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The author of the latest compelling fiction about the cruelty, superficiality and nastiness of middle school-aged girls is coming to Park Slope next week.

Lisi Harrison will read from, discuss and sign copies of her new book "Best Friends for Never: A Clique Novel" at Barnes & Noble (267 Seventh Ave. at Sixth Street) on Nov. 29 at 7:30 pm.

While her book, released just last month, is recommended for ages 12 and older by publisher Little, Brown and Company, it’s a fantastic guilty pleasure for some of us who haven’t seen the inside of a junior high for, say, 20 years.

In fact, "Best Friends for Never: A Clique Novel" and the first book in the series, "The Clique," released in May, are both so full of "Lord of the Flies"-like behavior among girls, it’s a novel I can appreciate much more now that I’ve got a healthy distance (literally and figuratively) between myself and the virulent hags who put a sign on my back when I was the new kid in Naquag Elementary in Massachusetts.

Harrison’s books chronicle the attempts of new kid Claire to become friends with her neighbor, Massie, the wealthy, seventh-grade diva of an all-girl private school. But Massie has other plans. She and the trio of morally challenged girls in her faithful clique make degrading, manipulative attempts to shun Claire while deceiving Massie’s and Claire’s parents, who are trying to foster a friendship between the two girls.

Instead, Massie and her followers behave badly all the time, focusing their energies on boys, text messaging and shopping.

In "Best Friends for Never" Harrison writes, "The waxy rope handles on the shopping bags were digging into Massie’s hands, yet she found the pain exhilarating."

About the first boy-girl Halloween party planned at Massie’s house, one girl asks, "Why don’t we make it a ’Be Yourself’ party and you can go as a nun?" While her "friend" retorts, "Does that mean you’ll be going as a bitch or a slut?"

Harrison’s deliciously trashy novels have made my commute on the train as much fun as an episode of "Desperate Housewives"!

Would I recommend these novels to an impressionable 12-year-old girl I cared about? Not without trepidation. But I’ll pass it along to all my girlfriends, who’ll probably read it like me - behind a copy of the New Yorker.

For more information about the event, call (718) 832-9077.

©2004 Community Newspaper Group