“Now it was as if everybody had become their own fan. Everybody was their own paparazzi.”

Nancy Jo Sales wrote an article about the so-called “Bling Ring” in 2010. At some point after that, Sophia Coppola approached her about turning the story into a film (which she did, starring Emma Watson). Right around the same time, Lifetime released a made-for-TV movie about it, and Sales decided to expand her article into this book. I have not seen either of the films, but I’ve read the article and the book, and I’ve got to say — you can really tell she’s stretching for material in about half of the book.

“Once upon a time, the American girl was a shining symbol of something fresh, spirited, and fully self-confident. Mark Twain said, “The average American girl possesses the valuable qualities of naturalness, honesty, and inoffensive straightforwardness; she is nearly barren of troublesome conventions and artificialities.”

In 2009, a group of six teenagers got together (usually not all at once — more often, 2-3 at a time) and burglarized the homes of Hollywood celebrities, searching for clothing, jewelry, cash and other high value items. They sold little of it (although they certainly used the cash), preferring to keep most of the clothing and accessories for their own personal use. Their basic MO was scoping out the houses, trying for unlocked doors and unlocked windows and hoping the alarm wouldn’t be set (they usually weren’t). Despite the apparent stupidity of all of this, they remained successful for quite a while — often the celebrities were gone for weeks at a time before noticing the break-in, or some didn’t notice it at all because they have so much stuff. However, one of the members of the group couldn’t live with it any longer, and rolled on everyone, even confessing to crimes that the police didn’t know were committed.

Sales tries her best to expand on the crimes, interviewing these obnoxious people and their friends and family, trying to get as much information as possible. Pretty easy, since in some cases the teens told their friends that their clothing/accessories were stolen from celebrities. They also tended to be super eager to talk about themselves. She also tries to expound on the nature of our society — how these people because infamous as a result of their crimes, and seem pretty okay with it. One even ended up with a reality show. But with this kind of subject — spoiled rich kids committing crimes against actual human beings, but it’s okay because those people are spoiled and rich, too — the whole thing starts to taste bad pretty quickly. I apparently didn’t need this story to be any longer than an article after all.