Reading this article took me back to when I was younger and I would invest my time in reading the Percy Jackson series. Although, Sweet Valley High and the Percy Jackson series are very different I believe that what Gay went through is somewhat like what I went through. I understand that Gay wanted to fit in high school, but she was not accepted.
Years ago- when I was still a child who was just understanding the cruelties of others- my classmates would not accept me because I was Colombian, so I was obviously a drug trafficker and I was the only German student, I was clearly a Nazi. At the time, the popular girls would always make fun of me and I would indulge myself in books. Prior to the Percy Jackson series, I would read articles online about one of the most famous drug dealer in Miami, Griselda Blanco. It came to the point where I knew everything about her so that next time someone told me something about being Colombian, I threw facts at them about what drug traffickers do. Shortly after that, the “popular girls” stopped making fun of me.
Now about the cliques in high school… I must say that being in IB was cliquey in it of itself because the whole IB class was secluded from the rest of the school. My school was divided into six different academies and IB was the only one that kept to themselves. Within IB itself, however, there were even more cliques. It was very difficult to find a group of friends through out the four years of high school and I believe the main reason for that was because of the groups there were and people were just not as accepting.
College, so far, has been different than what I experienced in high school- then again, I only just started college so that may change in the near future. People everywhere are always looking for a place or people in which they will be accepted.