“He has some…some important news for you”…..BSC FF #1” Kristy’s Big News

Recap

One night Kristy’s dad (Patrick) calls and he asks to speak to Charlie, Sam, and Kristy.  He says he’s getting married and wants them to come to the wedding.  Charlie hangs up after Patrick asks if they’re going to congratulate him. (Cause it’s kinda a douchey thing to say to the kids you abandoned). Sam and Kristy feel a bit weird about the whole thing, but both agree to go. 

After they get off the call, Charlie says he’s not going.  David Michael (who Patrick didn’t even both to say hello to) WANTS to go, but Kristy’s mom tells him he’s too young.  What I think she really mean is, he’s too young to hear, “you’re father’s a dick who doesn’t care about you. “ Eventually Kristy’s mom tells Charlie that if he doesn’t go, Sam and Kristy can’t, so Charlie takes one for the team and goes. They get to California (Sausalito) where Patrick lives and find out that he and his fiancé (Zoey) live in some huge house and work together at a restaurant she owns. Apparently, Patrick gave up sports writing to become chef there.  This surprises Kristy and her brothers because they always thought his leaving had to do with him being so dedicated to his job as a sportswriter.

They’re there a few days before the wedding and things are kind of awkward.  Charlie keeps insulting Patrick, while Sam and Kristy try to be nicer.  Patrick asks Charlie and Sam to be his best men, but only Sam agrees to it.  Zoey tries to get them to do some family bonding, but Charlie keeps throwing out bitter-ish comments.  Kristy spends a lot of time with Zoey, who keeps thinking Kristy will be into fashion issues and other “girl” stuff, which is clearly not true.  But this it’s okay, because Kristy actually really likes Zoey – Sam and Charlie seem to as well. Kristy’s problem comes in when she hears that Patrick and Zoey are planning on having kids.  For obvious reasons, this upsets her, but she still tries to act like she’s okay with things.

The night of the rehearsal dinner, Patrick finally asks Charlie to stop insulting him and act like a “good son.”  Charlie sort of goes off about that and talks about how Patrick’s leaving impacted them.  When Patrick tries to defend himself, Kristy comes to Charlie’s defense.  Charlie says he isn’t going to the dinner and Sam and Kristy stay with him.  But after Patrick leaves they start talking about good memories from when they were kids and how when you grow up you lower your expectations, and they decide to go to the dinner after all.

The wedding goes well and I guess Kristy ends up happy for her dad.  Back in Stoneybrook, she tells her mom about the wedding, who says she wants the best for Patrick.  Which I guess is easy to do after you’ve married a really generous millionaire.  No matter how annoying his kid is.  Kristy also talks to Claudia, Stacey, and Mary Anne about her dad and how she doesn’t know how she really feels about him.

High/Lowlights

• In Stoneybrook, Kristy’s amused that Andrew made a nest for his peas out of mashed potatoes before eating them.  Apparently, Charlie taught him to do this.  She’s even more amused (as am I) when she sees Charlie still does the same thing. 

• The first time Kristy mentions the BSC is on page 20.  She’s like, “I have mentioned the BSC, right.”?  But she hadn’t.  It felt weird.

• This book’s very light on any BSC members other than Kristy.  She talks to Mary Anne a bit before she leaves, and then mentions a BSC meeting at the end, but that’s about it.  I hope the other Friends Forever books aren’t the same, I like the girls interacting.

• Patrick and Zoey can’t pick the kids up from the airport, so they leave their car there and mail Charlie a key and directions to the house.  But how busy could they be, they both seem off work that week?

• I find it interesting, that they have Patrick and Zoey living together before they get married.  Now, I don’t have an issue with this, but it surprised me for a BSC book.

• I was happy to see that we do get some outfits in this book.  They’re not nearly as awful as some of the old-school ones though.

• Here’s Claudia: “Cutoff jeans over bicycle shorts, and suspenders she’d decorated with buttons.  Beneath that she was wearing a paint-splattered T-shirt, which she called her tribute to Jackson Pollock.”  It wouldn’t seem so bad if the book wasn’t taking place in 1999.

• So, the backstory chapter’s pretty much gone in this book.  Which I expected to be happy about, but it actually was a little disappointing. I guess I’m just not a big fan of change. We do get some background on all the members of Kristy’s family though.  And I didn’t notice this until after I finished, but the inside front cover has mini-bios of Kristy, Claudia, Mary Anne, and Stacey.

• The back of the book refers to Kristy being a bridesmaid, but this is never actually mentioned in the book.

• Kristy does get a new dress for the wedding: “It was velvety…colored a deep burgundy…with [a] regular neckline, right at [her] collarbone, and short sleeves.”

• One thing I thought was weird was that the day after Patrick calls, Kristy goes to see Mary Anne because she “needs her friends.”  But in Everything Changes, Kristy kept talking about how close she and Abby were getting.  And now she has a crisis and doesn’t even mention her?  I mean, obviously, the series is now just concentrating on the original 4.  And maybe Kristy wanted to talk to someone who knew her when her dad was around.  But it still felt a bit odd.

• Kristy says that Charlie took care of David Michael most of the time when Patrick left, but doesn’t that contradict her autobiography?  It said David Michael was in day care and Charlie took care of Sam and Kristy.

• Patrick keeps trying to yell at Charlie for being rude.  That’s pretty nervy of him.  I can’t believe he doesn’t EXPECT all his kids to be a bit angry with him.

• When Zoey suggests Kristy get a slip dress, Kristy’s worried she’ll look like she’s going around in her underwear like “last year’s rock star.”  Do you think she was being specific?  I can’t remember a musician doing that in the late 90s.

• Kristy also gets caught in a dress when trying it on.  It would be really amusing if this was a TV show or movie and we actually got to see it, but here it fell a bit flat.

• Claudia supposedly calls Princess Diana, “The late fashion-great.”  It always feels weird to hear the BSC refer to things that happened after I stopped reading. 

• Maybe there’s a rule about ugly clothes showing up in every BSC book.  Because Patrick and Sam pick out AWFUL tuxedos for the wedding: “They were a sort of unnatural yellow-orange…and [had] ruffled shirts with matching yellow-orange edging.” Even Kristy can tell they’re ugly, and Charlie, Kristy, and Zoey make Patrick exchange them. 

• The night before the wedding, Zoey sleeps in the room Kristy’s staying in, because of the whole curse thing.  That’s when Kristy tells Zoey how things went down with Patrick leaving her mom.  Zoey admits she knows, partially from Patrick, but also based on the fact that he had no pictures of the kids or stories about them that weren’t at least six years old.  But she’s still in love with him.

• At the rehearsal dinner, Kristy stands in for Zoey because it’s apparently bad luck for the bride to participate in the rehearsal.  Has anyone heard that one before?

• Apparently Patrick had a falling out with his brother and hasn’t spoken to him since.  He wrote back to the wedding invitation with “best wishes, but no way.”  Patrick’s sounding more and more like a winner. 

• After Charlie tells Patrick he never acted like a good father, Patrick’s all, “Well, I didn’t have a chance, did I? You didn’t exactly stay in touch.”  That’s his actual quote.  Which…really? I don’t even know where to start with that.

• Zoey’s father has been married 4 times, so we have all these scenes that (I think) are supposed to be comic relief with them all at the wedding not getting along.

• At one point, Patrick says that one reason he didn’t visit was because of Kristy’s mom, and suggests she would have made things hard if he tried to visit.  Yes, I’m sure the single mother of 4 children would have hated if someone offered to take them off her hands for an afternoon.

• Now, I should clarify, I don’t have a problem with Patrick deciding he wanted a divorce.  I don’t even have a problem with him wanting to move to California.  But this guy just moved out and never even told his wife he was going.  I really can’t see any excuse for that.

• At the end, there’s a scene where Kristy, Claudia, Stacey, and Mary Anne are looking at pictures of the wedding, and it reminded me of a scene at the end of the book where Kristy’s mom married Watson.  I doubt it was intentional, but it would be cool if it was.

• The other thing that bothers me about Patrick is how he tries to act like nothing happened.  Everyone makes mistakes in life, and I think they should be able to redeem themselves. However, they need to acknowledge that they did something wrong and apologize for it.

• Zoey says she knows Patrick has changed, but I would still have a hard time marrying (and having kids with) someone who had walked out on their family like that.