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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 were bestsellers, and a direct-to-DVD adaptation of the first book was released in fall 2008 that today is most notable for starring pre-Good Luck Charlie Bridgit Mendler. There's also a graphic novel and DS game. Also has a spin-off series, Alphas, about related characters attending an ultra-exclusive boarding school.

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
note 

This series provides examples of:

  • Abhorrent Admirer: Todd, for Massie and Alicia.
  • Acquired Situational Narcissism: Actually subverted in Dial L for Loser where Claire lands a leading role in a film that Massie was also competing for and despite all the attention and potential rise in being a full-fledged actress, Claire stays mostly humbled by the experience. It's actually Massie who seems to simply assume Claire is getting a big head from it all and feels the need to take the girl down the peg mostly for the sake of her own ego.
  • Adaptational Nice Guy: Massie has some nicer, more human moments in the film adaptation of the first book. For one, she doesn’t lie to the Pretty Committee in order to manipulate them into hating Claire (see the above trope). During Truth or Dare at the sleepover, the question “would you rather be a friendless loser or a person with tons of friends who secretly hate you” is asked. In the book everyone answers that they’d rather be the friendless loser, including Massie whose narration reveals that she’d secretly rather have friends that secretly hate her. In the film, when the same question is asked, the Pretty Committee all answer that they’d rather have tons of friends that secretly hate them, and Alicia mocks Claire when she answers that she’d rather be the friendless loser— and at the end of the film, Massie admits to Claire in a private moment that she would also rather be a friendless loser.
  • Adults Are Useless: Alicia actually depends on this, pretending to be sweet when around adults and downright ruthless when they aren't present.
    • Pretty much any adult character in this series. When Massie and her friends break school dress code with inappropriate Halloween outfits, her parents only give her a lecture and let her continue doing whatever she wants. Many of the parents are shown to be neglectful and overindulgent of their children and don’t take any actions to stop them from cruelty.
  • Age-Inappropriate Dress: A lot. It's actually one of the main themes of the series.
  • Alpha Bitch: This trope is glorified among the OCD girls and many aim to be one. The top girl is literally known as the Alpha in this series.
    • Massie of the seventh grade. She’s the leader of the Pretty Committee and uses cruelty to keep her status.
    • Alicia tries to become one throughout the series but continuously fails.
    • Skye Hamilton is stated to be the eighth grade alpha at one point
  • Alternate Universe: The Prequel contradicts most of the series' canon and includes some (legitimate) fortune telling.
  • Ambiguous Disorder:
    • See The Sociopath.
    • Alicia trusts nobody, is willing to backstab anyone, and wants nothing more than to be the center of attention at all costs. And is also occasionally implied to be sexually active. At 12-13.
  • Baby Don't Got Back: Alpha Bitch Massie usually finds every reason to laugh at her Beta Bitch Claire, but secretly envies her butt.
  • Backseat Changing Room: Kristen comes to Massie's car dressed in "ugly" and dull clothes. In the backseat, she pulls them off to reveal something shorter and more fashionable. Massie can't believe that Kristen's parents are this strict, since she is Spoiled Rotten by her own.
  • The Beautiful Elite: The protagonists and most of the other characters.
  • Berserk Button: Do not mess with Massie's Clique, or her friends.
    • Dylan discovers Svetlana's Berserk Button in her Summer Collection title. Compliments piss her off since it reminds her of how someone screaming that she sucked led to her losing a tennis match. Dylan uses this to get back at her, causing her to destroy things in fury and wreck her reputation.
  • Big Fancy House: Massie, Alicia. To a less emphasized degree, Dylan. In the first book when the girls are being picked up by the limo, the mansions are described. Claire even tries taking a picture of one of the houses.
  • 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.)
  • Broken Aesop: The story often flip flops between elaborating on the true meaning of friendship and how the concept of controlling, social hierarchies and cliques is inherently toxic, while at the same time allowing the titular clique that embodies these flaws never face any karma for their misdeeds, no matter how drastic or scarring they may be.
  • Buffy Speak: Massie-speak, including her catch phrases mentioned below.
  • 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.
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: The entire Pretty Committee, especially Massie and Alicia. They often take measures to usurp the other, such as Alicia switching the votes in a fashion competition to win against Massie. The girls don’t show much loyalty to each other and are willing to do whatever it takes to be the Alpha.
  • Costume Porn: Outfits are usually described in this manner.
  • The Ditz: Alicia's friend and almost beta Olivia. She is described as a “dumb blonde” and shown to be naïve. Massie calls her Duh-livia since she’s not too smart.
  • Driven by Envy: Massie in a massive portion of Dial L for Loser whose personally angered by Claire landing a leading role in a film that she also auditioned for. This inspires her to use her newly gained positioned as gossip news anchor to invade Claire's dressing room and embarrass them on live television. Even after the girls supposedly make up later she still temporarily kicks Claire out of the Pretty Committee in It's Not Easy Being Mean just because of her blooming popularity in the school
  • Dude Magnet: Alicia has this reputation due to her prematurely developed figure and beauty. Her cousin Nina takes this a step farther to rather questionable degrees. There's also Skye Hamilton's clique The DSL Daters who literally gain their reputation through being this.
  • Dumb Blonde: Olivia
  • Egg Sitting: With synthetic babies in Claire's class in Bratfest at Tiffany's.
  • Extruded Book Product: Although the entire series was written by a single author, the series was originally conceived by a company that specializes in marketing online content towards teens, and then searched for a writer to realize the series (eventually settling on an MTV marketing and product development specialist with no prior novel publishing experience, which may explain some of the series' flaws).
  • Fallen Princess: Subverted. When Massie’s family loses their money in the last book, she goes through great lengths to hide that and avoid this trope so she could keep being the alpha.
  • 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. Make of that what you will.
  • The Fashionista: Technically everyone in the Pretty Committee, but Massie especially qualifies, always aiming to look the best out of her posse. Even non-members tend to have impressive and expensive wardrobes, though.
  • Flanderization:
    • With each book Dylan becomes a bigger Big Eater and gets more disgusting.
    • And Kristen gets more paranoid and uptight about grades and getting grounded.
    • And Claire obsesses more over her relationship status with Cam.
    • And Layne becomes more and more of a Granola Girl - and then further Flanderized into an outright New-Age Retro Hippie Soapbox Sadie.
  • 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)
  • Friendly Enemy / Friendly Rivalry: Massie and Layne edge closer and closer to this towards the end. Massie also admits one of the reasons why she admitted Claire into the PC was because she was impressed with how she stood up to her during the events of the first book.
  • Freudian Excuse: It's occasionally implied that several characters have one. Alicia’s parents are hinted at as encouraging to get plastic surgery for her boobs and the other Pretty Committee members seem to be victims of parental neglect. They do whatever they want while their parents fail to realize what’s going on.
  • Fun with Acronyms: A regular aspect of The Pretty Committee's lingo is to make up random acronyms, not limited to calling their own school, Octavian County Day, O.C.D among others.
  • Gaiden Book: The "Summer Collection"; the subsequent books still lean on plot developments that happen in these books (particularly the events in Kristen) but for the most part they're stories that take place outside of the PC.
  • Gecko Ending: The movie's ending implies that Massie leaves the Committee and starts hanging out with Claire. In the book, not so much. This was most likely due to the fact that a sequel probably wasn't going to be made.
  • 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.
    • Kristen and Layne have their own secret Girl Posse.
  • Good Counterpart: The Witty Committee, which is a lot like the Pretty Committee, except with girls who actually treat each other like friends and not employees/pawns.
  • Gray-and-Grey Morality: It's a series about the Alpha Bitch and her Girl Posse, and their frequent squabbles.
  • Hero Protagonist: Dylan, Kristen and Claire in their eponymous-titled Summer Collection books. Proof that these girls really are better off without the Pretty Committee.
  • 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.
  • Huge Schoolgirl: Allie-Rose Singer, who's a good foot taller than every other girl in the seventh grade.
  • Indecisive Parody: Is the series making fun of these girls, showing how messed up they are, or glorifying them?
  • 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.
  • It's All About Me: Several characters have this mindset. Whenever Massie or Alicia is concerned, it often becomes the defining theme.
  • Jerkass: Alicia is indisputably 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.
  • The Joy of X: Dial L for Loser, a play on Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder.
  • 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.
  • Lovable Alpha Bitch: Skye Hamilton is about the only character who fills this role better than anyone else. Though a bit cunning with her room scavenger hunt game, she never really does anything truly spiteful or cruel and still manages her position as the eighth grade alpha despite that. At her worst, she can be a little too competitive over gaining the attention of boys.
  • Love Triangle:
    • In The Clique, Massie falls for Chris-Abeley (full name basis), who has a girlfriend named Fawn.
    • In Boys R Us both Massie and Layne want Dempsey. Too bad for both of them, he really wants Kristen. Too bad for Kristen.
  • Meaningful Name:
    • Played with in-series:
    Jay Lyons: What's our name?
    Claire Lyons :Lyons
    Jay: And what do Lyons do?
    Claire: They roar!
    • Massie Block: She's a massive block for everyone else in the Pretty Committee
    • Alicia (Leesh): She's a leash (or leech) on everyone else
    • Dylan Marvil is a Subversion: She doesn't exactly see herself as a marvel
  • Operation: Jealousy:
    • Claire seemingly flirts with Dempsey so that Cam will get jealous.
    • Arguably the whole point of Alicia's (multiple) attempts to start her own clique, especially the first one, right down to explicitly trying to find "knockoffs" of Dylan and Kristen (with the implication that Olivia is either a knockoff Claire or a knockoff of Alicia herself).
    • Alicia's and Claire's cat-and-mouse game over Josh and Cam in The Pretty Committee Strikes Back
    • Bratfest at Tiffany's ends up having a rather complicated and multi-layered one with different people operating it at different levels. They even refer to it by the Trope Name.
  • Parody Retcon: When the series suffered major backlash in The New '10s, the author made several posts about it online that strongly come across as this trope.
  • Pastimes Prove Personality:
    • Horse-riding Massie is a rich snob. Various other rich and spoiled characters play tennis, golf, squash, etc.
    • Soccer star Kristen constantly drives herself harder both on the field and academically to keep up her scholarships and is arguably the most driven of the PC.
    • Likewise most of the Briarwood boys that show up in more than one book are also soccer stars, and are portrayed as full-on jocks 24/7.
    • Layne's past times seem to revolve around protesting for random causes or activities that tend to be escapist when around Claire.
  • 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.
    • Alicia, Dylan, Claire and Kristen get their own books in The Summer Collection Series.
  • 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 entire school).
    • The "Witty Committee" is a more straight-up version.
  • Plastic Bitch: Mean girl Alicia is shown to have unusually well developed breasts for a girl her age (she's about 12-13). It's later revealed that she has implants.
  • Product Placement: It's almost impossible to list all the clothing brands that appear in the series. They've caused the series to age very badly.
  • Punny Name:
    • Massie's IM name? Massiekur.
    • Most of the later book titles are themselves puns on something.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Dylan of all people is the one who delivers this to Massie towards the end of My Little Phony, pointing out all her core flaws and how her Alpha Bitch ways have only made being her friend difficult.
  • Reconstruction:
    • The plot of Kristen reads more like a typical "loser girls get back at the Alpha Bitch" Disney Channel-type of story.
    • So does Dylan to a lesser degree
    • Alicia is either this or a slightly modified Deconstruction depending on how you interpret it.
    • Starting with These Boots Are Made for Stalking the series tends to dip towards the "loser girl gets back at the Alpha Bitch" type of story too.
  • Rich Bitch: The Pretty Committee. Entitled, spoiled, and superficial, the girls flaunt their designer clothing and look down on people with less money than them. This is one of the reasons why Claire isn’t accepted by them in the beginning: Massie looks down on her for lack of money. This is also why Kristen is reluctant to confide in her friends that her family isn’t wealthy and she attends OCD on a scholarship. In the summer collection series, Massie acts horrified at having to get a summer job, failing to realize that there are many people out there who need to work hard for a living.
  • Riches to Rags: This happens to Massie in the last book of the series when her father loses his job. It’s shown that they’re not in poverty, they’re definitely not insanely wealthy like before. It doesn’t last long since he gets a new job.
  • Secret Identity / Secret-Keeper: It turns out Kristen is secret BFFs with Layne Abeley! It's something they've both sworn to keep from the rest of the Pretty Committee no matter the cost, and Kristen actually feels closer to the "Witty Committee" than she does the Pretty Committee but fears what Massie would do if she found out
    • Which is how Kristen knows Layne flooded Briarwood Academy on purpose
    • And the Witty Committee impersonated Skye Hamilton in order to get her accepted into Alphas Academy, thereby kicking off the Alphas Spin-Off
  • 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.
    • The name of the pro-tennis star that antagonizes Dylan goes from Illana to Svetlana over the course of two books. Justified as it's mentioned that Dylan paid her to change her name.
  • Sexy Whatever Outfit: In Best Friends For Never The Pretty Committee advertise their upcoming "Halloweenie" party by wearing sexy devil girl costumes. In fact, they're so scandalous, that it's what inspires their principal to introduce school uniforms.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Constantly. The entire conflict of the third book is resolved because Massie donates a new school building so that the school gives up its new uniform policy.
  • Shout-Out: The first four of the main series covers has the traditional Burberry pattern but in different colors.
  • The Sociopath: Massie shows several classic traits of sociopathy such as her reliance on emotional manipulation and bullying to get her way, viewing almost everyone around as merely pawns to her social status, and her obsession with always being on the top regardless of who she has to hurt to get there. There's a WMG detailing it, though it's unknown if she was intentionally written that way.
    • Alicia as well, possible even more than Massie. She doesn’t trust anyone and is always plotting against Massie. In her summer collection book, she has been shown to take even more underhanded measures to win against the competition.
  • 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.
  • Spoofs "R" Us: The title of Boys R Us.
  • 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.
  • Subversion: Kristen compared to the rest of the series.
  • 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 OCDnote , ADD, at a certain point BO (Briarwood and Octavian are combined for a while) and Massie's pre-Alpha school from the prequel is PMSnote .
    • Dylan is the target for a few of these, particularly from her mom or anybody trying to suck up to her mom: Daffi-Dyl, Marvil-ous, Dyl Pickles, etc.
  • Token Minority: Alicia is the only member of color, being Spanish-American. This is something Massie constantly tries to disprove, calling her "Fannish" (Fake Spanish) among other accusations.
  • Toxic Friend Influence: The Pretty Committee to the once naïve but well-intentioned Claire. Though the books sometimes imply Claire has changed for the worse due to being accepted into their circle, it never ''quite'' gets around to admitting it.
    • Massie (and to a lesser extent Alicia) is this to Kristen and Dylan as well. It's shown that Kristen and Dylan would be much kinder, better people without Massie's influence.
  • Trademark Favorite Food:
    • Layne continuously has favorite snack foods for the moment. For a while in the early books, it was oatmeal.
    • Dylan has a new diet every book, to the point where it's a Running Gag.
    • Claire is almost always eating gummy worms or just gummy candy in general.
  • Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: Several of the middle-school aged characters are implied to already be sexually active. Truth in Television, unfortunately, but it's still pretty disgusting.
  • Unlimited Wardrobe: And how! The reason Massie initially doesn't want to date Derrington is because of his obsession with shorts in all seasons. It's eventually revealed that the reason Derrington wore shorts all the time was because he lost a bet and the loser had to wear shorts all the time, no matter what. Eventually, he loses another bet and has to wear his clothes backwards all the time for a certain period of time.
  • Vacation Episode: The Clique Summer Collection is technically five books for each individual Pretty Committee member and how they spent their summer vacations apart.
  • Valley Girl: Though the books don't take place in the likely locations for this trope, the Pretty Committee's reliance on unique lingo steers into this direction.
  • Villain Protagonist:
    • Massie, who is an Alpha Bitch.
    • Alicia in her Summer Collection title. She becomes more evil without the Pretty Committee and left alone with Nina.
  • 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.
    • This is hardly the only example. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find many pages that don't.
  • Xanatos Speed Chess: A toned down 'tween' version between Massie and Alicia (And hence the Pretty Committee and eventually the Soul-M8s)
  • Younger Than They Look: One of the rare cases where everyone is implied to be this.


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