History Literature / TheClique

* AbhorrentAdmirer: Todd, for Massie and Alicia.

* AdaptationalNiceGuy: 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.
* AdultsAreUseless: Alicia actually depends on this, pretending to be [[BeautyEqualsGoodness sweet]] when around adults and downright ruthless when they aren't present.

* AgeInappropriateDress: A ''lot''. It's actually one of the main themes of the series.

** Alicia tries to become one throughout the series but continuously fails.
** Skye Hamilton is stated to be the eighth grade alpha at one point

* AmbiguousDisorder:
** See TheSociopath.
** 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.

* TheBeautifulElite: The protagonists and most of the other characters.
* BerserkButton: Do ''not'' mess with Massie's Clique, or her friends.

* BlondeBrunetteRedhead: 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.)
* BrokenAesop: 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.
* BuffySpeak: ''Massie''-speak, including her [[CatchPhrase catch phrases]] mentioned below.
* [[CatchPhrase Catchphrases]]:
** Alicia: "Point."; "given" ; "I heart X.".

* ClearMyName: The latter half of the first book after Claire hijacks Massie's IM.

* TheDitz: 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.
* DrivenByEnvy: 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 [[spoiler: to invade Claire's dressing room and embarrass them on live television.]] Even after the girls supposedly make up later she still [[spoiler: temporarily kicks Claire out of the Pretty Committee in ''It's Not Easy Being Mean'' just because of her blooming popularity in the school]]
* DudeMagnet: Alicia has this reputation due to her prematurely developed figure and beauty. Her cousin Nina takes this a step farther to rather [[FridgeHorror questionable degrees.]] There's also Skye Hamilton's clique The DSL Daters who literally gain their reputation through being this.
* DumbBlonde: Olivia

* TheFilmOfTheBook: Well, a [[DirectToVideo Direct-to-DVD movie]].

%%* FilleFatale: Nina. FridgeBrilliance (or FridgeHorror depending on your point of view): The age of consent in Spain was 13 at the time of writing.
* TheFashionista: 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.

** With each book Dylan becomes a bigger BigEater 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 GranolaGirl - and ''then'' further Flanderized into an outright NewAgeRetroHippie SoapboxSadie.
* [[FourTemperamentEnsemble 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)
* FriendlyEnemy / FriendlyRivalry: 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.
* FreudianExcuse: 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.

** [[spoiler: Kristen and Layne]] have their own secret Girl Posse.
* [[EvilCounterpart 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.

-->'''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

** Alicia's and Claire's cat-and-mouse game over Josh and Cam in ''The Pretty Committee Strikes Back''

* ParodyRetcon: When the series suffered major backlash in TheNewTens, the author made several posts about it online that ''strongly'' come across as this trope.

** 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.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: [[spoiler: 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 AlphaBitch ways have only made being her friend difficult.]]
* {{Reconstruction}}:
** The plot of ''Kristen'' reads more like a typical "loser girls get back at the AlphaBitch" Creator/DisneyChannel-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.

* RichesToRags: 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.
* SecretIdentity / SecretKeeper: It turns out Kristen [[spoiler: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 [[spoiler: Kristen knows Layne flooded Briarwood Academy on purpose]]
** [[spoiler: And the Witty Committee impersonated Skye Hamilton in order to get her accepted into Alphas Academy, thereby kicking off the ''Alphas'' SpinOff]]

** The name of the pro-tennis star that antagonizes Dylan goes from Illana to Svetlana over the course of ''two books''. [[spoiler: {{Justified}} as it's mentioned that Dylan paid her to change her name.]]
* SexyWhateverOutfit: 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.

* TheSociopath: 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.

** [[LampshadeHanging 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."

* {{Subversion}}: ''Kristen'' compared to the rest of the series.
* TalkShow: Dylan's mother Merri-Lee hosts a talk show called ''The Daily Grind''
* ThemeNaming / PunnyName / IncrediblyLamePun: See the list of book titles.

* TokenMinority: 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.
* ToxicFriendInfluence: 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 [[IndecisiveParody ''quite'' gets around to admitting it.]]

* TroublingUnchildlikeBehaviour: Several of the middle-school aged characters are implied to already be sexually active. TruthInTelevision, unfortunately, but it's still pretty disgusting.
* UnlimitedWardrobe: And how! The reason Massie initially doesn't want to date Derrington is because of his obsession with shorts in all seasons. [[spoiler: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.]]

* WrittenSoundEffect:
** 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 [[DrinkingGame/TheClique hard-pressed]] to find many pages that ''don't''.
* XanatosSpeedChess: A toned down 'tween' version between Massie and Alicia (And hence the Pretty Committee and eventually the Soul-[=M8s=])
* YoungerThanTheyLook: One of the rare cases where ''[[ArtisticAge everyone]]'' is implied to be this.

[[DrinkingGame/TheClique Drinking game here.]]%%Anyone who is willing to remake this page, kindly make without the bashing and nitpicking, please and thank you.

[[DrinkingGame/TheClique Drinking game here.]]

* TriangRelations:
** Type 4: In ''The Clique'', Massie falls for Chris-Abeley ([[RunningGag full name basis]]), who has a girlfriend named Fawn.
** Type 3: In ''Boys R Us'' both Massie and Layne want Dempsey. [[spoiler: Too bad for both of them, he really wants Kristen. [[PlotMandatedFriendshipFailure Too bad for Kristen]].]]

* GagBoobs: Alicia's, [[{{Squick}} which are implied to be fake]]. Keep in mind she's around ''twelve''.

* AcademicAlphaBitch: Subverted in Kristen. While she is shown to be smart and is very driven, she doesn’t flaunt her academic superiority to control others.

* AdaptationalJerkass: In the first book, Claire calls Massie a bitch when they’re alone and Massie then texts a lie to Kristen, Dylan, and Alicia that she called ''all'' of them bitches, which makes their participation in Massie’s bullying of Claire ''somewhat'' understandable: as they point out, Claire doesn’t even know them and is apparently calling them names behind their backs. In the film adaptation, however, when Claire reluctantly asks Massie why she’s acting like a bitch, the rest of the Pretty Committee are there, and begin bullying Claire purely out of clique mentality.

* BathroomStallOfOverheardInsults: 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.'''

* BetaBitch: Alicia is the BetaBitch to Massie’s AlphaBitch though has tried usurping her role throughout the series.
** There are also times when Olivia Ryan becomes Alicia’s Beta such as when she tries creating her own clique with knock-off members of the Pretty Committee.
* BigBadWannabe: Alicia, but her attempts to outdo Massie always fail.
* BigBeautifulWoman: Dylan tries to claim this role as of the later books and has plans of being a plus-sized model someday. Subverted in that she was clearly never that big to begin with but that's WeightWoe for ya.
* BigFancyHouse: 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.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Alicia. She often pretends to be sweet and kind to get others to trust her when often times, she can be even more of a bitch than Massie.

* BrainyBrunette: Massie, though definitely not for the greater good. Her manipulation tactics and understanding of social hierarchies makes her quite intellectually intimidating to her fellow middle schoolers and she's not exactly a slouch in school academics either.

* ButtMonkey: Dylan becomes this post-{{Flanderization}}. Even her borderline eating disorder isn't really taken seriously.

* BuxomBeautyStandard Alicia has huge breasts for her age, sufficiently large that it's a plot point. The [[DudeMagnet boys at her school love her and shower her with affection]]. The other girls, including her GirlPosse, make fun of how absurd she looks at thirteen with such big breasts. Later we find out [[{{Squick}} they're implants]].

* ControlFreak: One of Massie's many problems is her obsession with keeping an iron grip on her social circle and issuing out harsh punishments on anyone who diverts from her plans, even if they didn't do anything wrong per say. It actually finally becomes a point of conflict in later books, starting around ''Boys R Us''.

%%* CountryMouse: Claire.

* {{Determinator}}: After Kristen fails with the Glambition project, she turns in a ''bankruptcy report'' as her project.
* TheDitz: 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.
* DragonWithAnAgenda: Alicia. She’s Massie’s Dragon as her BetaBitch but often plots against her to take the role of Alpha. Examples include switching ballots so that she and Olivia win the fashion competition, and trying to start her own clique.

* FieryRedhead: Dylan is certainly the more quirky Pretty Committee member, being quite chatty and emotionally driven about her supposed weight problems.

* {{Gasshole}}: Dylan burps and also farts a lot.

* GenderBlenderName: Dylan, though a few girls in RealLife might have it.
* GeniusDitz: 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 Committee is kind of just holding her back from doing something important and/or worthwhile with her young life.

* GracefulLadiesLikePurple: Massie states that her favorite color is purple namely for its affiliation with royalty.
* GranolaGirl: Massie has some shades of this, albeit brief ones. She definitely has a soft spot for animals like her dog and horse and stops using her signature scent, Chanel No. 5 to Chanel No. 19 because she wanted to help prevent Rosewood trees used to make the fragrance from going extinct.

* JerkJock: Not ''entirely'' the case with Kristen whose the only one that could be considered a jock in the Pretty Committee. She's arguably less cruel than the others but can be easily peer pressured into taking part in Massie's bullying.

* NaiveNewcomer: Claire, in the beginning and to a lesser degree throughout the books.
* NiceGirl: Claire who starts off as a wide-eyed and innocent newcomer who doesn't seek out Massie's friendship as means to get ahead in the social ladder, at least not at first, but because she figured she may as well get to know the girl she's going to be living with for a year. She's still [[TokenGoodTeammate technically the nicest Pretty Committee member]] but even she has her moments.

* PassionateSportsGirl: Kristen whose the only Pretty Committee member who cares about sports, namely soccer.

* SweetTooth: Claire who is almost always munching on candy, namely of the fruity gummy variety.

* TokenEvilTeammate: Alicia. She's probably the closest to actually evil of all the Pretty Committee.

** Claire dates Dempsey so that Cam will get jealous.

* BuxomIsBetter: Alicia. She has huge breasts for her age, sufficiently large that it's a plot point. The boys at her school love her and shower her with affection. The other girls, including her GirlPosse, make fun of how absurd she looks at thirteen with such big breasts. Later we find out [[{{Squick}} they're implants]].