“For some reason being part of a couple with Logan didn’t feel right”……..BSC FF # 3: Mary Anne’s Big Breakup

Recap

Lately, Mary Anne has just not been into things when it comes to Logan.  She doesn’t look forward to their dates and doesn’t even really enjoy them.  She’s also annoyed that he still tries to take control of things, like where they go on their dates/what they do.  So, she breaks up with him.  Logan’s surprised and upset about it, and tries to convince her to change her mind.  He tells her he only seems to make decisions for her because he knows her so well.  But Mary Anne’s firm and ends it.

Even though she called it off, Mary Anne’s still upset about the breakup, and she doesn’t like that the kids at school are talking about it. Everyone is really surprised about the split, but most people are understanding and tell Mary Anne she did the right thing.

However, Logan’s friends take his side and keep giving Mary Anne dirty looks in the hall at school.  Mary Anne’s upset that they’re taking sides and says she wishes she could stay friendly with Logan’s friends herself, but it doesn’t seem like an option.  Meanwhile, Kristy says she still considers Logan a friend and Mary Anne feels all weird about that.  She even worries that Kristy and Logan are going to go to a dance together.  They don’t, but Kristy tries to suggest that Mary Anne shouldn’t mind if she did, which I don’t really agree with.  Later Kristy says she wouldn’t go even if Logan asked, so she was probably just annoyed at Mary Anne for suggesting it or something.

Pete Black and some guy named Dave that I don’t think existed before each ask Mary Anne to go to the upcoming school dance, but she says she’s not ready to go out with anyone else.  The night of the dance she wants to hang out with friends, but they all have other plans.  She ends up being home alone and when Logan calls, she invites him over to watch a movie.  He tries to tell her she may be upset about the fire and isn’t thinking straight.  He also says that he doesn’t really try to control her, that’s just how she sees things.  Mary Anne says she can only see things the way she can see them.  She’s upset again when Logan leaves, but she still knows the split is for the best and the end’s pretty optimistic.

High/Lowlights

• I really like that in this book the break up happens early on, and the rest of it is about the fallout.  Because when Mary Anne and Logan originally split up it happened at the end of the book, and we never saw anyone’s reaction to the whole thing.

• Mary Anne says she and Logan went to Renwicks (a café) on their first date, but I’m pretty sure a dance was their first date.  When she kicked her shoe across the room? Or maybe that party Stacey threw for Mary Anne’s birthday happened first. But the first date wasn’t at a restaurant.

• Mary Anne ‘s talking to Dawn about how she’s changed she they first met and since Mary Anne first met Logan.   They say how her hair was still in braids when she met Logan.  Except it totally wasn’t, she stopped wearing her hair in braids six whole booksbefore Logan came to Stoneybrook.  This is not a small detail ghostwriter.

• Logan lends Mary Anne a box he kept with everything she ever wrote to him in, so she can recreate her journal that was lost in the fire.  She finds this picture from when she cut her hair and says Kristy took it to use when she told Logan about the cut.  But again, that’s totally not what happened.  Logan saw her hair before Kristy did, and Kristy was all pissed off about it, so of course she didn’t take a photo.

• I know this is a new series, but you’d think they’d still pay some attention to continuity.

• One of the notes Mary Anne wrote was from when they got back together says how she felt like half a person without Logan.  Which her current self is kind of horrified about.

• There’s one Claudia outfit, but nothing too outrageous.  All we get to hear is that she wore painter’s coveralls with a daisy pattern she made herself on it.  I’m disappointed we don’t get to find out if she has a real daisy in her hair or shoes or something to tie it all together. Cause you know she would have.

• Kristy remembers this “together but independent” thing Mary Anne and Logan did in Hawaii, where they tried not to do everything together.  She says, “remember when we all went to Hawaii and….?”  Only Kristy didn’t go with them.  That error doesn’t bother me as much as the earlier ones, but it’s still annoying.

• We hear about how Logan’s teammates are taking his “side,” but isn’t Pete Black on one of those teams?  Cause asking Mary Anne out sure isn’t taking his side.

• It really annoys me that on the cover they show Mary Anne with her old haircut.  Especially when they say she has chin-length hair in the book.

• Stacey and Claudia are still barely speaking in this book.  It makes BSC meetings a little bit awkward.

• Stacey encourages Mary Anne to go out with Pete, saying how she got to know him when they did a movie project together. But I think Mary Anne already thought highly of Pete because of that young author project they did. She always defended him after that.  (And SMS sure had a lot of projects, didn't they)?

• Also, didn't Stacey sort of date Pete at one point?  It seems weird to try and set him and Mary Anne up after that.

• A sign that this book’s definitely different from the original series…..Mary Anne goes Apple/Pumpkin picking with Kristy’s family, and they make a point of saying it’s NOT a sitting  job. So, even though we hear that Karen got stuck in a tree, we don’t have to deal with getting her out.

• Mary Anne has a sitting job for Logan’s siblings after the breakup, and she’s worried it’s going to be awkward.  But Mrs. Bruno’s super nice to her while his brother and sister give her a hard time.  So, Mary Anne thinks Mrs. Bruno doesn’t know yet.  And I totally get a guy not telling his mother about getting dumped, but it seems weird to then tell your nine-year-old sister and five-year-old brother about it.

• Mary Anne’s really surprised when this Dave guy asks her out.  He asks if she’s going to the dance and she says, “why, do you want me to work on some committee?”  Then she thinks how it’s been so long since a guy asked her out.  But who ever asked her out besides Logan?  Alex in Sea City’s the only one I can think of.

• Everyone keeps pointing out that Mary Anne/Logan broke up before and got back together.  And Mary Anne points out how they thought they worked out their issues, but the same problems keep coming back.  So, she's convinced it’s for real this time.  I’m glad she stays firm about it.

• Dawn tells Mary Anne that Mary Anne always defined herself by her relationship to someone/something else (her dad, the BSC, Logan).  And she says Mary Anne should try to figure out what she really likes for herself.  Which I agree with in principle, but Dawn sounds rather bitchy when she says it. 

• At the end, Kristy, Claudia, and Stacey come by to see how Mary Anne’s doing (the morning after the dance).  They don’t plan this, they just all happen to show up at the same time, and go up to Mary Anne’s bedroom to see her. This seems unlikely, but I'll go with it. A few minutes later they go downstairs and see a note from Richard and Sharon that they went to the barn (where they’re starting construction on the new house).  But they must have been there to let the girls in, so why not just tell them, go up to see Mary Anne, we’re on our way out?