Gossip girl (series) by cecily von ziegesar

During the particularly bleak summer of my 11th year, I spent a month hiding from my wicked step-mother in the basement bedroom I shared with my sister. No TV, no movies, and very little radio reception meant I read more than usual, and when I went through my own summer reading, I started borrowing from my sister, whose taste ran mostly to Goosebumps and Choose Your Own Adventure books (which were, admittedly, totally awesome). But she did have some racier titles tucked away. The book I remember in particular was about a girl who got run over by her best friend after sleeping with the friend's boyfriend while high as a kite on strawberry-flavored hash. The dead girl then somehow inhabits the body of her murderous friend and spends the book trying to figure out how she died, while intermittently having second-hand, multi-positional sex with the newly reunited couple.

It was disturbing and sexy and taboo and I read it twice in one day.

What's the point of all this, you ask? The point is this: Given the alluring, soft-lit ads that the CW has been spinning out about the new Gossip Girl TV show, I was really hoping the book would have that same sort of eff