It's Not Easy Being Mean: The Clique #7 -- Lisi Harrison

Yes, I read another one.  No, I don't know what is wrong with me.

This time, the girls have been un-expelled from OCD, but they have been forced to join an extracurricular activity.  They've also been given a quest by the eighth-grade alpha, Skye Hamilton:  To earn the right to take charge of the Secret Room* at OCD, the girls have to find the key, which Skye has hidden under the mattress of a boy she's kissed.  The list is LONG, and the Pretty Committee is not the only group looking for it.

Meanwhile, Claire's acting career is taking off.  She's set to audition for a movie with a multi-Oscar-winning director, which is awesome, but she's feeling left out of all of the Pretty Committee fun**.

• Still with the brand names.  There were at least fifteen fashion labels mentioned in the first chapter alone.  That's not counting the plethora of consumables, electronics, magazines, etc.  Also, there are fifteen pages of ads at the end of the book.  (I fully admit that it could be worse -- at least the ads are for other books.)
• Lisi Harrison does have a real talent for extremely catty -- but extremely funny --description:

"Stand up, you!" bellowed Kori Gedman as she approached their table.  A tight tan sweater accentuated her notoriously bad posture.  She looked like a croissant.

• Why in the WORLD would the girls choose soccer as their extracurricular activity?  (Discounting Kristin, of course, who is already a star player on the team.)  They mention that it'll burn calories and get them closer to the boys, but I find it odd that they wouldn't have considered the embarrassment factor.  Massie's a beast, but she's not stupid.
• Massie's crush, Derrington.  Good God, that boy is obsessed with butts.  Every time he appears, he's shaking his butt at someone or something.  And then, when he's talking about kissing Another Girl, he says, "Her lips were too puffy.  They felt like a butt."  Le sigh.  This is what dreams are made of.
• Speaking of Derrington, I'll be surprised if he and Dylan don't get together, ultimately.  They have that whole bathroom humor thing in common -- he's obsessed with butts, she's obsessed with burping at people.

In the Q&A at the end, Lisi Harrison says that there will be eight Clique books.  Only one more, and my torment will end.  Oh, wait.  She follows that up by saying: "But if you want more, I'll write more".  Damn.

She does sound like a good egg, though -- in the section on Becoming a Writer, she says "If someone tells you you'll never be a writer, put on your pointiest boots, take a deep breathe, and kick them in the shin.  Write about that!"

I'm curious to see if I'll be able to exert my will power and avoid the next one.  Either this one wasn't as entertaining as the last couple, or I've matured.  (I'm going to go with less entertaining.)

*A room that the teachers don't know about.  Yeah, I don't quite get it either.

**Because it's so much fun to be bossed around and mocked 24/7?  I still don't get it.