[1] The series, about a group of rich friends who live in Beverly Hills, has ten books, with the first eponymous novel being released under the Little, Brown imprint Poppy.

Despite commercial success, the series was criticized for being too mature for teen readers, featuring drug usage and sex scenes.

[1] The series follows Anna Percy, an Upper East Side Manhattan private school girl who moves to Los Angeles to live with her father.

Other relevant characters include, but are not limited to, Parker Pinnelli, Adam Flood, Susan Percy, Ben Birnbaum, Eduardo Muñoz, Jackson Sharpe, Poppy Sinclair, and Clark Sheppard.

Anna Percy - Originally from the Upper East Side in Manhattan, she moves to Los Angeles with her father to finish her senior year and then apply for an internship while hoping to change her boring life.

She is serious and intelligent, and frequently refers to the imaginary "This Is How We Do Things Big Book, East Coast WASP Edition" - a set of rules she grew up with in her patrician family.

Her parents, Jane Cabot and Jonathan Percy are divorced and she has a somewhat strained relationship with her father that slowly begins to improve.

En route to L.A. in the first book, Anna meets the charming Ben Birnbaum on the plane and he invites her to be his date at Jackson Sharpe's wedding.

Anna is still reluctant to trust Ben, especially when she finds about his romantic past, but she eventually forgives him after he explains the misunderstandings between them.

A witty and clever brunette, Sam has many insecurities about her size 10 figure, which is not helped by the fact that all her friends are much tinier than her.

Sam's home life is strained as she craves attention from her ever-absent father and clashes with Poppy Sinclair, her new stepmother who is pregnant with Jackson's baby and only four years older than her.

Sam is interested in becoming a filmmaker in her own right and pulls the "Jackson Sharpe's daughter" card to entice people into being her films.

Cammie is Ben's ex-girlfriend and she was hoping to win him back at Jackson Sharpe's wedding and ended up tearing Anna's dress in a fit of jealousy instead.

Eventually, it is discovered that Dee is hearing voices and she goes to seek treatment at Ojai Mental Health Institute.

He invites her to be his date, not knowing that his three female friends (Cammie, Sam, and Dee) are all secretly in love with him and hoping to win him over.

Ben eventually decides to drop out of school to pursue nightclub management and is annoyed when he believes Anna isn't supportive which causes him to end up in Cammie's arms.

He and Cammie briefly broke up when he decided to stay in Michigan longer for the summer vacation and was seriously considering attending college there.

Anna is surprised to see her father as a relaxed, laid back, and open person as the Jonathan Percy she grew up was an uptight money manager in a six-thousand-dollar hand-tailored suit.

Parker Pinelli - Part of the A-List crew but is secretly poor and hopes to find his big break in acting so he can finally live his life the way he wants.

He often hooks up with older, richer women so they will pay his bills and while in Las Vegas, Sam finds out but promises not to tell.

At the end of the series, Parker is dating Citron Simms and his acting career is beginning to take off, thanks to the Ben-Hur remake.

In the beginning of the series, he marries Poppy Sinclair, a budding actress, but that ends in divorce after he finds out she's cheating on him.

He is not afraid to punish Cammie when she intentionally sabotages his show "Hermosa Beach" in an attempt to make Anna look bad, by canceling her credit cards and taking away her car.

As Cammie shows more ambition and direction, Clark is pleasantly surprised and teaches his daughter how to be a successful businesswoman and agent.

Cynthia "Cyn" Baltres - Anna Percy's best friend from New York, a more rebellious and wild child, the two have an unlikely friendship.

When Anna visits New York, she sees him in a relationship with a pretentious playwright named Tabitha whom she and Cyn dislike.

Sam, Cammie and Dee took her under their wing but once Stephanie transferred to the rival school Pacific Palisades, she made it her mission to try to make her former friends look bad.

Pashima Nusbaum - Best friend of Stephanie Weinstock and co-host of the joint BHH and Pacific Palisades graduation party.

However, Anna did not know the exact details of their relationship until the joint BHH and Pacific Palisades graduation party and breaks up with Ben for lying to her.

No longer threatened, Sam, Cammie, Anna and Dee help Maddy get ready for prom by giving her a full makeover.