The Breakfast Club is a quintessential teen film. This book analyzes how multiple factors coalesced to solidify the status of The Breakfast Club as one of the most emblematic films of the 1980s and one of the most definitive teen films of the genre. The film brings together genre-defining elements – the conflicts between generations and peer pressure, archetypical characters and breaking down stereotypes, the celebration and survival of adolescence, and the importance of this time in life on the coming-of-age process – and became a significant moment for John Hughes as an auteur and for teen films in the 1980s. More than just embodying these elements of the genre, filmmaker Hughes and the Brat Pack stars helped introduce and popularize multiple generic features that would come to be expected with the teen film formula. The content of the film combined with its context of production in the middle of a boom in teen filmmaking in Hollywood. Meanwhile, the marketing that focused on contemporary music, peer group dynamics, and oppositions between Generation X and baby boomers, merged with an enthusiastic reception by youth audiences. Its endurance speaks to the way the film’s level of importance as a critical, commercial, and influential film with tremendous impact has grown since its initial debut.

Billie, Lexie, Ella and Natalie are all 14 years old, living in the fashionable and hip Notting Hill Gate. They're as different to each other as all four of Sex and City friends, but that's what makes them such good friends. Lexie's the sporty, practical tomboy, Ella's ever-so-sligthly ditzy, but creative fashionista, with a heart of gold; Nat's the witty, self-depracting hopeless romantic and Billie's the resident musician and Lily Allen in the making Each of them have their own set of issues - whether it's school, parents or boys...and support is there, every week at their weekly breakfast catch up in their favourite cafe. In this first book, Billie' s narrative takes the lead, as she and her mum are at loggerheads over Billie's growing obsession with her music and her curiosity over her dad -who she hasn't seen since she was a baby. On top of that, the girls' favourite cafe has been bought up by property developers and the hunt is on for a new venue! Fashion, fun and friendship sorround some familiar issues in this fresh new tween series.