“Trust me. My mother would not want to date him”…… BSC FF # 10: Stacey’s Problem

Recap

Stacey visits her dad in New York and they spend a lot of time with his girlfriend Samantha.  Towards the end of the weekend, her dad tells her that he and Samantha are getting married.  Stacey likes her, so she’s really happy about this news.  The one thing that she feels a bit awkward about is telling her mom.  Her dad actually agrees to call and tell her so that Stacey doesn’t have to.  Only when Stacey gets home, her mom can tell there’s something she’s not saying, so Stacey ends up telling her.   Mrs. McGill’s kind of upset about the news and actually cries after Stacey tells her.  She tells Stacey she doesn’t know why she’s upset since she certainly didn’t expect to get back together.  But it’s definitely a weird position to be in.   Anyway, Mrs. McGill takes the high road and calls Mr. McGill and Samantha to congratulate them.

Afterwards, Stacey’s worried about her mom and offers to stay home from the welcome home party the BSC’s having for Mallory.  But her mom insists she’s fine and that Stacey should go and have fun. Later Stacey and Claudia decide to try and find a guy for Mrs. McGill to date.  Claudia gets some video dating tapes from the company that runs a service by pretending she’s writing an article for a student newspaper (a college paper, since this happens over the phone).  Stacey, Claudia, Kristy, Mary Anne, and Mallory watch all the tapes, but can’t agree on any guy as a suitable match for Mrs. McGill.  Fortunately for them, this doesn’t matter because Mrs. McGill managed to find a guy on her own who invites her to a country club party.   Stacey wants to stay home from her weekend in NYC to help her mom get ready, but Mrs. McGill insists she go and says that she’s capable to getting herself ready.  However, the date doesn’t go that well and Mrs. McGill says she won’t be seeing the guy again. 

Of course, Stacey’s still worried about how her mom seems distracted.  But then her mom makes two announcements.  First, that she’s going back to her maiden name (Spencer) and second, that she’s opening her own clothing store in downtown Stoneybrook.  Stacey thinks this is great and offers to help as much as she can.

Meanwhile, Mallory’s back in Stoneybrook for the summer, even though the rest of the BSC isn’t out of school yet.  She feels kind of weird because she sees her siblings going to Byron for help with things and referring to him as the oldest siblings.  Plus, since Jessi and all her other friends are still busy with school and various activities, she feels left out.  But she manages to still help out the BSC with some new computer skills she picked up, and she shows them how they can use websites to plan activities for their charges.  As if the BSC hasn’t managed to plan tons of activities without the internet?  I mean, I love seeing how technology can make life easier, but I’m not sure what it can add to the BSC, unless they are making a digital calendar or something.

High/Lowlights

• Claudia’s having dinner at the McGills’ and they decide to play a game while they wait for the food to be ready. Stacey suggests Monopoly, but Claudia and Mrs. McGill tell Stacey they don’t want to play with her because she’s too good at math.  But are math skills really necessary for playing monopoly?  I know it involves money, but you don’t need to know calculus or anything.

• When Claudia’s there for dinner, they’re making homemade pizza.  Mrs. McGill starts on the dough while the girls are at a BSC meeting, then they come  and join her.   Stacey says they spend two hours making the pizza.  So, are we supposed to think that Stacey, who needs to eat at regular intervals, has dinner at almost 8 pm?

• Mr. McGill tries to get out of telling Mrs. McGill he’s getting married by saying he thinks it should come from Stacey.  But Samantha tells him, no, it should come from him.  I agree, just because it’s an awkward position to put Stacey in.   If there was no child involved it might be different.

• Mallory’s the president of the Internet club at her boarding school.  The point of the club is to teach people how to “get on websites” and do research.  Which sounds more like an additional class than a club. But whatever.

• Hearing the girls talk about the video dating tapes was rather amusing.  They have this whole conversation about how bald men aren’t appealing, but that older people may not mind.   It’s more entertaining when you read it than my description.

• We also hear that while Kristy’s mom doesn’t seem to mind that Watson’s bald, Kristy thinks Watson does mind because she sees him checking his baldness in the mirror a lot.   I’m kind of surprised Kristy would notice that.

• Also, is it really surprising that 13-year-olds aren’t going to find any middle aged appealing?

• Stacey owns a cell phone.  That seems weird.  Even weirder than hearing Mallory talk about the internet.

• Samantha offers to drive Stacey home from the city so she doesn’t have to take the train.  This seems super nice of her, but I guess she wants to bond with Stacey.  Anyway, on the drive we find out that Samantha’s a fashion photographer.  Obviously Stacey finds this cool, but I’m surprised she wouldn’t have already known this.  Her dad’s been dating Samantha since that book where they went to Fire Island and it’s never come up?  I mean, I would think it’s something Mr. McGill would tell Stacey early on, to give her and Samantha something to talk about.  Or to give Stacey a reason to like her.

• Also, does this mean that Mr. McGill’s marrying a second person with ties to the fashion industry?  Interesting.

• In terms of Stacey’s love life, she meets up with Ethan each time we see her visit NYC, but she claims they’re just friends.

• When Mallory’s whining about how she’s bored because her friends don’t have time for her, she mentions she’s been watching soap operas and knows the plot lines of every show on every channel.  Now, I know soaps aren’t the most intelligent things on the air, but I would think it would take more than a week (which is how long she’s been home) to be up to speed on shows on multiple channels.

• Regarding Mallory’s siblings considering Byron the new “oldest” – they go to him because he’s nicer than the other triplets.

• Stacey doesn’t think very highly of her mom, does she?  First she thinks she wants to stay home from a party to comfort her, then she needs to find a guy for her, then she keeps calling her from New York to make sure she isn’t having trouble with hair/clothes getting ready.

• Kristy suggests naming the new store “Serious Clothing,” and Claudia says she’d never go in a store called that.  I kind of like it though, not in a “these are clothes for serious occasions,” way but in a “we’re not messing around” way.  And really, I wouldn’t go in stores that Claudia thought sold stylish clothes, so maybe her disliking a name’s a good thing.

• In NY, Stacey runs into Laine, who acts like nothing ever happened between them.  But then when Stacey mentions having a fight with Claudia, Laine’s all, “yeah, well she was always a loser.”  Stacey decides it was for the best that they went their separate ways.  She also thinks it’s a little sad since they used to be such good friends. She realizes this must be how her mom felt about hearing Mr. McGill was getting remarried.

• Claudia offers to work at Mrs. McGill’s new store, only to be told that she can’t because of child labor laws.  Which is interesting because Stacey worked at Bellairs.  And Logan worked at that restaurant in town.

• Mrs. McGill does offer to sell some of Claudia’s handmade jewelry or her painted shirts in the store.  The jewelry idea I understand.  But I hope Mrs. McGill has better fashion sense than to think the majority of Claudia’s clothes are good.  Otherwise her store will not go well.

• I love that Stacey thinks her mom is distracted because of her dad getting remarried, but it turns out to be because she’s planning a huge career move.

• There’s an ad in the back of this book for a dating handbook called “The Rules for Teens.”  At first I was horrified such a book exists/existed, but then I realized the sample rules we see are things like not eating like a bird on a date and to expecting a guy to pay for everything.  So, maybe it’s not so bad.

“I’ve never had trouble finding a boy who liked me”……BSC FF # 6: Stacey and the Boyfriend Trap

Recap

This book starts on New Year’s Eve.  Stacey’s in NYC with her dad and makes a resolution to be a better friend.  So, she calls Ethan, since they said when they broke up they said they wanted to be friends but haven’t stayed in touch.  Ethan mentions he may be going to some art exhibit at the Stoneybrook Museum, and suggests Stacey go with him as a friend.  Stacey says sure, just let her know when it’s definite.

When she gets home she finds a letter from Toby (from Sea City) saying he’s traveling with his family to look at colleges for his brother and will be near Stoneybrook.  He wants to stop by to see Stacey.  She’s unsure what to do, since he was kind of a jerk the last couple of times she saw him, but he was her first kiss so I guess she’s sentimental or something.

The next day at school, Stacey finds out that her favorite teacher, Mr. Zizmore, is moving to Texas because his wife got a job working for NASA.  Stacey’s sad he’s leaving, so when Pete Black approaches her to suggest they plan a going away party, she’s happy to help out.  She also reminds us that she and Pete used to date back in 7^th grade (since this book’s all about the boys Stacey used to date). They end up talking to the principal about the party, who says students should join the staff party he was planning and asks if she and Pete can organize any student involvement.  On the way out they run into Wes, that student teacher that Stacey had a crush on.  He’s interviewing to replace Mr. Zizmore, and Stacey invites him to the party.

Then Robert talks to her and says he wants to help with the party too, as long as she’s okay with it.  Stacey says okay.  Then Kristy says that Sam loved Mr. Zizmore when he was in middle school and wants to help with the party too.  Again, Stacey agrees. She also asks Jeremy (her current boyfriend) to help, but he feels weird about it since he never had Mr. Zizmore.  This is one of many things that makes Stacey think something’s off with Jeremy.  Cause what 13-year-old wouldn’t want to plan a party for a teacher he never had? They also have different reactions to some movie they went to.  What serious problems those two have.  And okay, she also doesn’t like him hanging out with Claudia so much.  That one may be a more reasonable complaint.

Meanwhile, Stacey emails Toby.  Apparently, the BSC lives in a world with email now.  She doesn’t say whether he can visit her or not at first, but they start talking and she eventually agrees to it.  Then she realizes he’ll be visiting the same day as the party and has a mini-freak-out, but her mother tells her to just tell Toby that she can only see him in the day. Which she does. 

When the day comes, Toby proves to still be kind of a jerk.  He asks her to confirm how obvious it is that he works out. And kind of pressures her to kiss him. Right when Toby’s family’s supposed to pick him up, the doorbell rings and it’s Ethan.  He came up for that art exhibit, but I guess decided to surprise Stacey and he wants to hang out until the art thing starts. Then Toby’s dad calls and says he got delayed because the brother got a “last minute interview” at Yale and they can’t pick Toby up until later.  Stacey asks her mom to entertain the boys while she goes to the party, and her mom actually agrees, but the guys decided they want to just go to the party with Stacey (which is at the school).

The party goes well, and Mr. Zizmore’s all surprised and honored and all that.  But the more interesting stuff that happens: Jeremy sees Stacey with Ethan and Toby and decides she has more in common with them then he does and they break up.  He also admits he may be into Claudia. Stacey’s barely upset about it.  Toby leaves and Stacey gives him a quick kiss good-bye but knows she won’t stay in touch.   Ethan comes back after his art exhibit and he and Stacey have a nice moment and make plans to see each other again.  And Wes got the teaching job.

Oh, and Stacey asks Claudia to help decorate for the party since she’s an artist, and they sort of make up. There’s no big discussion, Stacey just says how she misses being friends and Claud says she does too, and they smile at each other.  We don’t see a huge amount of interaction after that, so who knows if it will last.

High/Lowlights

• So, the total ex-boyfriend list is: Pete, Toby, Sam, Robert, and Ethan.  That’s not counting Wes, since he was a crush, not a boyfriend.  I think the only guys not mentioned are that guy she met in Super Special 3 and the guy she went on one date with right when she met Robert. 

• Stacey begs her dad to go to Times Square on New Year’s Eve.  The most ridiculous part’s this is at 6:00 at night and her dad says he doesn’t want to stand out there for six hours.  Stacey says they’ll go to dinner first, which they do, and Stacey mentions getting there an hour before the ball drops.  And yet not only do they manage to get fairly close, Stacey gets interviewed by a TV reporter.  That everyone she knows sees.  Of course.

• Now I’ve never gone to Time Square on New Year’s Eve.  But I know a lot of people who have and said it was a completely miserable experience.  You have to get there hours before midnight to even get within site of the ball, and once you get there you can’t leave, can’t go buy food, can’t walk around, can’t use a bathroom, anything.  And when I say hours I don’t mean 2-3, I mean 10-12.  You just stand there all day.  So, Stacey’s little adventure was annoyingly unrealistic.

• Even if they’re friends, it’s kind of ballsy of Ethan to show up at Stacey’s house un-announced when he knows she has a boyfriend. 

• Stacey’s first thought for a New Year’s resolution was to pick better colored clothes.  But she decides she’s not that shallow.  At least she acknowledges it.

• I have a hard time believing Stacey would agree to let Toby come see her.  She gave Mallory such a hard time for wanting to go out with him, and kept saying how he couldn’t have changed, but as soon as he gives HER attention, she changes her mind.  It’s not like she’s hard up for a guy’s attention.

• Stacey tells us when she and Ethan “go out for coffee” they don’t actually drink coffee cause they’re too young.  Which I kind of like, because in a past book where she talked about them going for coffee I complained about her being too young for that.  If this wasn’t written 13 years ago, I could pretend I influenced the ghostwriters.

• In this book Stacey says that she and Claudia still sit at the same lunch table they always sat at, but this contradicts what Claudia said in her last book.  Maybe it changed since then?

• Stacey never told her mom about Toby.  I guess it makes sense she wouldn’t have at the time, but since the divorce Stacey and her mom are supposedly close, and they talk about boys sometimes, so I’m surprised she wouldn’t have mentioned a guy in Sea City.

• It’s kind of random that Stacey and Claudia just make up with almost no preamble. Stacey just says she misses being friends and Claudia’s all, “me too!”  And…it’s over just like that?  An apology didn’t really work before.  Granted, it was a really, really, crappy apology, but this was too.

• Toby’s email address is “tobythegreat” – that should tell Stacey everything she needs to know.

• When Mr. Zizmore says he’s moving to Houston, Pete makes a “Houston we have a problem” joke.  As always, it feels super weird to see pop-culture references to things that happened after I stopped reading the books.

• Stacey says that Wes substituted for Mr. Zizmore after student teaching.  I don’t remember this at all.

• Wasn’t Stacey really embarrassed about what happened with Wes?  Why is she excited at him coming back as a teacher?  And why is the teacher who knows this girl had a crush on him giving her his email address.  It’s so she can let him know the party details, but it’s also a little inappropriate, right?

• Pete’s talking to Stacey about Wes and says he didn’t think he was “such a hot teacher.” And I was like, well most 13-year-old guys wouldn’t call another guy good looking. But then I realized he just meant Wes was a bad teacher, not that he wasn’t good looking.

• When Stacey polls her friends, Kristy says she shouldn’t let Toby visit and Mary Anne says she should.  I’m very surprised about that from Mary Anne.  But maybe she was nostalgic for Alex or something.  Who, BTW, does get mentioned.  Toby says he also broke up with his girlfriend and that he and Mary Anne could have a chance.  If you know, they lived in the same state.

• Stacey and Pete get called to the office (about the party planning).  They call Pete as “Peter,” which makes me wonder why they don’t call Stacey “Anastasia.”  It’s her full name, so that’s what should be on school paperwork and all that.  If they don’t use a nickname for Pete, why do they do it for her?

• Stacey wonders if it’s normal to have so many ex-boyfriends at 13.  No.  It is not.  But to be fair, most people aren’t 13 for like ten years.   Most of her relationships lasted a while.

• The first time they mention baby-sitting’s on page 74.  And we just hear how Norman and Sarah Hill went to bed early so Stacey had time to herself.  What’s interesting is I didn’t even think about sitting until then either.

• The principal tells Stacey and Pete one of them should give a speech.  Pete tells Stacey to do it since he can’t talk in front of people.  Isn’t he like….the president of the 8^th grade?

• Toby refers to his parents as “the rents” and Stacey has no idea what he means.  He also talks about using “the cellular.” And refers to a computer as “the emailer.”  Did people ever use those terms?  Like, in real life?

• The party’s after Mr. Zizmore’s last day, on a Saturday night.  And it’s a surprise.  So you would have thought they’d have a say goodbye scene on this last day of teaching.  If I was a teacher and no one did anything on my last day, I’d be kind of insulted. 

• Actually, the whole party’s weird if you ask me.  It’s great that they want to do something for the guy, but I would expect to do it in class or something.  Or right after school if old students (like Sam) are showing up. 

• When Stacey says her friend Toby’s visiting, Jeremy assumes he’s a girl.  Isn’t it mainly a guy’s name?  Stacey doesn’t correct him, but it’s not like he can complain either way, considering all the time he spends with Claudia.

• Would Toby’s parents really just drop Toby off at Stacey’s house for a few hours and not even want to come in to meet her mom/make sure it’s okay?  Toby was a mother’s helper in Sea City too, right?  So I don’t think his parents even met her.  And they just leave him there?

• Toby’s kind of obnoxious when he meets Ethan, saying how he and Stacey had a “summer vacation thing.”  Stacey’s much more impressed that Ethan just tells Toby he knows Stacey from the city.  She’s easy to impress.

• Jeremy thinks Stacey has more in common with the other guys he was seeing her with, which means Ethan and Toby.  But I don’t think she has anything in common with Toby, and the only thing she has in common with Ethan’s NYC.

• I kind of love that Mr. Zizmore is leaving because his wife is smart enough to get a job at NASA. 

• So it’s sort of implied that Stacey and Ethan will get back together.  The girl could really afford taking some time to herself.

“I totally mind. I can’t believe you would betray me like this”……BSC FF # 2: Stacey vs. Claudia

Recap

I have to say right off, I liked this a lot more than the first Friends Forever book (which I didn’t dislike, it was just a bit different in tone).  Early on Stacey gets annoyed because Ethan (still her current boyfriend) signed up for some art class on Sundays.  Since he lives in NYC, the weekend’s the only time the two can see each other, so the class limits that.

Then Stacey notices a new guy at school – Jeremy who she thinks is totally cute, cool, etc.  So does Claudia.  At first Stacey’s encouraging Claud, since she still has a boyfriend (even though she’s very into Jeremy).  Then she and Ethan have another fight because he has to work on the next Saturday and won’t be able to see her.  They end that call by saying they should “cool things down.”  Stacey asks if this means they are breaking up, and Ethan says no they’re just changing things.  But Stacey still thinks of it as a breakup.  Anyway, she decides that she still needs to be a good friend and support Claudia’s interest in Jeremy.  She even helps arrange a “date” by inviting Jeremy and Claudia to go to the mall with her (as a group) to introduce Jeremy to the area.  Only then she “gets sick” and can’t go with them.  Claudia has a great time and is even more interested in Jeremy.  She keeps drawing him/sculpting him (without his knowledge, obviously).

However, Jeremy shows up at Stacey’s house the next day to see how she is.  He says he’s only into Claudia as a friend and wants to go out with Stacey.  She says she has to talk to Claud first.  She actually writes out note cards about how much she values Claudia’s friendship, to make sure she gets this across to Claud when talking to her.  Her logic is that Jeremy isn’t going to be dating Claudia no matter what, so why shouldn’t SHE date him.  However, when she delivers the news to Claud she skips all the friendship crap and just spits out the news that Jeremy asked her out.  Then she asks if Claudia minds if she says yes.  Claudia says, yes, she does mind and says Stacey is betraying her.  They get into a huge fight about it, and Stacey decides she’ll say yes to Jeremy anyway.

They keep fighting for the rest of the book….after Stacey and Jeremy have a successful date, Claudia mentions Ethan to Jeremy. He gets upset at Stacey for not mentioning she had a boyfriend.  Stacey insists she and Ethan are over and she and Jeremy arrange to go out again.  That night, Ethan shows up at her house right before Jeremy’s supposed to be there.  (Since he apparently meant it when he said cooling things down wasn’t the same as a break up).  But he and Stacey really break up and she goes out with Jeremy.   The book ends without Stacey and Claudia resolving their fight, which is realistic, but a bit surprising.

They only real subplot is that some girl named Rachel moved back to Stoneybrook, after moving away in fifth grade.  Apparently, Rachel didn’t get along with Kristy, Claudia, or Mary Anne back then.  Claudia used to hide from her because Rachel called her a wimp and taunted her into climbing a tree….that she then got stuck in.  But Stacey likes Rachel and they bond and become friendly.  Rachel even gives her some advice about Jeremy. I kept thinking that we were going to find out Rachel was purposely encouraging Stacey to hook up with Jeremy to hurt Claudia, but that didn’t happen.  I also thought we were going to find out Rachel and Jeremy were step-siblings, because it seemed weird that there would be two new kids at the exact same time.  But that didn’t happen either.  The book ends with Stacey and Rachel on good terms.

High/Lowlights

• Foreshadowing for the next book, where Mary Anne and Logan breakup (again) - when Stacey’s checking out Jeremy in the hall, she talks to Mary Anne about how cute he is.  Mary Anne says she has been noticing cute guys more and more lately.  She and Stacey decide it’s totally cool for them to notice other guys while having a boyfriend, but then get weirded out about the idea of the guys noticing other girls.

• Jeremy introduces himself by saying he is “Jeremy. Rudolph.”  Which of course he means his first name is Jeremy and his last name is Rudolph.  But Stacey and Claudia get all confused by this.  Apparently they think someone might actually give their child a first name of “Rudolph.”

• They also get confused when he says he’s from Olympia.  Which….really?  It’s not that small a town, is it?

• Kristy’s description of Rachel: “She’s like Lucy Van Pelt, HelgaPataki, and Angelica Pickles rolled into one.”  The pop-culture side of me is ashamed that I could not figure out who she meant at first. Especially considering I once interned for Nickelodeon.

• Stacey writes Claudia a note because she won’t get a chance to talk to her before lunch.  Only when she passes Claud the note in the hall, she stands there while Claudia reads it, then Claudia says how she’s sorry (about the Ethan breakup).  Why not just tell her?  My friends and I passed notes in the hall sometimes, but we didn’t stand in front of each other and read them.  The point was that you didn’t have time to wait while the person read it.  Especially if that person has Claudia’s reading skills.

• In this book we do hear about the girls having BSC meetings and baby-sitting.  We just don’t get full chapters devoted to the jobs. Stacey just mentions that after school she sat for the Rodowskys then went on with her angsting about Jeremy.  It makes it feel more similar to the original series, but it concentrated on the more interesting stuff.

• Has there ever been a book that had two of the girls’ names in the title?  I wasn’t sure who the narrator was until I opened it.

• Even before the fight, Stacey gets annoyed at all the spelling errors in Claudia’s note.  I think this is the first time anyone has complained about her spelling.   

• When Kristy tells the girls about Rachel being back, she says how her looks have changed and she’s not a “butterball” anymore.  She adds that she looks better than you’d have expected her to turn out.  Which is totally bitchy, but SO something a 13-year-old would say.

• The girls are all at Claud’s house before 5:30, and Kristy just says, “Well, as long as we’re all here, we might as well get started early.”  It’s kind of hard to believe she loosened up about things that much.  In theory, it’s only a couple books since she would stare at the clock doing a countdown.

• Ethan keeps leaving Stacey messages and she just ignores them cause she figures they are done and she no longer cares.  Which is kind of bitchy of her….it seems like she just used the no time together thing as an excuse to go after Jeremy.

• Part of me wants to say it’s good for Stacey to be nice with Rachel, because you shouldn’t be a bitch to someone just because your friend didn’t like them a few years ago.  But isn’t it also a bit disloyal to befriend someone who was actively mean to your BFF?  I’m not saying she should freeze Rachel out, but it seems like there should be more of a balance. 

• Apparently, Claudia and her ex, Josh, are actually doing a good job at staying friends.  They said it a couple times, so I’m wondering if it will become important.

• Claudia and Stacey’s fight is pretty vicious.  Stacey calls Claudia brainless for not being able to spell and says that her artwork isn’t that great.  She also calls Claud a loser, and tells her that no matter how much Claudia follows Jeremy around, he’ll never want to date her.  THEN she says they should stop before they say anything they regret.

• Claudia gets in some mean things as well, but I don’t think they’re as bad as what Stacey says to her.  Especially considering, she’s really the wronged one in this situation. But she says Stacey’s just stringing multiple guys along, that she’s stuck up, and  that 10 million people live in NYC, so Stacey should stop acting like it’s some big claim to fame. (Actually, I think that last part is more hilarious than mean).

• Stacey’s date outfit: “The blue thermal-knit shirt with the tow of small white buttons up the front….it was great with jeans.” Kind of boring.

• Abby’s around in this one…she’s at the lunch table with the other girls every day, which makes a lot of sense.  This may sound silly, but I’m glad they’re all still friends.

• We do get some additional BSC talk – they’re talking about how they want to schedule free time so they don’t all end up with jobs all weekend.  But since they still have people calling, they are still sometimes calling Logan as a backup sitter.  Which actually makes sense.  I’m surprised they wouldn’t still ask Abby to be a backup every once in a while too. 

• I don’t think Stacey’s behavior would be so bad except that she was encouraging Claudia to go after Jeremy.  If she said right off that she was interested in him, then things would have been different.  But she basically set Claudia up for pain.

• Stacey says how she and Ethan didn’t make time for each other over the summer.  Which is totally not what happened in Everything Changes.  But maybe there was another summer since then? You never know in BSC-land.

As an FYI - I'm leaving on vacation tomorrow, so it'll be a couple weeks until the next update.

“I don’t tell you who to date! Don’t tell me!":…………….BSC # 124: Stacey McGill…Matchmaker?

Memory Reaction

I didn’t read this as a kid.  I did read it a few years back, before I started this blog, but then I moved and lost access to the library that had BSC books.  I finally re-found it on ebay a few weeks ago. However, I really don’t remember what I thought of it then…just that Stacey seemed a bit too happy about seeing her mom date a client’s father.  My parents split up when I was about Stacey’s age, and while I was never upset about it and wanted them to both be happy, I didn’t really want to think about either of them dating. 

Revisited Reaction

The BSC has a new client, the Brookes.  Stacey has the first job for them and thinks the kids (Joni and Ewan) are adorable.  Her mom comes to pick her up at the end of the job, and meets the recently divorced father, John.  They kind of hit it off, and end up going out. 

Stacey's thrilled because she thinks the guy’s nice, cute, etc, and that her mom deserves to meet someone like that.  The problem's that Joni (age 9) and Ewan (age 5) are younger and are not thrilled with the idea, especially Joni.  They both want their mother to return - apparently she moved to Georgia to be a news anchor person because she thought her kids were holding her back career-wise.  But the kids don't know that part, so they think Mrs. McGill’s trying to replace her or something.

Anyway, Joni acts like a bratty 9-year-old and tries to wreck the relationship.  John's a writer who works from home, but uses a sitter so the kids don't bug him while he's writing.  She plays loud music, hides her father's computer mouse, and locks him outside so he can't meet his deadline, hoping that will get him to cancel his date.  It doesn't really work very well, and John just grounds her instead of talking to her about why she's upset (at least not that we see), and that makes her act out more.  Eventually, Claudia sits for the kids and manages to get Joni feeling better about the whole thing.  The Brookes spend Thanksgiving with Stacey and her mom, and it gets a bit rocky, but Stacey talks to Joni and makes her feel a little better about the whole situation.  And then Mrs. McGill dumps the guy.  Seriously.

Subplot:  Mallory hates school because kids ages 11-13 are assholes.  She wants to go to Stoneybrook Day, but it's too expensive, so she does some research and finds a boarding school where she thinks she can get a scholarship.  We know how all this turns out.

High/Lowlights

• Stacey and her mom are having a book club and are reading Pride and Prejudice.  They end up talking about women marrying rich guys, and Stacey’s amazed when her mom tells her that there are women who think like that today.  Which….seriously? I'm glad the idea never occurred to Stacey, but I'm surprised that she was so surprised by it.  Isn't she the sophisticated worldly one.

• When Stacey and her mom are talking about the book, they get into a discussion about the McGill's divorce.  Mrs. McGill admits that she started to resent Mr. McGill's long hours after he quit being a public defender and became a corporate lawyer.  The work “didn't seem as important.”  And Stacey's all, "wasn't that judgmental of you?" which seems a bit harsh to me.  She probably said it nicer than how I'm envisioning it though.

• Do people (who aren't on TV shows) easily switch from criminal to corporate law like that?

• Also, (and this is kind of a low blow), Mrs. McGill never seemed to have a problem spending the money her husband made at that “less important” job.

• Claudia outfit: “A pair of long shinny earrings dotted with small clay beads…a long beaded necklace…which had fallen beneath the bib of her tie-dyed overalls. (She’d dyed them herself)?”  Well, of course she dyed them herself.  Who the hell sells tie-dyed overalls?

• I’m trying to remember…have we ever seen Mrs. McGill, or any other BSC parent picking their daughter up after a sitting job?  And actually coming to the house and ringing the doorbell?  There have been some times where the parent of the kids drives them home because it’s nighttime, but I don’t remember the sitters’ parents picking them up. It’s probably realistic, but it just seemed a bit contrived.

• The Brookes want to watch a movie of Indian in the Cupboard, and Stacey tells us how it's a great book, but she hasn't seen the movie yet. This makes me feel old, because I read that book as a kid, and when the movie came out I couldn't remember the book because I'd read it so long ago.  And that was apparently forever ago too.

• Just once, I'd like to see someone in the BSC reference a book that totally sucked.  And to tell us that.  Saying the Kishis don't like Nancy Drew doesn't count. Something like, "Vanessa was reading Twilight again. If you've never read it, you're lucky, it's really ridiculous and poorly written."  I get that Ann M. Martin was trying to encourage reading, but it gets a little annoying.  And I was a total book worm as a kid.

• Although, it would be funny if one of the books with a positive reference was another one by Ann M. Martin.

• At one of the first jobs, Stacey hears John using a typewriter, and is all shocked that he's using such an old fashioned device. She thought everyone used much more modern devices like electric typewriters and word processors.  For the record, he uses the typewriter when fleshing out ideas, he does the actual writing part on a computer. Which seems weird to me, but whatever.

• Kristy gets upset that John calls for sitter outside of meeting hours.  He calls at 5:27 and 6:10.  Such a non-conformist.  The reason he has to do this is because his lateness is one of the things Mrs. McGill gets annoyed at later on.

• Interestingly, when he calls at 6:10 everyone’is still there hanging out.  Convenient for the story, since I don't think they ever talk about staying at the meeting past 6:00.  Especially Kristy, who gets a ride. 

• I appreciate the fact that they went to the trouble of setting up Mal's boarding school good-bye for a full three books.  She was around before even Dawn showed up, so her character deserved that.  I just feel bad that they had to make things so miserable for her.  She always hated her looks and a lot of the boys in her school, but she seemed pretty happy generally.

• On Thanksgiving, Joni doesn't like the classical music that’s playing.  Mrs. McGill asks what she likes, and Joni asks for Hansen.  Wow, I'd forgotten about that band.  Stacey doesn't have any, if you care.  I guess she has some taste.

• So, here are some of Mrs. McGill's reasons for ending things with John: She reread some of his books and thinks she disagrees with some of his world views, he's too hard on his kids, he's always either late or early, and he didn’t offer to help with the dishes after Thanksgiving dinner.  She also thinks he’s self-centered and is annoyed that the day before Thanksgiving (when she's cooking), he shows up with a draft of his manuscript and asks her to read it (she says she doesn't need another thing to do).

• I think it’s kind of weak that they had to paint Mrs. Brookes as a bad mother, who left her kids to further her career.

• Stacey tries to convince her mom not to break up with the guy right away (this is the day after Thanksgiving, but Mrs. McGill says she's supposed to go out with him the next day and can't do that knowing she's going to dump the guy.  They get into a bit of a fight about it.

• After the break up, Stacey goes to visit the Brookes, because she had gotten them gifts when visiting her dad in the city.  John’s all surprised to see her, but lets her in.  The kids are upset because they feel like Mrs. McGill dumped him because they were acting up.  Stacey convinces them this isn't the case and says she's still be there for him.  She adds that they can be "honorary siblings."  Which is nice, I guess, but it seems a bit disloyal to her "almost-sister" Charlotte Johanssen.

• So, do you think the Brookes kept the BSC as their sitter?

Final note:  So, the only book from the original series I have left to recap is the final book in the series, The Fire at Mary Anne's house.  That will be posted next.  But I have decided to also write up the Friends Forever books, and even managed to order all of them from Amazon.  So, expect to see that shortly.

“It was the way he was smiling that bothered me”…….BSC # 99: Stacey’s Broken Heart

Memory Reaction

This is the last BSC book I read as a kid, so it’s kind of a sad-ish memory for me.  Which is weird, because at the time I wasn’t upset about giving them up.  I just remember reading the excerpt from the next book, where Kristy suggests they disband the club, and deciding I didn’t want to read it.  I was way too old to be reading them at that point anyway.

But for this book itself, I remember a scene where some girl they go to school with called Stacey at Claudia’s house (during a club meeting) to tell her she saw Robert with another girl.  I thought it was unrealistic/dumb that someone would know to call Stacey there at the right time.  I was also not happy with the fact that Andi was the girl Robert cheated with, because I really liked her in earlier books, and wanted her and Stacey to stay friendly, even though Andi’s other friends were bitches.

Revisited Reaction

It's the end of summer and Stacey’s enjoying hanging out with Robert.  They run into Andi Gentile, a girl Stacey used to be friends with.  But Stacey doesn't like hanging out with Robert's “popular” friends so they leave. The next day, Stacey tries to call Robert but his sister tells her she went to play basketball with the guys.  She goes to watch, because Claudia’s working on an art project, and Stacey apparently can't spend an afternoon alone.  The problem is Robert’s not there and his friends haven’t heard from him.  Robert later explains he was playing with a different guy, at a different place.  Stacey sort of believes him.....then Emily Bernstein calls and tells her she saw Robert at the mall with another girl.  Stacey ends up following Robert to the mall to see if he's meeting another girl, but he's only there with Pete Black.  She's still a little worried about the whole thing.

Meanwhile, Stacey gets an offer to take a week long baby-sitting job in NYC, for the Walkers, a family that she used to sit for. She's worried about leaving Robert, but excited to go to the city, so she takes it.  She of course loves being in the city and loves the kids she sitting for, so she has a great time.  She also hangs out some with this guy Ethan, who’s working for the couple she's sitting for (they’re setting up an art show).   About mid-week, Claudia calls her to say she saw Robert kissing Andi.  Stacey's heartbroken of course, and doesn't know what to do, but gradually starts to feel better.  When she gets home, Andi’s waiting to tell her she and Robert just kept running into each other and ended up hooking up. Then Robert comes over and they break up officially.  

The subplot’s focused on Abby filling in for Kristy as BSC President, while Kristy's in Hawaii.  Abby decides to not care if people are late to meetings, to only collect dues every other week, and has all sorts of wild ideas.  She also wants to prove she can't handle the job, so she organizes a Mexican Festival to have for the kids they sit for.  It ends up almost being a disaster, because Abby's not so great at the planning phase, and I think it’s supposed to teach them all how valuable Kristy is.  Or something.  And they do pull things together at the last minute so the festival’s fairly successful.

High/Lowlights 

• Stacey says Robert's friends almost get her in trouble for shoplifting, but that's not really the case.  They got her in trouble for drinking at a concert.  They did shoplift, but she was never in danger of getting in trouble for it.

• Stacey's mom has a rule that Robert can only be in the house when she's not home if they stay in the kitchen.  But they want to play a computer game, which they need to do in the living room.   Stacey's all, what's the difference between the living room and the kitchen?  I'm thinking it's the existence of the couch and how it can be used. But if Stacey doesn't think of that they probably won't be doing anything inappropriate.

• Stacey does call her mom who says it’s cool for them to go in the living room.

• In the backstory chapter, Stacey says that a difference between Claudia and Janine’s that Claud’s gorgeous and Janine isn’t.  It seems a bit mean to say it like that. 

• Regarding the festival...Abby does sort of suck at planning it.  She spends money on art supplies when Claudia had stuff they could have used, she doesn't think about where to have it until they are in the middle of making posters for it, she hangs crappy looking signs that the kids made, etc.  However. No one else really tries to help her.  They've all planned tons of fairs/festivals/whatever, and know what problems they've had in the past, things they've learned, etc.  Abby joined the club 10 books ago.  Of course she might make mistakes or not realize how much time things will really take. 

• Stacey says that she thinks Mary Anne has the most important job in the BSC - after Kristy.  I think Mary Anne's job’s more important. Kristy's good at planning the big events, but without Mary Anne scheduling, they couldn't book jobs.  The club could live without the events, but not about the appointment/record book.

• Outfit: “Claudia had on an oversized purple top over turquoise leggings. With fabric paints she’d painted a beautiful unicorn on the top and then decorated the leggings with designs in the same colors.”  I actually don’t think it sounds so bad, even though I’d never wear it myself.

• Stacey tells us how clothing’s much more important to her in Manhattan because you see such great fashions all over.  And obviously everyone in NYC cares about fashion.  It’s not a diverse city or anything.

• Aw, Stacey says she thinks her mom’s pretty and she likes when people say they look alike.

• Stacey goes shopping for back to school clothes, and talks about how she always wears them right away, even though it's still too hot for the warm fall clothes.  I can totally understand this.  I got a spring jacket in January and was dying to wear it for weeks.  I didn't though, because I didn't want to freeze.  That probably makes me less of a fashionista than Stacey.

• I actually don’t get why they let Abby make so many changes as President.  She was in charge for barely two weeks.  And don’t they normally vote on rule changes?

• Emily calls Stacey at Claud’s during a BSC meeting to tell her about Robert.  She apologizes for interrupting the meeting but says she didn't have her home number.  First of all, Emily knows what time BSC meetings are?  Why would she care enough to learn that? Second, if she knows Claud’s number, why not call and ask her for Stacey’s number?  It’s kind of mean to tell a girl her boyfriend may be cheating on her in front of six other people.  And last, Emily’s supposed to be smart/studious and she can’t use a phone book?  Good luck with that journalism career, Em. 

• When Kristy leaves for Hawaii, she gives Abby the number of her hotel in case anything happens. She should lighten up a little....leaving Abby in charge can't be worse than all the times the entire club goes on vacation for two weeks.

• When Robert and Pete Black are at the mall they go to the movies and see some romantic comedy.  Stacey and Claudia try and follow them but end up seeing some   random action film, because they think that’s what the boys would see.  They all run into each other leaving, and Claudia has to pretend she’s into that kind of thing to explain why they were there.  It’s very sitcom-y.

• When Stacey reminds Robert they talked about seeing the rom-com together, he tells her that it will be out of theaters by the time she’s back from NY.  Now, not to stereotype, but wouldn’t most teenage boys just skip that kind of movie if his girlfriend wasn’t around?

• One thing I didn’t remember about this book was how Stacey spent a ton of time in NY with Ethan, her future boyfriend.  I knew she met him in this one from later books, but they spend hours hanging out.  Mostly with the kids she’s sitting for also present, but still. And as soon as she knows for sure Robert’s cheating, a small part of her is hopeful about Ethan.

• Robert comes to see Stacey before she leaves for New York, and he brings her flowers.  Which, is sweet, but she ends up taking them with her.  Carrying a big bouquet of flowers on a train has got to be a pain.  And if she left them, she wouldn’t have gotten a chance to enjoy them.

• Stacey says her mom’s cool, because she pretends she has to go make a phone call so that Robert and Stacey have a minute to say good bye alone.  Which means she let them kiss.

• Mr. McGill takes Stacey out to brunch on her last day, and Stacey says they should go to somewhere near the Natural History Museum.  This is because she wants to say goodbye to the Walkers and they live near the museum.  But why not just say somewhere near the Walkers?  Does she have to name drop a NYC landmark every time she talks?

• Wasn't Quint's (Jessi’ssorta boyfriend) last name also Walker?  I guess it’s a pretty common name, but I just noticed because the kids Stacey’s sitting for are also African American.

• Andi’s waiting for Stacey at her house when she gets back from the city.  I can’t figure out how she knew when Stacey was getting home.  I guess Robert could have told her, but he seemed surprised that Stacey had already talked to her.  He’s a 13-year-old boy though, he may just not have known why Andi would ask about that.

• Stacey’s angsting about the break up, and says how she can’t believe they’re splitting up when she was just writing "Robert and Stacey 2-gether 4-ever" in her notebook.  Did she really think that?  I think a good rule is that if you’re young enough to write “2-gether 4-ever” on something, you’re probably too young to pick your mate for life.

• Mr. McGill says he got tickets to some Broadway show because he made an intern stand on line for half price tickets.  He said she had nothing else to do.  Now, I don’t have a problem with him having an intern do this, but since when is Mr. McGill into discounts?

• When Stacey’s talking to her mom about the breakup, Mrs. McGill’s all, “you may reunite someday…look at Mary Anne and Dawn’s parents.”  Which I thought was weird at first, but I guess it could be reassuring without giving false hope.

“Dealing with me made you sick, huh?”.....BSC # 119: Stacey’s Ex-Boyfriend

Memory Reaction

Again, after my time.

Revisited Reaction

Stacey notices that her ex, Robert, has been acting kind of down.  She remembers that Andi (the girl he dumped her for) came to talk to her a couple months back to tell her she was worried about Robert.  Stacey sort of reached out to him then, but hadn’t talk to him since.  Then she runs into Robert’s sister at the mall, who tells her Robert’s still miserable and makes Stacey promise to call him.  She does, and the two start talking again (as friends).  Robert says he hasn’t been happy lately, isn’t interested in the activities he used to do, and hasn’t really been interested in talking to his friends.

The basic idea’s that Robert’s depressed and Stacey spends most of the book trying to help him.  She talks to his friends, but they’re mad at him for dropping off the radar in recent months.  She convinces him to rejoin the baseball team after quitting, but then he skips practice.  She even starts tutoring him because he’s stopped trying in school.  Her daily tutoring’s the only thing that convinces Robert’s parents to unground him (which they did because his grades dropped), but he doesn't even seem to care about that.

Stacey has no idea what to do, so she finally calls into some radio call-in show offering advice, and is told she can’t help him herself and should convince him to talk to an adult.  Stacey decides to do this, but Robert gets all defensive and pissed at her for butting in.  Then Stacey tells her mom, who wants to call his parents, but Stacey begs her not to, and she agrees.  Later, Robert comes back to her house crying and says he hurts inside and doesn’t know why.  He agrees he needs help and Stacey convinces him to talk to his baseball coach (Robert’s choice of a “trusted adult”), which is apparently somewhat helpful.  Stacey realizes that she let herself get too caught up in Robert and let things in her own life slide.  But she and Robert decide to be friends and even go to some dance together.

Meanwhile, there’s some new place in Stoneybrook where people can go to pick strawberries.  Of course all the kids in town go crazy picking berries.  Then they end up with way too many, and Kristy decides to have some festival where everyone brings strawberry baked goods and plays related games.  It’s pretty nondramatic.  I started craving strawberries though, so I’m glad I got them at the store yesterday.

High/Lowlights

• Stacey says she doesn’t like to define herself as a diabetic.  Then maybe she shouldn’t always bring it up when she first starts to describe herself.

• In math class, Robert can’t answer a question and is sort of laughed at.  When Stacey’s asked, she considers not answering so Robert doesn’t look as bad, but says she can’t do it because she doesn’t like playing dumb.  I approve of this choice.

• The copy of the book I have is hardcover.  Which is really weird, I don’t remember ever seeing a hardcover BSC book.  It’s the same size/shape as the others, so I’m wondering if the book was falling apart and was rebound it somehow.

• Guess who wore this: “She was dressed entirely in animal prints.  She was wearing a long-sleeved zebra-print leotard under leopard-print overall shorts. A tiger-stripe scarf was tied around her neck and her hair was caught up into a ponytail with a lizard print scrunchie.  Her earrings were two orange spotted giraffes." 

• The strawberry picking place is called Strawberry Fields Forever.  They acknowledge it’s a Beatles reference.

• Stacey’s dating Ethan at this point, who lives in the city, and she goes to visit him on two different day trips.  She sees her father while she’s there too.  I like this.  They’re close enough to NYC that she can do that, so it makes sense that she’d do that instead of always going for a whole weekend.
• I’m not sure why Stacey was so against her mom calling Robert’s parents, since she had already decided to bring an adult in, but didn’t have much success asking Robert to go to anyone himself.  I guess it’s typical of a teenager though.
• There’s this thread throughout the book about how Stacey has to write her “self-portrait” for English class, and she says it’s basically an autobiography.  Claudia even does a sketch of her to go with it.  But didn’t all the girls already write their autobiographies?  Why give them the same assignment twice?

• Stacey keeps saying how she doesn’t want to talk to others about Robert because she doesn’t want to betray his confidence.  So, she only says vague things about how Robert’s unhappy.  But…that’s really all she knows.

• Both Claire Pike and Linny Papadakis get sick and throw up from eating too many strawberries.  They claim they won’t ever eat any again, and everyone tells them they will as soon as they feel better.  But I’m not so sure. It’s a known thing that you can get an aversion to foods when you get really sick from them.  It happened to me with macaroni and cheese – I loved it as a kid, got sick after eating it, and for years after I could barely look at it without getting nauseous.

• Jessi and Mallory take the younger Pikes to the strawberry picking place.  Mr. Pike gives them $20 and says if they pick enough to cost more than that, they’ve picked too many.  Then when he comes to pick them up they have to ask for more money and he just hands it over.  They don’t mention whether they pay for all the ones they eat while picking (which is at least enough to make Claire sick).  They certainly weren't keeping a count of them.

• Stacey describes Ethan as an art student.  She doesn’t mention his age in this one, but I think he’s supposed to be 15 or 16.  How’s someone that young an art student?  Doesn’t art student suggest out of high school and in some kind of art school/program?  Or does she just mean he takes art classes?  Because they never describe Claudia as an art student.

• So, the part where Stacey tells us that Andi talked to her about Robert is really detailed and she even mentions that she sent Robert a Valentine-gram.  I had absolutely no memory of the Andi conversation, but the valentine-gram seemed kind of familiar so I looked it up.  Sure enough, this all went down in another Stacey book. Funny how I couldn't remember that but have such vivid memories of the early ones.

• How many strawberries are these people picking/buying?  I love strawberries, but I always eat them in the first couple days after I buy them, because otherwise they go bad.  This book takes place over a couple of weeks, so if they’re picking cartons of them, the problem shouldn’t be having too many too eat, it should be that the berries are going bad.  I’ve gone apple picking and ended up with too many to eat, but apples last longer than strawberries.

• Stacey talks to Robert’s friend Alex about his issues, but Alex says he doesn’t care if Robert’s not happy, because he totally wasn’t there for him when his parents were getting divorced.  My first thought was that this is awesome continuity from back when Stacey was friends with him, because I specifically remember his parents splitting up.  But my second thought was that no 13-year-old boy would say anything like that.  At least not to another teenager.

• Also, Alex’s parents split up back in book 83, which is way before Robert started feeling depressed.  And it seemed like Robert and Stacey were both being very supportive of Alex at the time. So, maybe it’s not good continuity.

• When Robert shows up at Stacey’s house it’s around 11:00 pm.  Stacey convinces him to call his baseball coach to ask for help then.  He does and leaves a message. Then the coach calls him right back and agrees to meet with him the next day.  But this seems awfully late for phone calls.  Could he really not wait till morning to call?  I mean Robert’s depressed, but he isn’t suicidal.

• Stacey does tell Ethan that she’s been helping Robert and he’s pretty cool about it.  She’s nervous about telling Robert about Ethan, but she finally does after he’s agreed to ask for help.

• Stacey keeps telling us how what she used to feel for Robert is gone and won’t come back, and that she doesn’t want to be more than friends.  I think she protests a little too much, but whatever.

• Of course, when Stacey calls the radio show she gets on the air.  I’m sure no one ever calls in to radio shows and doesn’t get on, or has to wait to get on.

• When planning the festival, they go on the internet and find a “strawberry chat room,” where people from all over send them recipes and ideas.  I love how this was clearly an attempt to be hip/modern, and now it just makes the book seem so dated.

• Everyone brings baked goods with strawberries to the festival to share.  Kristy gets the idea to gather recipes for everything into a book, which she then copies and staples together to sell to everyone.  She does this all while the festival was going on, which I can buy because it was at her house and Watson has a copier in his home office.  But my question is, why do all these people just have the recipes with them? Normally if I bring food to a person’s house I don’t carry the recipe with me. I don’t usually have them memorized either.

• The BSC’s going to use the money they made at the festival to take their charges to some water park.  That’s generous of them.

• I really like the messages in this one – first that a 13-year-old can’t always help someone on their own, and second that while you can help others, you shouldn’t always lose yourself in their problems.

“I’m sure some people think I’m strange because of the way I dress”…..BSC # 111: Stacey’s Secret Friend

Memory Reaction

N/A

Revisited Reaction

There’s a new girl in school named Tess Swinhart.  Stacey meets her when Tess accidentally ruins a paper-mache jaguar that the School Pep Squad was making (and Stacey is apparently on the squad now).  Anyway, Tess is a bit awkward, wears dark rimmed glasses and tons of pink clothes.  Stacey thinks she totally lacks style.  Tess is apparently a bit of a klutz too, because she also spills some of the paper-mache on Alan Gray.  He decides to get revenge by calling her “swine-heart” behind her back.  In addition to her name and the all-pink thing, Tess’s nose is slightly upturned, so the whole thing picks up steam. Alan gets the whole school to start calling her a pig, makes “oink” noises around her, and starts a comic strip about a character that looks like Tess and is called “Swine-Heart the Destroyer.”  Lots of kids pass this around and add to it in various classes.  But Tess, seems to be oblivious to all of it.

Meanwhile, Stacey’s spending a lot of time with Tess because she’s helping the Pep Squad rebuild the jaguar and the two are working together on a school project.  Stacey decides to “help” Tess stop being made fun of.  She “casually” tries to drop hints about places to buy contacts, different clothes, etc.  She even offers to give Tess a makeover.  It’s pretty obvious what she’s doing, but since Tess doesn’t take any advice, Stacey thinks that she’s totally clueless.

At a football game, the Pep Squad is running a vote on whether they should switch to a new mascot.  This involves holding up signs with various suggested mascots, and seeing which one people cheer for the most.  Someone switched out a sign that Stacey holds up for a pig with a picture of Tess and the label “Swine-Heart the Destroyer.”  Tess sees it, hears everyone laughing, and finally realizes she’s been a joke.  While trying to leave, she falls off the bleachers and breaks her ankle and sprains her wrist.  When the ambulance comes, Stacey tries to talk to Tess, but Tess tells her she isn’t her friend and asks her to leave.  Stacey’s too nervous to call Tess herself for couple days, even after another girl on the Pep Squad told Stacey that Tess knows she wasn’t involved in the stunt. 

Eventually, Stacey does go to Tess’s house so they can talk about their school project.  She finds out that Tess is from Paris, which explains the way she dresses and talks, and why she misses a lot of pop culture references.  Stacey also sees pictures of Tess’s friends also wearing a lot of pink, and sees similar outfits in a French style magazine.  She expresses surprise, and Tess is all…..”you would have known I was French if you actually bothered to talk to me.”  Afterwards Stacey feels bad about the whole situation…as she should, because she was a bit of a bitch to Tess.

Other kids in school are still making fun of Tess, and Clarence King and Alan Gray are planning to play a prank on her.  The plan’s for Clarence to ask her out, take to her to a restaurant called “Hog Heaven,” then put pictures of her with mean captions into the school newspaper.  They think they can get these past Emily Bernstein (the editor), but she finds out about it and tells Stacey.  Stacey tells Tess, and she and the BSC help make Clarence and Alan look like idiots (they dump food on them and take pictures, but don’t publish them anywhere). And Tess becomes friends with another girl, so even though she and Stacey aren’t really friends, the fence is a bit mended and she’s happy.

High/Lowlights

• Has the SMS mascot always been a jaguar?

• My main question from this one is, when the hell did Stacey join the Pep Squad?  And how’s that different than the cheerleading squad, which we know she wouldn’t be on?

• Claudia tries to defend Tess’s clothing, by saying some people say she dresses strange (if by some she means everyone in the world).  But then Abby says she looks like she knows what she’s doing.  That’s gotta be one of her weird jokes, right?

• Apparently, Mallory has said that when she’s a famous writer she won’t put her picture on the books, because she doesn’t like how she looks.  That’s….really sad, actually.

• But we do get to hear Stacey talk about how great Mal will look once she gets contacts and her braces off.  Then Barbara calls Mallory cute.  So, I think we’re supposed to be seeing Mal as someone who really has very little self-esteem in regards to her looks, not actually someone who’s ugly.

• People also call Tess, “Petunia,” which is apparently Porkey Pig’s girlfriend.  That’s a reference I would not have gotten, I didn’t even know Porky had a girlfriend.  The things you learn in these books are endless.

• That reminds me……didn’t Stacey have a stuffed pig collection at one point?

• At a sitting job for the Pikes, Jessi and Mallory are sitting for Claire, Margo, Nicky, and Vanessa.  They say the rule’s 2 sitters for 4 kids or more, but the way I remember it is 2 sitters when it’s OVER 4 kids.  I know there’s a book where Claudia sits for the triplets and Claire.  And jobs for Kristy’s 4 younger siblings never have more than one sitter.  I’m sure there are other examples too.  I think they just wanted to give both girls some screen time, since they had nothing else to do in this book.

• Emily tells Stacey about the prank when Stacey arrives in the cafeteria for lunch.  Stacey says she told all her friends about it…at the club meeting that evening.  Wouldn’t the natural thing to do be go right to their lunch table and tell them right away?  So what if not everyone in the club is there?

• In order to play their prank, Alan and Clarence would have had to switch out the copy of the paper that Emily approved with their own.  Which, Emily says wouldn’t have worked, and I’m sure she’s right.  It sure was tough to be an asshole before Facebook.

• Stacey also tries to get Tess to join the Pep Squad, even after Tess says it’s not her think.  She’s really pushy about it, actually.

• The thing that’s bothering me after reading this book is that we never find out if the students picked a new mascot or not.

• The girl Tess does becomes friends with is this girl Barbara, whose previous BFF was the girl who got killed in a car accident.  So, this was a bit of closure on that storyline, which is nice.

• Tess does try wearing makeup once after the makeover Stacey gave her, but says she doesn’t like how mascara feels.  Stacey thinks this is weird because she doesn’t think it’s possible to feel mascara.  I would have to disagree with her.  But I rarely wear mascara.

• So, Clarence King keeps talking to Tess and calling her “Babe.”  Tess doesn’t get the pig reference and thinks that Clarence likes her.  Stacey tries to tell her not to get involved, and Tess thinks that Stacey’s the one that likes him.  Stacey’s horrified, but the more she denies it, the more Tess is convinced.  It really made me laugh for some reason.  And if Stacey really wanted to help Tess she’d tell her the truth.

• There’s a subplot where Jackie Rodowsky and Nicky Pike are hanging out a lot acting secretive.  The BSC doesn’t know what’s going on, but we find out that some kid was bullying Jackie, so he asked Nicky to be his bodyguard.  But Abby convinces Jackie to talk out the problem.  And of course, that totally solves the problem.  I’d say mor.e, but writing about it would put me to sleep

• There’s a reference to the BSC notebook, because Abby figures out Jackie is hiding in the same place as when another sitter was there.  It’s minor, but I do like that they pointed out that can help.

• Stacey’s definitely bitchy in this one, but Tess does say things like, “I adore the middle ages.”  So, it’s realistic that 13-year-olds would find her strange.

• So, I love the color pink.  But I wouldn’t wear it every day.  Even if it is THE color of the year in the fashion world, wearing the same color every day seems a bit much.

• Maybe the all-pink thing is supposed to be like Stephanie Green wearing red, white, and black?

• Stacey kind of annoys me at the end.  Because after she finds out Tess lived in Paris, she thinks how some of what Tess wore may end up stylish soon.  Except, if Stacey didn’t like her outfits, she should really not like her outfits.  The fact that people in Paris wear pink doesn’t mean Stacey has to like that color too. 

• Here’s all of Tess’s “horrible” outfits….I’d bet anything that if Claudia wore one of these everyone would say she looked amazing:

• “She wore a short, pale pink cardigan buttoned up to the top.  It covered a white blouse with a lace-trimmed Peter Pan collar, which peaked over the cardigan. Her pants were loose-fitting brown corduroys.  And…she was wearing black boots.”

• “She was wearing a hot pink sweat outfit with frilly lace around the collar and sleeves.”

• “Her outfit that day might have been the worst one yet. She wore baggy pink overalls and a long-sleeved, satin shirt with a bright (and I mean bright) pattern of pink and green daisies all over it.”  She had also clipped a small (but bright) pink plastic barrette in her hair.”

• “Nice jeans and a dusty-blue sweater” but, she’d “spiked her hair and even put on pale, icy pink lipstick.”  I can’t really tell is the spikes are good or bad (according to Stacey), but this is what she wore after trying Stacey’s suggestion.

• “The outfit was the brightest pink yet, and the worst. Bright pink corduroy pants with a boxy, nubby, bright pink sweater. The pink plastic barrette was in her hair and she wasn’t wearing any makeup.”  I like how Stacey keeps calling them the worst one yet.

• “She was wearing a bright pink blouse with big puffed sleeves over a short black skirt.  The skirt was okay.  But the blouse!”

• What do you think would happen if I tried to send in the form for joining the BSC Fan Club that’s in the back of this book?

“Those kids were so smart”….BSC # 105: Stacey the Math Whiz

Memory Reaction

I didn’t read this one until now, so no memory is applicable this time.

Revisited Reaction

Stacey gets asked to join the school “Mathletes” team because she’s just so smart and the head of the math department thinks she can help them win the state championship. At first she thinks it’s too dorky, but the rest of the BSC convinces her to join. Because all 13-year-old girls are accepting of everything their friends do. At this point, there’s only about a month left in the season, so she just has to go to some informal practice sessions and the meets, which are mostly on the weekends. For some reason, doing math on the weekends is a positive thing and it helps convince Stacey to join. And because these girls can never just be average at anything, Stacey becomes the star of the team and helps them win meet after meet. Woohoo!

Meanwhile, her workaholic father loses his job, or was “down-sized” as he puts it. So, he decides to start spending all his spare time with Stacey in Stoneybrook. At first Stacey’s excited about this, but she starts to feel a bit pressured to keep saying yes to whatever he asks her to do. And I apparently have a twisted, dirty mind because that sentence seems so wrong to me. But anyway, when he calls saying he has tickets to a U4Me concert, Stacey’s psyched, until she realizes it’s the same night as the state championship meet (or, part 1 of a series of 3 meets.) She can’t decide what to do, but decides to go with “family” over the team. Then she feels guilty, especially after another star player gets sick and can’t compete. She’s worried about telling her dad she can’t go to the concert. When she does, he totally understands, because he’s an adult and understands what a commitment is. He also had no idea it was the same night as the meet, which makes me question whether he was planning to attend like he told Stacey. But, she somehow doesn’t think of this.

After they win the first meet in the series, the math team plans to celebrate at the Rosebud Café in town. Stacey calls the BSC and invites them there as well, but I’m not really sure why. But she doesn’t end up going, because her father insists on taking Stacey and her mom out for dinner elsewhere so he can tell them the got a new job. Stacey thinks her friends are mad at her for not showing up at the café, especially since they can’t make the out-of-town meet). So, she’s off her game a bit for the second round of the series. It also doesn’t help that her father has to miss it due to his new job. But after the meet she finds out no one really was mad at her and that gets settled pretty quickly. At the last meet the BSC shows up and her father makes it there just in time to see Stacey figure out the final problem and win the championship! Like there was ever any doubt?

There’s a subplot about how Stacey was supposed to be tutoring Lindsey DeWitt in math, but she no longer has time because of the Mathletes. Claudia fills in, because who better to tutor someone? Especially since no one else in the BSC could do it. She’s supposedly using Stacey’s “lesson plans,” but still. However, it turns out, Claud can’t understand Stacey’s technical explanations about subtraction any more than Lindsey, so she breaks it down a bit simpler, and makes up some silly song about it. Lindsey starts to get excited about math, and even decides to complete in the Stoneybrook Elementary School math fair. We also get to hear about other charges preparing for and attending the math fair. It’s about as exciting as it sounds.

High/Lowlights

• As if this blog wasn’t enough evidence of my dorkiness, I will admit that for every problem they listed in the book, I stopped and tried to solve it before reading how Stacey managed to blow everyone else out of the water with her answer. They were puzzle like, kind of like these.

• The coach of the math team holds a practice at her house. I can’t image a teacher getting away with that these days.

• The last problem in the state championships was probably supposed to be tough and dramatic, but I thought it was the easiest one of all the examples listed.

• Before the final meet, Stacey’s told that she‘s tied for top individual scorer in the state. I’m wondering how she can do this when she joined the team a month before the end of the season. She had originally been asked back in September and turned it down. Unless the points only started with the competitive season or something?

• I’m not sure why Stacey’s father’s reaction to losing his job is to buy a car, get a hotel room in a place a couple hours from where he lives, and buy a lobster dinner for his ex-wife, but that’s what he does.

• My high school actually had a math team, but it was nothing like this book. Basically we got out of class once every month or so and were bussed to a neighboring school where we took a test. Most people joined to get out of class or get extra credit. In BSC-land, the competition is much more game show like. Where kids show up and cheer for their school’s team.

• Lindsey refers to her father and Mrs Barrett/DeWitt as “Mom and Dad,” which I find interesting. Did those kids always do that after the marriage? I only remember the Barrett kids calling Mr. DeWitt, “Franklin.”

• The head of the math department at SMS tells Stacey that she can’t tell her what her standardized test scores are, but they were some of the highest she’s ever seen (or something). Which is hard to believe. Plus, wouldn’t Stacey know her test scores? The range if not the exact numbers? Parents get that information, at the very least.

• When they are figuring out who can fill in for Stacey tutoring, Mary Anne says she can’t because she’s still busy with Victoria. Is that the first time someone has gotten a (temporary) regular job for a new client that’s mentioned again in the next book?

• I get Stacey wanting to go to a concert more than a math competition, but it kind of annoys me that she’s all, “oh, my dad went to a lot of trouble to get the tickets. I should go to the concert.” Just admit that you want to go.

• Stacey’s mom tells her that she’s been to a U4Me concert before, but I’m pretty sure that was the concert where she got in trouble with the “bad girls.” Probably not the best memory.

• Nothing dates a book more than characters having to leave messages on answer machines, and hoping the other person calls in to check messages.
• When Mr. DeWitt hears Claudia’s tutoring Lindsay he doesn’t seem happy about it. Ha.

• When Mr. McGill tells Stacey’s mom about losing her job, she’s all, “how could they do that to you?” But, you know she’s actually thinking, “I’ll still get alimony, right?

• I don’t totally get why Stacey invited the BSC to the celebration with the math team. These girls are way too codependent on each other if they can’t celebrate a win with their teammates without including other BSC members.

• SMS has much better clubs then my middle school did. They always seem more like high school level clubs/teams, but I guess that makes more interesting books.

• Has anyone even heard of a Math Fair? It sounds awful, especially since it’s a non-competitive one. At least make it interesting like when the BSC got all competitive about helping kids in that beauty pageant.

• I realized that almost all the kids we see preparing/entering the math fair are girls, and I’m wondering if that’s Ann Martin’s way of sending a message about girls being good at math.

• Stacey claims she can draw a subway map from memory. Does anyone buy that? It seems a bit much for me.

• I just love the contrast with Stacey’s father losing his job to Mallory’s dad losing his. Granted it’s more of a problem when you have eight kids, but Mallory was treated like an outcast at school over the whole thing.

• Not only is Stacey’s father hanging around Stacey, he’s making dinner in her house and forcing poor Mrs. McGill to be around him. He even has the nerve to invite his girlfriend along on one of these visits. That just seems awkward for everyone.

• Stacey always annoys me when she complains about family drama and how hard her life is. I mean, she has to choose between a rock concert and being a state champion? Or she’s tired because her father insists on taking her to Broadway plays? What a hard life. So, she feels in the middle sometimes, some people have it a lot worse.