Gossip Girl (2021) S1 reading list: All the books featured in the show so far
By Sabrina Reed
Ah, Gossip Girl (2021) fans. We’re fresh into the next month of the teen drama‘s mini-hiatus, and we admit we miss this Gen Z update to a millennial classic. Love it or hate it, HBO Max‘s revival of this universe has a hold on the pop culture mind. Though that should come as no surprise considering the scandalous lives of the young, rich, and famous is exactly the kind of content viewers eat up with a spoon.
But what’s caught our eye about the show–besides the fashion, its deplorable teachers, and these teens who are at once at each other’s throats and then circling their way to growth sometimes even in the same episode–are the books on parade.
Gossip Girl (2021) is a bibliophile’s dream and the internet has taken notice, though it’s primarily been centered on Audrey Hope‘s tendency to be found lounging with a book in hand. But the blonde Blair Waldorf lookalike isn’t the only avid reader among the Constance St. Jude’s crew. Zoya Lott also has a claim to the crown.
Books have been featured so heavily in the show thus far that we’ve compiled a list of every one that’s shown its face or has been name-dropped. At this point, the books might as well be characters on the series, too, considering the insight they provide on these teens, the plot, and (potentially) as hints toward the direction of storylines.
Follow us down this reading rabbit hole, bibliophiles; you may just find your next read to get you through Gossip Girl (2021)’s short hiatus!
All the books in Gossip Girl (2021) so far
Black Swans: Stories by Eve Babitz
SUMMARY: This version of Black Swans is a reissue of Babitz’s work first published in the 1980s and early 1990s. The collection has a total of nine stories that examine these decadent and dream-like decades under the light of a changing world. Babitz is considered to be a voice of her generation.
SPOTTED: Audrey is reading Black Swans at a Constance St. Jude’s table in “She’s Having a Maybe.”
WHERE TO BUY: Amazon | Barnes and Noble
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
SUMMARY: Morrison’s debut novel tells the story of Pecola Breedlove, an 11-year old Black girl who wishes her eyes were blue. Her fascination with blue eyes runs deeper than an affinity for the color. It’s a reflection of the societal beauty standards she’s internalized.
Pecola knows through observation and repeated messaging that blonde, blue-eyed white people are treated better. They’re seen as the most desirable and upheld as the peak of beauty. The child prays that her eyes will one day turn blue, and that the love America shows its citizens with those features can be bestowed upon her.
In The Bluest Eye, Morrison examines the insidious nature of racism and white supremacy which take even the most innocuous traits such as hair and eye color and twists them into a means of oppression and assimilation. The classic also explores how gender and class play into this stripping of Pecola’s identity and self-worth to conform to the societal ideal.
SPOTTED: The Bluest Eye is a part of a stack of books, mainly comprised of classics, on Zoya’s table in “Just Another Girl on the MTA.”
WHERE TO BUY: Amazon | Barnes and Noble
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
SUMMARY: Rankine uses poetry, image, and essay in Citizen to challenge the so-called “post-race” society that has been touted in the 21st century. She bats away the idea with unsettling depictions of everyday microaggressions and their long term effects on the psyche, racism in plain sight not covered or veiled, and how belonging shifts, changes, transforms, and mutates depending on who has the right to claim ownership of citizenship and be seen as having value in society.
SPOTTED: On the table in front of Zoya as the Constance St. Jude’s girls meetup out front of the school in “Hope Sinks.”
WHERE TO BUY: Amazon | Barnes and Noble
The Complete Poems: Anne Sexton
SUMMARY: In this collection of Sexton’s poetry, readers can find all ten volumes of the poet’s verse including the poem that won her the Pulitzer, “Live or Die.” Sexton wrote of the joy and pain of her life in her poetry as well as the complex internal lives of men and women.
SPOTTED: The tome is actually a production switcheroo in “Hope Sinks.” When Audrey arrives at the courtyard table with the Constance St. Jude’s girls, she has The White Album by Joan Didion in her hands. However, partway through the scene, the book in front of her changes to The Complete Poems: Anne Sexton.
WHERE TO BUY: Amazon | Barnes and Noble
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
SUMMARY: A play in four acts, The Crucible is set during the hysteria of the Salem witch trials. When Elizabeth Procter is accused of being a witch, she is brought to trial by the religious zealots of her town. Rumors of young women practicing witchcraft have stoked a fire in the people of Salem to the point of frenzy.
Willing to undermine their integrity under the guise of doing the Lord’s work, which is utilized as no more than a shield for their eagerness to tear each other to pieces, the Salem people turn on one another. Neighbor crafts story after story against neighbor to see who may meet their judgment and punishment by death.
The Crucible is a play about mob mentality and the consequences of unchecked socially sanctioned violence in the name of restoring morality and the social order.
OVERHEARD: Aki name drops the classic in “Just Another Girl on the MTA” when he tells Obie he’s been coming to his defense. The Constance St. Jude’s student body briefly turned on the young prince of New York when they thought he’d cheated on Julien with Zoya.
WHERE TO BUY: Amazon | Barnes and Noble
The Devil Finds Work by James Baldwin
SUMMARY: In The Devil Finds Work, Baldwin examines the following films: The Exorcist, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, and In the Heat of the Night. He takes a scalpel to their structures and premises, peeling back the layers of the American psyche to reveal racial biases and assumptions. Baldwin holds the films up to the light and challenges their messages and the topics and discussions American society is willing to have, seek comfort in, pick apart, and uplift within the medium of film.
SPOTTED: The Devil Finds Work is on Zoya’s nightstand in “Just Another Girl on the MTA.”
WHERE TO BUY: Amazon | Barnes and Noble
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
SUMMARY: Set in California’s Salinas Valley, East of Eden is considered to be Steinbeck’s magnum opus. Its focus is a modern retelling of Adam and Eve’s fall from God’s grace and the tragedy of Cain and Abel’s rivalry. Told through the lives of two families–the Trasks and the Hamiltons–East of Eden is about love, family, betrayal, identity, and the absence of care.
READ: Gossip Girl loops the classic into her post as a pun in “She’s Having a Maybe.” There’s nothing like name-dropping a well-known book to bring some extra zing.
WHERE TO BUY: Amazon | Barnes and Noble
Fondation Louis Vuitton’s Jean-Michel Basquiat catalogue
SUMMARY: Covering Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work showcased in Fondation Louis Vuitton’s 2018-2019 exhibition, this catalogue is a collection of 120 of the artist’s defining pieces across his career from 1980-1988.
SPOTTED: In line with Davis’ Grammy awards on a side table in “Just Another Girl on the MTA.”
WHERE TO BUY: Unavailable
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
SUMMARY: Machado’s collection of short stories in Her Body and Other Parties defies genre, blending horror, fantasy, science fiction, comedy, and realism to depict the atrocities and crimes visited upon women’s bodies. The work is a wide-eyed, no holds bar to look at the way women set boundaries that are violated, negotiated, challenged, and ignored. It’s also intrinsically queer and defiant as Machado pushes the reader to engage with the reality of these circumstances through the medium of fiction.
SPOTTED: Audrey is reading Her Body and Other Parties on The Met Steps as she, Julien, Luna, and Monet plan a party in “Fire Walks with Z.”
WHERE TO BUY: Amazon | Barnes and Noble
Home by Toni Morrison
SUMMARY: Frank Money, a soldier home from war, has returned to Georgia in search of his sister, Cee. When he joined the Army to have a life beyond the small confines of the one he knew, it meant leaving her behind. As cherished as Cee was by Frank, she was also fragile, and his leaving didn’t mean her life stopped until he could return to her.
Their reunion, and subsequent decision to move back to their hometown of Lotus, bring with it challenges that forces Frank to reckon with their past. The siblings had troubles before the war, and they still have troubles now, but as secrets are revealed the two begin to grow and in growing heal. It’s through this process that Frank steps into what it means to be a man and finally learns what it truly means to come home.
SPOTTED: Home is a part of a stack of books, mainly comprised of classics, on Zoya’s table in “Just Another Girl on the MTA.”
WHERE TO BUY: Amazon | Barnes and Noble