Cecily von Ziegesar, the scribe of the Gossip Girl book series, looks like Laura Dern on crack in that photo. Just sayin'. But at least the lady knows her subjects: Ziegesar (mouthful) grew up in that snooty New York private school lifestyle that she puts her characters in.

How relieved were the show's creators then, to find out that Cecily not only liked the CW series based on her books, but was a 'faithful watcher' of the program as well, and had only one character complaint (and no, it isn't that Nate Archibald and Chuck Bass never acted that gay in the books):

"I think Vanessa is one character they ruined. In the book, she's kick-ass and has a shaved head and wears lots of black … and I think a lot of the readers who don't usually read teen fiction indentify with Vanessa. Even though I don't like Vanessa's character, it's nothing against [actress] Jessica [Szohr]. I just wish Vanessa was like she is in the books a bit more."

Yeah! And in the book, Vanessa dated Dan Humphrey, and he had long hair and they smoked cigarettes and wrote poetry together. Wtf. Next you're going to be telling us that in the original stories, Jenny Humphrey had big tits. (Yep.)