Power Failure for the Pretty Committee: Sealed with a Diss: A Clique Novel by Lisi Harrison

Lisi Harrison's latest in the soap-opera serial of the seriously rich , Sealed with a Diss, (The Clique series, #8) is out, and for a change this novel doesn't close with the Pretty Committee and its alpha leader Massie Brock sleekly congratulating themselves for proving, once again, their superiority over the Losers Beyond Repair at Octavian Country Day School.

The story begins with one of those "willing suspension of disbelief" moments when we learn that deep in the sub-cellar of OCD is a secret hangout for the alpha alphas of Octavian students, the DSL Daters, eighth-grade queen bees of school society. Within this control room, surrounded by an array of expensive cosmetics, Starbucks latte' machines, and high-end snacks, is the piece de resistance, a television monitor connected to a closed circuit camera planted inside the class Share Bear, transmitting every juicy moment of Briarwood School for Boys' Emotional Sensitivity Powwows.

When Massie and the PC girls finally comprehend that the key to this room is the key to the secret knowledge of Briarwood boys, their well-conditioned and subtly highlighted heads are reeling. As leader of the graduating Daters, Skye Hamilton has the power to turn this room and its promise of total dating dominance over to the Pretty Committee's leader. But the key comes at a price.

Skye's asking price is that all members of the Committee must attend her end-of-school couple costume party with all-HART (Hawt (hot), Alpha, Rich, Toned) dates--AND that Massie deliver as Sky's date for the evening the ultra-cool ninth-grader Chris Abeley. Massie makes the gutsy deal, and swings an agreement that the Committee take over the room immediately, and ah-mazingly, Skye agrees.

What follows is a mad mishmash of machinations and manipulations as Massie pushes her clique into finding the hawtest of dates for Skye's party and manages to line up Chris as well, with the complication that Chris seems to be more interested in her than in Skye and her soiree'. With their whole final year at OCD at stake, it's a anxiety-provoking three weeks that would take the glitter out of anyone's Glossip Girl Lip Gloss. But things get worse when Massie and Claire hear their own "safe" boyfriends Derrington and Cam saying some dubious things about them in their closed circuit confession sessions. Then, when the camera in the Share Bear goes on the fritz, the Pretty Committee has to call on their sometime enemy Layne Abeley, with her trusty drill and circuit testers, as their techie accomplice in a late-night raid on Briarwood School to restore their reception of the boys' ESP sessions.

Things come to a huge meltdown at Skye's party. Cam and Derrington dump Claire and Massie, Dylan is dissed by her duo of dates, and Skye ditches Chris for a surfer dude. The only consolation is that Skye stands by her deal for the secret room, which allows Massie to keep her alpha status intact despite the breakup debacle at the party.

But, ehmagawd, that's not all! It seems Layne's less than expert drilling around inside the ceiling of Briarwood's ESP classroom has done a bit of injury to the infrastructure, resulting in the collapse of the Briarwood surfers' wave pool and the ruination of the whole building. Briarwood School for Boys is essentially a wipeout, and for the foreseeable future, their hawt student body will be sharing the Octavian facility with the girls of OCD. Good news? Not for the Pretty Committee's rule at Octavian Country Day School. When the boys take over OCD by storm, Massie's group realizes that they are the new B-listers.

"Ehmagawd!" Massie gasped for air. "Do you realize it's been, like, an entire minute since anyone's even looked at us?"

"Huh?"

"It's like the boys are the new alphas!"

"Ehmagawd!" What if our ex-crushes are the new eighth-grade alphas and we're the new..." Her voice trailed.

"The new what," asked Alicia.

Massie opened her mouth, but all she heard was a collective gasp from the New Pretty Committee. No further explanation was needed.

Will the New Pretty Committee spend their entire eighth grade year as Losers Beyond Repair? I guess we'll have to wait for Clique #9, The Bratfest at Tiffany's (Clique Series). to be published February 5, 2008.