 * Adults Are Useless: Alicia actually depends on this, pretending to be sweet when around adults and downright ruthless when they aren't present.
 * Alpha Bitch: Massie.
 * Alicia tries to become one throughout the series but continuously fails.
 * Alternate Universe: The Prequel contradicts most of the series' canon and includes some (legitimate) fortune telling.
 * A Worldwide Punomenon: Massie's IM name? Massiekur.
 * Bathroom Stall of Overheard Insults: Dylan decides to gossip about the stars of "Dial L for Losers" in the bathroom of the set of The Daily Grind. The problem? The co-host's mic was on, so the audience (and the stars of DLFL) heard everything.
 * The Beautiful Elite: The protagonists and most of the other characters.
 * Berserk Button: Do not mess with Massie's Clique, or her friends.
 * Big Breasts, Big Deal: Deconstructed. Alicia was forced by her parents to have breast augmentation surgery against her will at the age of twelve, and while boys are crazy over her and the other girls are all jealous, she feels insecure because of how oversized she is. Likewise her cousin, Nina, was forced to have breast implants and it made her a narcissistic sociopath.
 * Big Fancy House: Massie, Alicia. To a less emphasized degree, Dylan.
 * Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Literally addressed in "Best Friends for Never" when the girls present various "uniforms" for different colorations (the blonde role being split between Kristen's dark and Claire's light, brunette as Massie, and redhead as Dylan.)
 * Breast Expansion: Alicia was forced by her parents to get breast implants at the age of TWELVE, as was her cousin Nina, both to make them more "viable" for future husbands and because Alicia's mom is a failed ex-model with body issues. Massie also has breast implants, but why her parents allowed (or forced it...) this is never touched on.
 * Buffy-Speak: Massie-speak, including her catch phrases mentioned below.
 * Buxom Is Better: subverted, as Alicia is mocked for how absurd she looks at thirteen with breast implants.
 * Catchphrases:
 * Alicia: "Point."; "given" ; "I heart X.".
 * Massie: "Ehmagawd", "Ah-bviously"; "Ah-dorable"; "Are you a... Then why are you...?".
 * Clear My Name: The latter half of the first book after Claire hijacks Massie's IM.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Layne.
 * Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: The entire Pretty Committee.
 * Costume Porn: Outfits are usually described in this manner.
 * Country Mouse: Claire.
 * Dawson Casting: The girls on the cover of the books are clearly not 7th/8th graders.
 * Defrosting Ice Queen: Massie, Claire and the rest of the Committee do a pretty good job.
 * Determinator: After Kristen fails with the Glambition project, she turns in a bankcrupcy report as her project.
 * The Ditz: Alicia's friend and almost beta Olivia.
 * Dragon with an Agenda: Alicia
 * Egg Sitting: With synthetic babies in Claire's class in Bratfest at Tiffany's.
 * The Film of the Book: Well, a Direct-to-DVD movie.
 * Fauxreigner: Alicia's dad (Mr. Rivers) isn't Spanish, but pretended to be so that he could marry his spanish supermodel wife, he then changed his surname to Rivera.
 * Fille Fatale: Nina.
 * Five-Bad Band
 * Big Bad: Massie
 * The Dragon: Alicia
 * The Evil Genius and The Brute: Kristen
 * The Dark Chick: Dylan
 * Sixth Ranger: Claire.
 * Four-Girl Ensemble: Before Claire's arrival there's the sanguine one (Dylan), the choleric one (Kristen), the melancholic one (Alicia), and the phlegmatic one (Massie)
 * Gag Boobs: Alicia has gigantic fake tits, but gets mocked (by girls at least) for how overblown she looks.
 * Gasshole: Dylan burps a lot.
 * Gecko Ending: The movie's ending implies that Massie leaves the Committee and starts hanging out with Claire.
 * Gender Blender Name: Dylan, though a few girls in Real Life might have it.
 * Genius Ditz: Massie is amazingly proficient with History and Sociology (Even going so far as to nicknaming Julius Caesar J.C. which causes some issues) but still doesn't see that the Pretty Comittee is kind of just holding her back from doing something important and/or worthwhile.
 * Girl Posse: Kristen, Alicia, Dylan, and Claire make up Massie's Girl Posse.
 * For multiple times throughout the series, Alicia forms her own girl posses, one of them even includes boys.
 * Gray and Grey Morality: It's a series about the Alpha Bitch and her Girl Posse.
 * High School Dance: Middle school dance, actually. Nina goes to the Love Struck dance at Octavian Country Day School dance with Derrington, who is Massie's crush.
 * In Universe Nickname: Massiechists (People who are obsessed with Massie and wish she liked them.)
 * Leesh for Alicia and Kris, Dyl and Mass for... Kristen, Dylan and Massie.
 * Derrington for Derrick.
 * Claire is called "Kuh-laire" in the first couple of books.
 * Jerkass: Alicia is undisputably one, Massie goes between this and The Power of Friendship, Kristen is only one when provoked, Dylan is never this and Claire only when she wants something.
 * Karma Houdini: The Pretty Committee get away with a lot of things, but Alicia is always forgiven no matter what she does to the committee.
 * Little Miss Snarker: Kristen.
 * Lolicon: Certain descriptions of the characters 'perky butts' in various outfits.
 * Mismatched Eyes: Cam has green eye and one blue eye.
 * Most Writers Are Adults: They certainly don't act like middle-schoolers.
 * Might be the cause of Massie's intelligence.
 * Naive Newcomer: Claire, in the beginning and to a lesser degree throughout the books.
 * Not So Different: Eventually Massie and Alicia (When they're running separate Cliques.)
 * Operation: Jealousy: Claire dates Dempsey so that Cam will get jealous.
 * Pastimes Prove Personality: Horse-riding Massie is a rich snob. Various other rich and spoiled characters play tennis, golf, squash, etc.
 * Perspective Flip: The series focuses on a group of nasty middle-schoolers, making it a sort of 'Flip on middle-school and high-school fiction in general.
 * The Power of Friendship: Suprisingly, the series actually runs on this, but it can be seen as a Deconstruction as well (Massie is aware of this trope and uses it to control not only her friends but the school.
 * Product Placement: It's almost impossible to list all the clothing brands that appear in the series.
 * Rich Bitch: Massie
 * Series Continuity Error: Cam's dark hair randomly becomes golden-brown. The dress code for Briarwood seemingly changes from the first book to the second.
 * Alicia's father is Antonio in the first two books and Len in every book after Revenge of the Wannabes, though this might be due to the fact that everybody knows where he's actually from after that book.
 * Brownie the Horse manages to change from a brown mare, to a white stallion, and then back to a female again. Albeit this time a brown and white one.
 * Screw the Rules, I Have Money: Constantly.
 * The entire conflict of the third book is resolved because Massie's donates a new school building so that the school gives up it's new uniform policy.
 * Shout-Out: The first four of the main series covers has the traditional Burberry pattern but in different colors.
 * Squick: Besides the fact that Alicia, a 7th grader, and her cousin Nina were forced by their parents to have breast augmentation surgery at TWELVE, Massie offhandedly mentioned at once point her implants "burst" once.
 * The Sociopath: Massie shows several classic traits of sociopathy, though it's unknown if she was intentionally written that way.
 * Spicy Latina: Alicia
 * Spin-Off: Alphas, which involves a much more fantastical setting.
 * Spoiled Brat: Massie sometimes acts like one to convince her father to do what she wants.
 * The Starscream: Alicia frequently tries to either take over Massie's clique or start her own.
 * Status Quo Is God: Lampshaded in Dial L for Loser with Claire: "No matter how much fun the girls had together, she would wake up the next morning and need to impress them all over again. It was as if their leave-in conditioners seeped into their hair follicles whiles they slept, permanently erasing 'cool Claire' from their memories."
 * Every time Alicia tries to overthrow Massie or start her own clique, she fails.
 * The Joy of X: Dial L for Loser, a play on Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder.
 * Talk Show: Dylan's mother Merri-Lee hosts a talk show called The Daily Grind
 * Theme Naming / Punny Name / Incredibly Lame Pun: See the list of book titles.
 * The schools include, ADD, at a certain point BO (Briarwood and Octavian are combined for a while) and Massie's pre-Alpha school from the prequel is
 * Token Evil Teammate: Alicia.
 * Trademark Favorite Food: Layne continously has favorite snack foods for the moment. For a while in the early books, it was oatmeal.
 * Triang Relations: Type 4: In The Clique, Massie falls for Chris-Abeley (full name basis), who has a girlfriend named Fawn.
 * Unintentional Period Piece
 * Unlimited Wardrobe: And how! The reason Massie initially doesn't want to date Derrington is because of his obsession with shorts in all seasons.
 * Villain Protagonist: Massie, who is an Alpha Bitch.
 * Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Massie. A few other names count as well.
 * Written Sound Effect: In P.S. I Loathe You, a pigeon calls, "Hehhhhhhhhhh, hoooooooooo. Hehhhhhhhhhhhh, hooooooooooo. Heeeeeeeee, Hooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" as it poops on the Pretty Committee.
 * Xanatos Speed Chess: A toned down 'tween' version between Massie and Alicia (And hence the Pretty Committee and eventually the Soul-M8s)