Privileged - How to Teach Filthy Rich Girls - The Book that Started it All

**Chrissalaugha** · 11-06-2008, 12:37 PM

How to Teach Filthy Rich Girls by Zoey Dean
The Book that the Show is Based On

The new version

Recent Yale graduate Megan Smith comes to Manhattan with big plans for a career in journalism and even bigger student loan debt: $75,000. When she flails at her trashy tabloid job, she's given an escape hatch: tutor seventeen-year-old identical twins Rose and Sage Baker--yes, the infamous Baker heiresses of Palm Beach, Florida, best known for their massive fortunes and their penchant for drunkenly flashing the paparazzi -- and get their SAT scores up enough to get into Duke.Impossible job -- yes. But if she succeeds, her student debts are history. Unfortunately for Megan, the Baker twins aren't about to curtail their busy social schedules for basic algebra. And they certainly aren't thrilled to have to sit down for a study session with dowdy Megan. Megan quickly discovers that if she's going to get her money, she'll have to learn her Pucci from her Prada. And if she can look the part, maybe, just maybe, she can teach the girls something along the way.

**Lazy** · 11-06-2008, 12:40 PM

Thanks for the thread

I've never read the book. How similar is the show to the book?

**Chrissalaugha** · 11-06-2008, 12:42 PM

I haven't read it yet, I was going to pick it up this weekend.

xlennie · 11-06-2008, 12:55 PM

Thanks for opening

Hugo · 11-06-2008, 12:59 PM

Thanks for the thread
I've never read the book but I was planning on getting it to compare it to the show

KatlynLover_Girl23 · 11-06-2008, 01:01 PM

i loved this book,Can i be added?

xlennie · 11-06-2008, 01:01 PM

I think I'm gonna read the book too, soon.

RubyGrace · 11-06-2008, 01:27 PM

Ok I've read the book so I'll give it a go.

The beginning is pretty similar except Megan has a Boyfriend, James who's quite well off and whom she let at Yale.

The girls are 18 and so the contract is very short term get them into Duke, just force feed them SATs and stuff for a few weeks. They have to get into Duke because their behavoir has gotten so Paris Hiltonish that their grandmother has said she won't give them their trust fund of $82 million if they don't.

A similar incident to the party in ep 2 goes down, but instead of saying there was nothing about Megan on Google, in the book they find an article about "Megan Smith" and think she's actually this rich socialite who is doing penance for her parents to get her own trust by teaching them. Seeing as this gets both their respect and they actually start to learn from her, Megan keeps up with the lie.

Megan's family are all together and living in NH I think her father is a professor and her Mom is a nurse. Lily is a sucessful actress in NYC. Lily comes to town for a benefit and Megan pretends not to know her because it will ruin her cover. Will appears in the book a lot and he runs an art gallery against his billionaire father's approval, he and Megan kiss and sleep together, then he finds out about Megans BF. He and Lily share a drunken New Years Eve kiss because he doesn't know she is Megan's sister. Megan and her BF break up.

Megan is writing an article all the way through the book, and expose on Palm Beach life, and just after she gets the girls into Duke they find it on her laptop and she is fired.

She has a change of heart and actually writes a nice article about the girls about how they were so much more amazing then she was expecting and what they taught her. She gives this to her old boss (the one in the tabloid in the Pilot) who faxes it to Laurel and the twins to show how much Megan loves them.

It then turns out her old boss is Will's Mom who thought they'd be perfect for each other and was trying to give fate a nudge by recommending Megan for the tutor job so she and Will meet. And she and Will get together. Charlie doesn't exsist.

Rose goes to Duke and Sage gets her own E! reality show all about the PB social scene and following her setting up her own charity benefits. So it all works out.

Sage opens up to Megan more quickly in the book because it's only 300 pages long. Apart from that the girls relationship and the one with Laurel is pretty accurate.

There's also the sub plot with Rose dating one of "the help" and Sage mocks her because she can't bear to have Rose trust someone else. And the twins trying to get modeling and endorsement deals as in this episode gone by.

It's a good book, much darker in tone than the series, but a good feel good read.

**Chrissalaugha** · 11-06-2008, 01:33 PM

Thanks

Now I really have to read this so that I get all the details and whatnot. And some of that stuff makes me wonder about what might happen on the show. Just have to wait and see I guess

**mint chip** · 11-06-2008, 05:32 PM

oo i never read the book; but it does look good and it has a good reputation so i think im going to get around to it!

RubyGrace · 11-06-2008, 05:38 PM

Quote:

And some of that stuff makes me wonder about what might happen on the show

Yes, lots of little bits from the book are reused in different contexts, like Sage finding Megan's Laurel bio instead of twin bitch fest story last week.

**Chrissalaugha** · 11-11-2008, 11:57 PM

So I got around to getting the book and reading it over the weekend while FF is down.
It was good, I liked it.
And it made me really love Will in a way that I hadn't before.

**milestogo** · 11-12-2008, 12:06 AM

I started to read the book and I have to say that I like the show better. The characters are not very likable in the book

**blue sky blues** · 11-12-2008, 11:21 AM

I'm actually just getting ready to start the book. I'll have to let you guys know how much I like it.

fox24 · 11-12-2008, 12:34 PM

Intresting I need to read the book myself. Maybe tabloid person could be Will's mom to