The Elite by Jennifer Banash

I give this book a 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Description:

From the top, you can see everything . . . except yourself.

When Casey McCloy steps into the elegant Bramford building, she’s overwhelmed. Fresh from the Midwest, she’s moved to New York’s Upper East Side to live with her grandmother and attend the prestigious Meadowlark Academy. Here all that matters is who you know. The girl to know is Madison Macallister: popular, pretty, platinumblond. She’s not just Casey’s new classmate and neighbor; she’s an icon. So Casey aims to get in with Madison and her gorgeous gal-pals from the start. As the reigning queen of coolness, Madison is capable of destroying reputations with one welltimed whisper. Better to be on her good side.

But after a city-haute makeover from her new frenemy Madison, Casey is wearing the right clothes, saying the right things, and meeting the right people-including Drew, the boy-about-town who Madison thinks belongs to her and her alone.

I really wanted to like this book because I heard good things about it but I guess it just was not for me.  I feel like the story of the small town girl moving to the big city to live among the rich and snooty has been done many times so I really wanted something in this book to distinguish itself.  While I loved Casey’s grandmother and Casey herself was pretty likeable I found a lot of the relationships between the characters to be a bit unbelievable.  For instance, I could understand why Drew was doubting any future with Madison but I did not really see any compelling reason that he would like Casey instead.  He made mentions of liking classic movies and wanting to go to museums but other than running into Casey once in a museum you don’t see him discovering the little things about her that would make him fall for her.  I will say the little side bits that Banash tosses in there had my attention more than the Madison-Drew-Casey love triangle.  I wanted to learn more about Sophie’s problems, Phoebe’s issues and what is going to happen with Sophie’s brother.  So I will say the temptation is there to pick up the next book but I will not be in any rush.