“Oh, go choke on an alfalfa sprout”……BSC # 60: Mary Anne’s Makeover

Memory Reaction

This is one I read so many times, that even though I probably have the book memorized, I probably don’t remember what I really thought of it as a kid. I always loved it though. It seemed like a slightly more “mature” plot, and was one of the books that made being thirteen seem like it was going to be like the greatest year of my life. Maybe if I had gotten to do it over and over again like Mary Anne, I would have eventually done it better.

Revisited Reaction

This is one of the books that highlights how bitchy 13-year-old girls are. In other words, it is one of the more realistic portrayals of teenagers. At least, it is when you are comparing it to books about 13-year-olds who like to throw parties for little kids. The drama starts when Mary Anne sees a picture of a short haircut that she likes and the rest of the BSC laughs in her face. But, in a rare moment of boldness, she decides she wants to surprise everyone with the cut anyway. She gets the cut, plus some make up and new clothes and everyone (minus the BSC) tells her she looks great.

Then, all her really awesome friends find out she dared to cut her hair without their permission and tell her they hate it. Not in so many words, but they tell her not to worry, it will grow back, and ask her what she was thinking getting it cut when they told her not to. Mary Anne doesn’t really want to deal with their bitchiness, so she starts hanging out with Logan a lot and even stops going to BSC meetings. THEN the girls get pissy with her for spending time with her boyfriend over people who are treating her like shit.

Throughout all this, we keep hearing about how there are all these rumors going around school that some random high school likes Mary Anne and wants to go to a dance with her. She thinks the BSC started them, and meanwhile the BSC believes them and thinks less of her, once again proving what horrible friends they are. The rumors turn out to have been started by Sabrina Bouvier, who actually ends up at the dance with the guy. I think this is all in there because Mary Anne said early on Sabrina was being nicer to her that Dawn and Kristy, so when she finds out Sabrina was spreading rumors about her, it was to show how great the BSC is. Even though they were just as bitchy. But anyway, the girls all make up at the end, although Mary Anne is the one who has to basically grovel for their forgiveness. She actually apologizes to them for getting her hair cut.

The lame subplot is about how Carolyn Arnold is trying to build a time machine and is taking money from kids to send them on trips. But she ends up giving them the money back and everyone has fun pretending, so it is all good. And they get in some good Back to the Future references, so those chapters aren’t totally a waste. Actually, who am I kidding? I love any time travel stories, even pretend time travel ones in the BSC.

High/Lowlights

• This doesn’t seem like a (pre-makeover) Mary Anne outfit: “teal-colored stirrup pants and a bulky ski sweater with a colorful snowflake print, over a pink turtleneck.” It does, however, sound like something I would have worn in fifth or sixth grade. Man, that is embarrassing to admit.

• Claudia apparently can look good in weird combinations, like “A slouch hat, a sequenced vest, an oversized button-down shirt, stirrup pants, and lace up boots.”

• The dress Mary Anne wears to the dance: “A fiery red, off-the-shoulder crepe dress, with shirred sleeves, a fitted bodice, and a skirt that flared to mid-calf.” Would you think less of me if I said I wanted that dress?

• Other post makeover clothes include: “An oversized, indigo cable-knit sweater; and a pair of floral print Lycra leggings with a French terry top.”

• Dawn’s first words when she sees Mary Anne’s hair (a good ten minutes after Sharon tells her it looks good), “I can’t believe you got your hair cut.” Then she tells Logan about it after Mary Anne specifically says she wants to surprise him. Bitch.

• Seriously, who tells someone who just got a haircut, “well, it will grow out” unless that person doesn’t like it themselves. Unless, it just looks so hideous that you have to tell them. And since Cokie Mason tells Mary Anne her hair looks “fantastic,” I think we have to believe it does.

• Ha. When Claudia writes in the club notebook after sitting for Carolyn, she says, “I don’t understand time travel. Can someone explain it for me in easy terms?” Idiot.

• Mary Anne has a mean streak. She finally confronts Dawn, who tells her she has a boy hair cut and clown makeup. So Mary Anne tells her to “go choke on an alfalfa sprout.”

• Dawn’s dress for the dance: “It was made of black velvet, with a sheet bodice trimmed with beading and lace, and a flared, above knees skirt.”

• Dawn goes to the dance with Pete Black. So, now he has dated Claudia, Stacey, and Dawn? Am I missing anyone?

• The boys all wear tuxes to the dance. In 8^th grade? Really? I guess it is possible they have a formal, but you would think that would be at the end of the year or around the holidays (that was when my school had our biggest dances). This book takes place in January.

• There is this weird thing at the end, where Mary Anne is describing what people are wearing to the dance and she starts using last names. Like, “Kristy Thomas took off her heels,” and “Claudia Kishi was wearing a lame outfit,” and “Stacey McGill had a slinky gown.” What other Kristy, Claudia, and Stacey would she be talking about?

• Logan is lame. If he could use a time machine, he would go back to the first time he saw Mary Anne because “he liked that feeling.” Okay, that is sweet, but what thirteen-year-old boy says that?

• Dawn says one of the reasons she was upset about the haircut, is Mary Anne went to the mall with her dad, and Dawn misses her dad. And Mary Anne apologizes. It is not her problem if Dawn misses her dad, SHE shouldn’t not spend time with her own father because of how Dawn feels.

• After weeks of not talking, Kristy and Dawn finally tell Mary Anne they like her hair. Great friends. I can see why Mary Anne was so eager to make up with them.

"Wishes do come true".......BSC #48: Jessi's Wish

Memory Reaction

This is another book where Jessi gets a “special issue” to deal with. This time, it is a little girl with cancer, which about as depressing as the BSC ever gets. Actually, I remember the girl coming back in a later book, and really liking her then. I probably just liked the character, because even when I was eight my tolerance for the “special issues” books was not really high.

Revisited Reaction

So, Becca is involved with some club at school where they do a bunch of volunteer work. One of the advisors is taking a leave of absence and Jessi volunteers to help out in her place. Apparently, an 11-year-old is fully qualified to take the place of a teacher advisor. She does baby-sit, you know. I also don’t know how Jessi has time to do this when she is always talking about how busy she is with ballet, but I guess we are not supposed to think about that.

Since the BSC is too much of a clique to do anything alone, Jessi gets the rest of the girls to agree to all do volunteer work for a month instead/in addition to sitting. They are not really clear on that part. Of course everyone thinks that is great and claims they are going to keep volunteering but none of it is ever mentioned again.

But the real story is that while helping out at the club, Jessi meets a fourth grader Danielle, who is friends with Becca and has leukemia. She is back at school after being in the hospital for months, and pretty much is portrayed as a cliché cancer patient: she wears a shirt that says bald is beautiful, she has a wish to graduate elementary school, she is super-optimistic about life despite having cancer and living in the hospital. Danielle bonds a lot with Jessi, who helps her to go to Disney World by contacting a Make-a-Wish-Foundation rip-off (I guess they couldn’t use the name). But, at the end she ends up back in the hospital, so no miracles or happy endings this time. Which, is kind of sad, but realistic.

High/lowlights

• What kind of 11-year-old complains about not having to take care of their siblings as much (because of Aunt Cecilia)?

• Jessi wants to help out the Kids Club, which is cool. But why make it a BSC project? Why do they all have to volunteer? I HATE when they do that. I guess it is somewhat realistic, but I don’t think all teenagers are that bad about it. And it is good that they are volunteering, it is just lame that they do everything in packs.

• Don’t all teachers get paid to help with clubs and stuff? The club Becca is in makes a point of saying how the teacher advisor's are volunteers. I know several teachers, and when they are teacher advisor's they get extra money. It is often WHY they do it. That is not to say there could not be exceptions, but still.

• Kristy is kind of annoying. She goes on about how there are so many different things she could have done to volunteer, because of how talented she is.

• Here is where the other girls volunteered –

• Kristy: Some after-school center for kids whose parents work. Claudia: Helping out at an art class. Karen was in the class, so don’t think she got off easy. Stacey: volunteering at a diabetes clinic for kids. Mary Anne: Helping a family who have a brain damaged little boy. Dawn: Helping at a center for kids who are physically disabled. Mallory: Working at some playground where kids can go after school.
  

• I find it amazing that there are all these places where kids can go after school when their parents work. (see: Kristy and Mallory). Isn’t that what the BSC is for?

• Shouldn’t Charlotte be a year a head of Becca? They are the same age and Charlotte skipped a year in school. Hence, not the same grade.

• Jessi hears about kids with cerebral palsy at the foundation Dawn is volunteering at, and starts mentally comparing who is more unfortunate….them or the girl with cancer. Yeah, that is a fair comparison.

• Okay, so this book is from 1991. Keep this in mind when you read this next part. Kristy talks to a fourth grade boy asking how to spell “Leonardo” and “Donatello.” She is amazed at what he could possibly be working on where he needs to know how to spell such advanced words. She finally asks him if she if he is writing about famous artists, and (as I am sure you can guess), the kid tells her it is a story about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Because that is what fourth grade boys were into back then. Kristy has a little brother, she should know that.

• Danielle writes a bunch of postcards from her three day trip to Disney World….how does she write one while the plane is landing. Don’t they make you put up those tray tables? And aren’t planes kind of shaky while landing? And I get that she is sending postcards to be nice, but isn’t she going to beat them all home?
  

• Jessi calls the family to find out about Danielle being back in the hospital and only talks to her six-year-old brother. That is informative.

• Four cents from this book went to the real Make a wish foundation. Apparently that raised enough money to send a real kid to Disney World. At least something good came out of this book.
  

“And it looks like the work of the Phantom Caller”…. BSC # 2: Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls

Memory Reaction

This was one of a few books I didn’t own, so didn’t reread it six-thousand times. I do have a vivid memory of it though. Not of reading it, but of how in fourth grade this book was on a shelf in the back of my classroom at school that we could read whenever we finished all our other work early. That happened to me a lot, and there were no other BSC books there, so I picked it out a lot (well, whenever the other girls in my class didn’t beat me to it). However, I don’t think I ever read it after that year. So, I remember it sitting on the shelf more than the actual plot.

Revisited Reaction

The girls hear about some “Phantom Phone Caller” who calls houses to find out if anyone is home and then breaks in. He is hitting some houses in a town a few miles away from Stoneybrook. Since it is a really early book, they haven’t become master detectives yet and act like the little girls they really are, and just get scared. At one point, Mary Anne’s father even tells her she can’t baby sit until the guy is caught. So, they come up with all sorts of dumb plans to protect themselves – inventing a code in case they need to call the police, making burglar alarms out of pots and pans, and coming up with a system where they bring the club record book to school so they can memorize where everyone is sitting.

Claudia starts to get some creepy phone calls while she is baby-sitting. This basically consists of the phone ringing and then no one being there when she answers. The same thing happens to Kristy. This IS the Phantom Callers M.O., so the calls actually could be classified as creepy – although the caller’s whole point in making the calls is that he only robs houses where no one is home. So, as long as they answer and prove someone as home they should not have to worry too much. Stacey and Mary Anne (before she stops being able to sit) don’t get phone calls, but still creep themselves out while sitting.

It all comes to a head when Kristy and Claudia are at a joint job for the Newtons. They hear someone outside and Claudia calls the police. It turns out it is Alan Gray. He had been stealing the club notebook and calling her/spying on her because he wanted to ask her to the Halloween dance at school. Surprisingly, Kristy says yes, despite complaining about Alan being annoying for the whole book. Mostly because she is so surprised he likes her. And I guess I do remember her and Alan going to some dances early on before Bart showed up.

No one thinks to ask about the phone calls Claudia had been getting, but a couple days later, Trevor, the boy of the moment that Claud likes, calls and tells her that he had been doing the same thing as Alan. Then he asks her to the dance and she is thrilled. Meanwhile, the real phantom caller is caught a few days later.

High/Lowlights

• “Today, for instance, I’m wearing purple pants that stop just below the knees and are held up with suspenders, white tights with clocks on them, a purple plaid shirt with a matching hat, my high-top sneakers, and lobster earrings. Clothes like that are my trademark.” I wouldn’t brag about that being your trademark, sweetie.

• This early, Claudia says that clients still call them all individually. Wow, later on, that would be cause for a Kristy to put a hit on someone.

• Kristy and Mary Anne wear kilts and plain blouses? Okay….

• Would the end of fifth grade be that long ago, if they are at the beginning of seventh grade now?

• The girls are worried that if the Phantom Caller broke in to a house they were sitting at, he would be listening on an extension when they called the police, so they come up with a code where they call another BSCer and ask about hair ribbons, and then THAT girl calls the cops. But none of them can remember it. It is hysterical, because it is not that hard. The entire code is:“Have you seen my red ribbon?”

• Why would anyone give Karen a book called “The Witch Next Door”? That is just encouraging her to be annoying.

• Stacey is baby-sitting Charlotte (who is seven at this point) and suggests watching MTV. MTV? With a seven-year-old? She also says they’ll be able to hear music on it. Remember when that was true?

• I guess I don’t need to worry about Stacey corrupting Charlotte. The Johanssen’s don’t have a cable box yet, so they can’t watch MTV.

• Mary Anne comes up with a bunch of crazy burglar alarms that you would see on Home Alone when she is sitting for David Michael. Then the dog sets them off. The Kristy and her family come home and set one off and laugh at her. Even Kristy laughs at her, when you know Kristy has been just as scared as Mary Anne about the Phantom Caller. Nice friend.

• Janine admits she hides candy all over her room too. That seems….out of character.

• Claudia is so scared when she is sitting that she tries to convince Nina Marshall to stay up late to keep her company. This poor three-year-old is like, “no, it is my bedtime.” Great baby-sitter.

• I feel like this is opposite land. Stacey and Claud wear jeans and sweaters to a Halloween dance and Kristy wears a plaid jumper and red turtleneck. They couldn’t talk her into anything else. Seriously, I feel like I got a joke copy or something.

• Kristy is always talking about how annoying Alan is (in this book and in later ones). Well, they basically reveal Alan teases her because he likes her (as though that is not obvious). Kristy seems to forget that in later books, but doesn’t she wonder if he annoys her so much because she essentially dumps him when she meets Bart?

• They talk about how successful the BSC is becoming because they have each earned about fifteen dollars in the past couple weeks. How much do they charge that they earn that little money?

“I thought it would be so easy to find the car and help the police”…….BSC Mystery # 7 : Dawn and the Disappearing Dogs

Memory Reaction

I picked this book out of the library because I think it is the first one where the girls meet that lame cop who they become friends with. The one who actually takes their advice all the time in later books. I don’t have any idea what they do to gain his respect in it though.

Revisited Reaction

Dawn starts this one off by telling us how she doesn’t like animals and doesn’t get why Mary Anne and Kristy spend so much time with their pets. Then she gets a job pet-sitting for the Mancusi’s – these freaks who have no kids, but about twenty different animals – while they are out of town. One of their dogs, Cheryl, disappears while she is tied up outside. At first, everyone kind of assumes that she just got loose, but then the BSC reads that there are a lot of missing dogs in town and think there is a dog-knapper. A few days later Shannon (Kristy’s dog, not the person) disappears as well.

Dawn remembers that she saw a green car driving slowly near the Mancusi’s house, so the BSC rides around on their bikes until they see the car. Then they go to the police station with the license plate number and the cops laugh at them. It is great; they totally make fun of them. But one cop does take the plate number and says he’ll run the plate. When Dawn goes back a few days later, he laughs at her again, and tells her it belongs to some rich guy in town. The BSC still think he is involved though, because Mary Anne has seen the guy at some new pet store that she and Dawn think is “weird.”

Meanwhile, Kristy and Bart are putting together some all-star “Krashers” team to play a softball team a few towns over. Of course, the whole BSC goes. While there, Dawn just happens to see Cheryl with some woman, so she calls the cops. They show up, the woman with Cheryl says she just bought her at the new pet store. So, the cops go to the store and figure out that the pet store is stealing dogs to sell to customers. The rich guy is involved because he is losing money in the real estate market, and stealing dogs is the best way to make up for that. Somehow, Dawn gets all the credit, even though she just got lucky and happened to spot the dog. But everyone gets their dogs back and the BSC starts earning their “street cred” with the Stoneybrook PD.”

High/Lowlights

• Who did the Bashers play before Kristy started her team? We only ever hear about them playing each other. When they play this new team Bart finds, they make it an all-star combined team (hence, the “Krashers” name).

• No offense to anyone with a lot of pets, but anyone who owns over say, twenty animals is just ridiculous. Three dogs, five cats, a room full of bird cages, a snake, an iguana, guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits, and tropical fish? All in one house? I wonder what they are compensating for?

• How are Claud’s school clothes any different than her regular ones? “A blue minidress with white polka dots, white leggings, and earrings that looked like white polka dots.”

• I think tofu cury sounds pretty good….Mary Anne thinks it smells like the garbage disposal backed up.

• I seriously love the scene when Dawn tries to give her info to the cops. She made the BSC write “reports” of when they were looking for the green car. So when the cops laugh her off she gets all upset, and tells them she has been working hard trying to give them clues and tries to hand them the reports. The cops are just like, “yeah, we don’t need more paperwork.”

• The cop only agrees to take the plate number from Dawn to get her to shut up. Then Dawn believes him when he says he’ll let her know what he finds out.

• David Michael is upset about Shannon, so he holds Kristy’s hand, “like a much younger kid.” How much younger than seven can you get?

• Oh, this is awesome. David Michael is worried that they put their phone number wrong on the “Shannon is missing” flier, and that whoever finds her won’t be able to call. Kristy tells him that they were very careful, but David Michael picks up a flier and points out all Claud’s spelling mistakes. Ha!

• Kristy is late for a meeting because Shannon disappears, and Dawn keeps thinking about how she has to step up and start the meeting because it is her job to take over as alternate officer. But shouldn’t Claud at least get to take over for Kristy? Isn’t that what a Vice President does?

• Mary Anne goes on for over a page about how weird it is for a pet store to be closed on a Saturday, so you know it is going to be an important clue.

• Dawn freaks out because her mom went out on a Saturday….when she just knew the cops were trying to call her and tell her she had solved the case. I am sure the cops are going to be calling teenagers. Besides, wouldn’t they have answering machines?

• Yes, Kristy. As long as you are in pairs, you will absolutely be safe solving a mystery. Nothing bad could ever happen as long as you have another 13-year-old girl around to protect you.

• When they go to the softball game in the other town, there are hot dog vendors, pretzel vendors, etc. Isn’t this supposed to be on the level of a Krusher/Basher game? Where are they getting the money? All the Krusher/Bashers ever have is bake sale type stuff.

• The “Krashers” won the game. I am shocked.

• The dog theft thing is a really lame crime ring. They have a pet store as a front. Someone comes in and asks for say…a great dane and they go out and steal a great dane, then sell it for a couple hundred dollars. Using the car of the richest guy in town, no less. Then apparently that makes them so much money they can make back money for this rich guy AND keep up a shell of a store without even have to keep their store open on weekends (which you would think sends up major red flags with regular employees and customers).

• So, Dawn is more of an animal lover at the end. Lame.

The house had a hold on us……BSC # 35: Stacey and the Mystery of Stoneybrook

Memory Reaction

The only thing I really can remember about this book is the end. But I don’t think that is fair to say, because I only “remember” it because someone mentioned it in my post about the Shadow Lake Super Special.

I do know it was this book where the title changed. In some early book the “coming soon” list had #35 listed as “Stacey and the New Kids on the Block,” and then that book never showed up. So, I was always really confused because, not only did the title change, but there is no way the plot of this book could have been called “New Kids on the Block.” I once found this explanation,
(Scroll to #35), but I don’t know how accurate it is.

Revisited Reaction

Let’s see. Charlotte Johanssen is staying with Stacey for a week while her parents are out of town. This somehow constitutes a sitting job, even though Mrs. McGill is clearly doing a lot of the “sitting.” But whatever.

There is some old house in town being torn down and Stacey and Charlotte walk by it. They see things that are “weird” to the BSC, but clearly have reasonable explanations in the context of a house that construction workers are preparing to tear down: some noises coming from inside, flies by the door, flames by a window, etc. But these girls are never reasonable, and they decide this is a “mystery.” Then Kristy finds an old map and thinks the house (and half of Stoneybrook) was built on a graveyard?!? You would think they would know if their town was built on a graveyard. Those stories tend to get around. Regardless, the discovery reminds everyone else in the BSC of weird things that happened to them by the house. Most of these weird things are dreams, but that does not seem to matter

Stacey and Charlotte start to have nightmares about the house too, and they end up tracking down the guy who used to own it in a nursing home. He tells them a bunch of ghost stories that even the BSC is smart enough not to believe. I mean, one of the ghosts is actually called “old rubbernose.” They are really lame, but the old guy likes telling them, so they are nice and listen.

Stacey keeps thinking things are weird until the day the house is supposed to get torn down. When it does, nothing happens. But Sam and Charlie Thomas talk to some construction workers and explain away all the not-at-all-weird stuff that happened. Oh, and the old guy dies, but not before writing a letter admitting to Stacey he made all the stories up, but that he had a lot of fun talking to her and her friends.

High/Lowlights

• Let’s start with a Stacey outfit: “A white jumpsuit, layered over a blue tank top. I had on white push down socks with blue hearts all over them, a wide blue patent leather belt, a wild necklace made of all kinds of sea creatures in a rainbow of colors.”

• Later in the book, Stacey actually wears the same jumpsuit with a pink shirt and red socks. She knows that the red and pink is a mistake. I do like when they wear repeat clothing though, because, it is pretty realistic. No 13-year-old has 365 unique outfits.

• When she is in New York, Stacey is tempted to ask her dad to buy her a “purple suede jacket cropped short at the waist and covered with fringe up the arms and back.” Um, why? Although, I guess I can actually see that being in style in the eighties.

• Stacey puts Raggedy Ann sheets on the bed when Charlotte comes to stay with her….I totally remember that part. And I kind of love how Ms. Sophistication still has her little kid sheets, even though she has moved three times since she turned eleven and would have several chances to clean out kiddie stuff like that if she wanted.

• Stacey teachers Charlotte to play War (the card game) and then gets bored every time she has to play it. Serves her right, it is like if you teach a five year old shadow, then get annoyed when they keep playing it with you.

• 13-year-olds seeing the Amityville Horror?

• After this book, they never really mention the thing about the town being built on a graveyard. Even if the house was on “the most sacred spot,” shouldn’t they be concerned about more than one house?

• Stacey talks about seeing Gary Rockman, some fictional movie star. What happened to Cam Geary?

• Dr. Dellenkamp. Oooh, continuity. I only remember that cause I JUST read about her in Dawn’s Wicked Step-sister. I am not THAT obsessed with remembering these details.
  

• Stacey is embarrassed because when she takes Charlotte to the doctor she picks up an issue of Highlights (remember, that magazine?) and some hot guy who is there with his little brother sees her). They always have to work in the boy crazy angle, don’t they?

• This is actually kind of awesome. Charlotte doesn’t want to take her medicine, so Stacey pulls out her diabetes needles and is all, “listen brat. This is what I have to do to myself every day. So, why don’t you stop wining about a little penicillin?” Okay, she says it nicer. But it is a good technique.

• I guarantee you if Laine became a detective she would not solve the case of “does Elvis’s ghost haunt the Hard Rock Café. I picture Laine more like Veronica Mars meets Gossip Girl.

• Claudia uses library books to find the name of the old owner of the house, but can’t think to look in the yellow pages to see if he still lives in town.

• More Stacey outfits: “I had worn a pink polka-dotted short skirt with suspender straps and had worn it with an oversized white T-shirt. I had on my pink high-top sneakers folded down to show their striped lining. I’d also worn these great earnings Claud had given me for my last birthday. They had these little pink plastic hearts dangling down from one bigger hear. ….I do like the color pink”

• The Pikes put on a Wizard of Oz play and make Dawn play the Wicked Witch. Maybe those kids do have brains.

• When the house is destroyed, Stacey hallucinates it is in flames and sees the old guy from the nursing home in there. Then she has a feeling that she has to go see him, and when he gets there, he has died in his sleep. I am not sure if they are trying to say she was having some kind of psychic vision or what. It is odd.

• When the Johanssen’s come home Char keeps talking about the mystery and Stacey is all…don’t worry all in good fun, even though Charlotte had been having nightmares the whole time. So the Johansens are yet another family added to the list of people whose children have horrible experiences with the BSC and still keep calling.

I was about going to leave Stoneybrooke forever.....BSC # 126: The All-New Mallory Pike

Memory Reaction

I never read this book when I was a kid, but I do remember seeing it in the store a while after I stopped reading the BSC. I think I even flipped through it to see if Mal really went to boarding school or if she went back to Stoneybrook in the end.

Revisited Reaction

This is all about Mal and her new boarding school. I guess all the details about her applying and deciding to go were dealt with in earlier books, because this book starts two days before Mallory leaves town. The place seems to be right up Mal’s alley – it is all girls and it has an emphasis on writing and the arts. She has a full scholarship, so we don’t have to ask how a family with eight kids could afford this.

Anyway, she gets to the school makes friends pretty easily, loves her new classes, thinks it is great, etc. The only problem is she has a crappy roommate, Alexis, and makes the problem worse by being passive-aggressive and not standing up for herself. But since Alexis is an actual psycho and not just a bitch, she does some physical damage to the room and the dean let Mallory switch to a new roommate. And with that Mal rides off into the sunset, never to be heard from again, I guess.

Meanwhile, at home there is tons of conflict at the Pike house because they all miss Mal so much. Just kidding! Obviously they don’t miss Mal. The conflict is that Mal going away leaves Vanessa in her own room. Vanessa loves this, but the other kids think it is not fair. Mr. and Mrs. Pike actively choose not to deal with it (seriously, they actually SAY they are not dealing with it), but the BSC steps in and come up with a solution. Byron and Nicky get one room, Jordan and Adam get another, and the remaining girls in a (presumably larger) third room.

High/Lowlights

• So, after her last BSC meeting, Mal is upset that everyone just casually says good-bye and runs out. But, they were just messing with her, they were going to set up her surprise party.

• Mal is allowed one trunk and one suitcase for ALL her stuff. She will be there a good four months, that doesn’t seem like much space. You are allowed as much stuff as you can cram into a dorm room in college.

• There is a chapter early on where the BSC reminisce about a bunch of the old Mallory books, like when she first joined or when she helped with some Arnold twins issue. It is all stuff that really happens, which means the ghostwriters must have done some actual research. Good for them.

• Mallory has her own e-mail address at school. It seems so wrong for the BSC to use e-mail.

• Even worse, instead of handwritten postcards/notebook entries at the beginning of each chapter, there are typed e-mails.

• Claire thinks that her parents are moving to Massachusetts with Mal. When she finds out they are coming home, she stops caring that Mal won’t be. Ha!

• Mallory is starting school in the middle of the year, so when she gets there her roommate already has her stuff everywhere. Instead of asking Alexis to move it, Mal just sets her stuff up in the tiny areas that are left over. THEN gets all upset about not having enough space.

• Alexis just starts making “room rules” like they will sleep with the window open, they won’t wear shoes in the room, and they will only study at certain times. Again, Mallory just says okay, than bitches about it later. Speak up, girl! And be grateful that you are only in sixth grade and don’t have to worry about getting “sexed out” of a room.

• Mallory still sucks at gym.

• Since Mallory hates Alexis, she starts avoiding her room whenever possible. Then doesn’t understand why Alexis is offended by her behavior.

• Mallory is really the only BSC member in this book, so all the outfits are her new boarding school friends/roommate. For instance, Alexis wears “her blonde hair was cut short and spiked with hair gel…she wore a black sweater, a shirt black skirt, and high-tops.”

• Alexis wants to lend Mallory a lime green turtleneck to wear instead of a navy blue sweater. Even Mal knows she is being called boring. But, I would think Mal would also be thrilled to wear something “cool” now that her parents aren’t watching what she puts on every day.

• Mallory’s new friend Sarah is an actress and dresses in “flowing purple clothes – a long skirt and a silky shirt that seemed to shimmer when she moved.”

• Mal also thinks Alexis is cool because she has a purple comforter. What is with the color purple symbolizing cool? The Sweet-Valley Twins did that too (the middle school version).

• All the buildings at Mal’s new school are names after famous females – Sojourner Truth, Amelia Earhart, Marie Curie. I actually think that is kind of cool.

• This school is pretty progressive, the classes are small, things are taught interdisciplinary-style, the teachers let students call them by their first names, etc. Again, I think it would have been pretty cool to go to a school like that.

• Okay, so even though Mal makes the roommate problem worse, Alexis is quite bitchy. She reads Mallory’s journal and then walks around quoting it.

• Alexis had been through two roommates before Mal showed up at the school in January. The teachers/heads knew she was a bitch to live with but stuck Mal with her anyway because she had a big family and they thought she could deal with it better than anyone else. I would be pissed if I knew the school had done that, but Mal just takes it.

• Mal has to do community service as a student of the school, and guess what she gets assigned? Yup, helping in the children’s room at the town public library.

• Hmmm, if Claudia is sending an e-mail to Mallory she has no excuse for spelling errors. It is called spell check. They even had it in the early nineties.

• Alexis gets mad and draws mustaches and devils horns on all of Mal’s pictures of the BSC. I kind of want to see that.

• This book really had no plot.

• I guess it is also the last we hear of Mal, which sucks for her. Even Dawn got books/appearances after she left for California.

I can’t imagine why I didn’t see these problems before they got married….BSC #31: Dawn’s Wicked Stepsister

Memory Reaction

Is it wrong that the first thing I remember is a glaring error in this book? The previous one was the lead up to the Dawn’s Mom/Mary Anne’s Dad wedding and it was from Mary Anne’s perspective. In that one, Dawn gave Mary Anne a “now we are sisters gift.” And I am sure in this one, Dawn does again, saying she does it because Mary Anne did it before the wedding. But she totally DIDN’T. I think the ghostwriters just got mixed up because they switched who the “I” was.

Actually, this book was continued from #30 with a cliffhanger and everything. The first one ended in the middle of the wedding. I remember how upset I was when #30 ended and did not have a conclusion. It is kind of like how I react now when some TV show airs a cliffhanger season finale and I sit on my couch screaming, what do you MEAN Vaughn’s married/Jack’s flashback is really a flashforward/Locke’s in the coffin?

Revisited Reaction

So, the cliffhanger I was remembering was that Dawn’s mom (I am just going to call her Sharon from now on) threw her bouquet and Mary Anne and Dawn are in front of everyone trying to catch it. Mary Anne does, and Dawn is pissed. She pretty much stays pissed for the rest of the book, but not just about the stupid wedding bouquet. Mary Anne and Richard move into Dawn’s house and things get a little awkward because they are all used to having different lifestyles: Richard is a neat freak, Sharon is a slob, Mary Anne and Richard eat meat, Dawn and Sharon don’t. Etc, etc, etc. Plus, Mary Anne and Dawn are fighting a lot because they are sharing a room – by choice, not because there is a lack of space. But by the end, they all talk things through and agree to start trying harder to compromise. Except Dawn who uses the secret passage to scare the crap out of Mary Anne and get her to move out of her room. Cause she is a passive aggressive bitch who does things like that. You know five years later Dawn is going to get drunk at a party and accidentally tell Mary Anne what happened, and they’ll have a huge fight. Too bad we won’t get to see that.

Also, because the Pikes aren’t pathetic enough, the subplot is the “Pike Plague.” Everyone gets sick: Mallory gets the chicken pox, the triplets get pneumonia, Vanessa sprains her ankle, Nicky breaks his finger, and Margo and Claire get bronchitis. To top it off, Mrs. Pike hurts her playing tennis and Mr. Pike burnt his hand trying to cook for his sick family.

High/Lowlights

• The wedding is small, but the BSC does get to come. I think it is weird Sharon and Richard wouldn’t invite any of their parents. Maybe not all of them, but wasn’t Richard close with Mrs. Thomas when Mary Anne was growing up? She helped him out a lot with Mary Anne, right? Also, she married a millionaire, so if you were on the fence about inviting someone, and you know you’ll get a good gift….just kidding. But seriously. I call that a snub.

• The night of the wedding, Richard and Sharon “honeymoon” in a hotel and just let Dawn and Mary Anne stay alone in Mary Anne’s house. Two 13-year-olds. By themselves. Did anyone’s parent’s let them do that when they were kids? Mine sure as hell didn’t.

• No, Dawn, there is no rule that a girl has to catch her mother’s wedding bouquet. Think about what you are saying.

• The BSC is NOT a clique who has to dress alike, think alike, and have boyfriends all the time? Just one that thinks alike and is bitchy to each other when someone talks to anyone else, I guess.

• “Claudia wears funky stuff like pink sparkly high-topped sneakers, or short flared skirts, over skin-tight leggings or wild jewelry that she’s made herself.” BTW, there are many unneeded adjectives in that sentence.

• Flying to CA at night doesn’t make sense….if you land at nine, you won’t get home for a couple hours no matter how close to the airport you live. So a ten-year-old would not get a good night sleep at all.

• Damn, do not piss off Mary Anne. At the BSC meeting, she tells Dawn (who is wearing Mary Anne’s clothes) that they look tight on her.

• Why would Richard make bacon every morning for Sharon? It is really passive aggressive. And why would he make breakfast at 7:00, when she doesn’t wake up until 10:00 on Saturday. And what kind of newlyweds are they anyway?

• Dawn doesn’t want to go to a dance without a date. Because she is too much of an individual to go to a school dance alone, I guess.

• Claudia wears a short pink dress, globe earrings, and a necklace made of candy to the dance. That is an odd combo.

• This book has the first mention of Carol (I think), Dawn’s dad’s girlfriend. Only here she doesn’t want to get married and have to take care of a family.

• Anyone who sits for the Pikes has to wear a surgical mask because of all the germs. That is so weird.

• Did anyone ever really stay in bed all the time when they were sick? Like actually not be allowed to get up for anything and have all their meals taken to them on a tray?
• The Pikes don’t want anyone in the BSC getting sick, so they decide Vanessa has to bring drinks or whatever to the other kids when there are sitters around. It is really mean of them.

• Yeah, Stacey. You are the baby sitter, so you should be the one to talk to a doctor about Vanessa’s sprained ankle. That makes perfect sense.

• Speaking of a sprained ankle, since when is that an excuse to stay home from school? When I sprained mine, I missed one day of school. And that was my parents being nice and letting me stay home, I didn’t actually need to be home.

• Mary Anne and Dawn do their homework in their bedroom, sitting at their desk. I never studied like that. The only time I ever sat at a desk to do homework was when I needed a computer.

• Mallory has chicken pox scars in unmentionable places. Jessi knows where they are. …..Just saying.

• Who thinks Mr. Pike burned his hand on purpose? His wife had hurt her knee and his eight kids were sick. He burns the hand and then is allowed to hand all responsibilities over to the BSC.

• Also, the Pikes need a lot of sitters in this book considering how sick their kids are. If I had eight kids and five of them were sick, I think I might…..I don’t know….cancel my plans and take care of them myself?

• Dawn’s “haunting” is really mean. It is also stupid. Because her cover story for not being home is that she is sitting at the Pikes. But what would she have done if Mary Anne got creeped out and tried calling her at the Pikes?