Claire (Clique Summer Collection Series #5) Book

Claire is a 12 year old girl that has a real passion for fashion.
Claire finishes her school year and decides to get a job so that she can buy a new back to school wardrobe, except that no one wants a 12 year old little girl. «Todd was the only one in town willing to hire a twelve year-old » (The clique pg.2). Claire's brother Todd decides to give his little sister a paid job at his store even though she is not very certain that he is going to pay her. « Depending on her younger brother for a paycheck would become less pathetic »( the clique pg. 2). Claire is very annoyed that her brother is her boss but will she stand it for the rest of the summer?

Claire's Fbffs (Florida best friends forever) are Sari, Mandy, and Sarah. They each have glitter colors, Sari is the pink, Mandy is the blue, Sarah the orange and Claire the green. Claire's nicknames are most of the time either Claire-Bear, Bad Pitt or green from her glitter color but the most popular one is Claire-bear. Since Claire moved everything changed in her world of beauty and she started to care a lot about her appearance. « Back to the place before she moved, a place where lip gloss was saved only for class pictures, blush was for Halloween and body odor was perfectly natural » ( the clique pg.4). Will her perfection world ever change back to how it was or will she be like this forever?

Claire had a sister that was the complete opposite of her: she would wear a little bit of lip gloss and brush her blonde hair on special occasions but that was all she would do to try to look pretty. Claire's room is covered with pictures of girls in sleeping bags, cheering at a soccer match, piled in a range rover, carving a Chanel logo with snow, going to Hollywood studios with private jets and Vogue poses with her idol Massie-quin. « The cheery white and green floral prints had been poked with push-pins that held dozens of pretty committee photos » ( the clique pg.5). Claire had also hanged a picture of her ex-crush Cam Fisher ( the green eyes) but had made a pact to not look at it until he answered one of the billion sorry letters she had sent him. « I'm sorry for spying on you through secret camera that was planted in your sensitivity training class and I will never do something like that again if you give me a second chance » (the clique pg.6). Will Cam give Claire a second chance?

Since the girls met each other, all they talk about is "The Miss Kissimmee Beauty Pageant". When Claire was away, she completely forgot about it but now that she is twelve, they can compete. Claire does not really want to do it because she knows that it broke a lot of friendships and it is the last thing she needs right now after being away for a year. A long time ago, a pair of twins competed and it broke their friendship to this day.
When Mandy texted Claire telling her that the winner gets $1.000, she changed her mind. « What's a little healthy competition between friends? » (Harrison Pg. 14). She does not get enough money working for Todd and she needs that money to buy her back to school wardrobe or else she might get kicked out of the pretty committee.

Claire loves Mrs. Van Deussen's Petite Chihuahua, Piper.
When they were in the bus, Claire was talking to Piper which must have seemed very weird since the girls behind were looking and laughing. Claire was telling Piper that she wished she could have such an easy life and be so loved like her. When Mrs. Van Deussen put the air conditioner on, Piper was shivering. Claire told her that she understood her because she lived in the snow for a year. " I know how you feel Piper" (Harrison Pg. 8). Claire wished she could adopt this little Chihuahua.

Claire is so happy to be back in Florida and to see her friends and everything she had left to go to Westchester.
She was taking pictures of everything she saw.
Massy told her that they were so happy to be SACS again
(Sari, Amandy, Claire, Sarah) and not SAS. Amandy's real name is Mandy but she says Amandy makes her look 16 and not 12.
Going back to the Pageant, Claire needed to take the risk of breaking her friendship to get the money because either way if she is kicked out of the pretty committee they will not be friends with her anymore. Working for her brother isn't going to take her anywhere. " It wouldn't get her any closer of a Massie approved wardrobe" (Harrison Pg. 12)
She has to do it for The Pretty Committee (TPC).

Claire and her friends are so happy to be part of the pageant. They went shopping all together to find the perfect dress. When she lived in Florida SACS always liked the same things but know Claire has changed and is part of the pretty committee. Sari tried on a dress and Claire immediately said « EW! ». Sari and all her friends told her she had changed. So even if Claire lied to them by saying that Ew meant extremely wearable in Wechester, she got her friends back. SAS asked Claire to prove it by buying the dress and wearing it to the pageant. Claire had worked so hard to get the money for a dress to wear to the pageant and now she had to buy this farmers' dress with puppies on it.

She had a solution: she asked Todd to dress up and throw coffee on her dress in front of SAS so that she would have an excuse to wear the signed dresses that Massie had sent her. When Todd threw the coffee, it first arrived on Sari's dress, he tried again and again and again, and all the dresses were touched except Claire's. Now she had lost all of her friends, still had that ugly dress and Todd had put the video on youtube and it got a lot of of success and that was another reason for the girls to be mad. The next day, when Claire went to the pageant selections, SAS did not show up. Was it because they were mad at her or because they did not have anything left to wear? What had she done and why did she do it?

The next day, a lot of things that she absolutely did not expect happened. SACS were hanging in Claire's room when someone knocked at the door. It was Massie! What was she doing here? Massie said her parents had left for Mexico and she had no where to stay. After that, the girls went to the pageant and Lorna, the judge, asked Claire something that changed her life. Lorna asked Claire to be the celebrity judge of Miss Kiss because everybody loved her for her movie "Dial L for looser". The girls directly went back to be friends with her again, even though Claire knew it was just because she was one of the Judges.
Between SAS and Massie everything was going wrong. They hated each other. Claire had to lie to them all day to hang out a little bit with the other ones. Even though she was not allowed to help the contestants, she promised both of them she would help them. Massie decided to be part of the pageant too because the girls told her she wouldn't even last the first round.
The first round of the pageant was quick answer to questions. Everyone did very well except Sari. She said that she answered better when she got pinched, so she took a crab from her dads' restaurant so that it pinched her during the questions. It was a disaster, the crab ran of the stage and pinched everyone.


When it was time to discover who the five finalists were, Claire's heart almost bursted. "And the five finalists are", Lorna continued Gracie, Sarah, Amandy, Wendi and Massie. Claire felt so bad for Sari who was probably backstage covered with scars that were made by that crab. Now the five finalists had to put up a show about their biggest issues in the world. "Please step up and share your issue with us" ( Harrison 106). Now it was time for her best friends to really compete against each other, there were no turning back.

"First up Gracie" Lorna said as the public applauded, "my issue is obesity in america" she said while preparing herself to put up the show.
Then it was Sarah's turn, "my issue is the earthquakes scientists predict in thirty years", she said while she was vibrating and dancing like an earthquake. Sarah fell and hurt herself, so she got eliminated while Amandy was laughing so hard. Then it was Wendi's turn, "my issue is terrorism" she said in her mini skirt and crop top. "Does she want to fight terrorists or seduce them" said one of the judges. ( Harrison 109). Massie went on stage and said that her issue was make up testing on animals. The crowd applauded their approval.
Finally it was Amandy's turn. She went on stage. Claire wanted to move the fan a little closer but it got trapped to the stage and the fan went right on Amandy's face and ruined all her chances of winning.

Now it was time for Claire to vote for the final Miss Kiss. It was Amandy's dream since the day they met but it would make the judges suspicious. If she voted for Sari or Sarah it wouldn't make sense. The only one that was left was Massie but it would tear her friendship up. The only thing that seemed fair was voting for Gracie so that is what she did. Amanda directly sent a message saying that all that she did to help them was a plan to help Massie win. " Admit it U wanted us to loose so that your BFF Massie could win" (Harrison 117). Amandy, who was mad at Claire showed the message that said everything that she had done to help the SAS and Massie to the judges which meant that Claire was kicked out of the Judges and her vote did not count.