At Long Islands’s private Bennington School, the Diamonds rule supreme. They’re the girls all the boys want to date and all the girls want to be. And fortunately for Marni, she’s right in the middle of them. Best friends with the ringleader, Clarissa, Marni enjoys all the spoils of the ultrapopular: boys, power, and respect. But then Marni gets a little too close to Clarissa’s ex-boyfriend, Anderson.
Wrong move. The Diamonds don’t touch each other’s exes.
And just like that, Marni is jettisoned from Diamond to lower than Cubic Zirconia.
But Marni isn’t about to take her ouster lying down. She has dirt on the Diamonds, and she’s not about to go down without a fight. Everyone knows, the only thing strong enough to cut a Diamond is another Diamond.
CLICK HERE to download an excerpt.
“MARNI’S VOICE IS SNARKY, ENERGETIC, and refreshingly self-aware… [a] deliciously witty and well-balanced CELEBRATION of mean-girl schadenfreude”
“This is a FUN, lighthearted book with many characters TEENS WILL relate to”
“I think any girl in high school should PICK UP THIS BOOK, and I also recommend it for college freshmen and sophomores like myself — because it reminds you how far you’ve come since the days when only popularity was a priority”
Click here for a Newsday article on the release of The Diamonds
Once upon a time, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. (I even took my LSATS!) Although I never wound up pursuing a law career, when I decided to write my first teen novel, I wanted to put my own spin on some of my favorite over-the-top teen movies (Mean Girls, Jawbreaker, and Heathers) and expand upon my fascination with and interest in the study of law—which is arguably about the interpretation of rules, writing, and various legislature.
I remember thinking, what if a popular group of girls took over their school’s mock trial team, and used the forum to battle personal vendettas and dole out their own version of high school justice?
From there, The Diamonds was born.
In The Diamonds, Marni Valentine (our narrator) is best friends with the most popular girls in school—though, truth be told, she’s also a little scared of them. When the ringleader of the group, Clarissa von Dyke, starts re-interpreting the Bill of Rights to suit her own personal whims, Marni goes along with Clarissa’s plotting at first … until she realizes that she’s gotten in way over her head.
When The Diamonds oust Marni from their clique, she’s forced to make amends to the people she’s wronged and join together with them to give The Diamonds a taste of their own medicine.
I had an absolute blast writing The Diamonds. Plus, the brilliant Kate Berthold has drawn pitch-perfect illustrations to complement the text.
FUN TIDBIT: The original title was The Diamond Reports.