|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
my rating |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0590456962
| 9780590456968
| 0590456962
| 3.77
| 461
| Aug 1993
| Jan 01, 1993
|
it was ok
|
the babysitters read in the paper that some counterfeiters may be in the area. they make a note of it & move on. stacey has a crush on a new boy in sc
the babysitters read in the paper that some counterfeiters may be in the area. they make a note of it & move on. stacey has a crush on a new boy in school named terry hoyt. he has beautiful hazel eyes & stacey thinks he might have a crush on her too. he also has a twin sister named tasha & a little brother named georgie. the babysitters are discussing the hoyt family when mrs. hoyt happens to call, looking for a sitter for georgie. stacey wants the job so she can check out the hoyts' crib, but kristy gets it. stacey is sitting for charlotte johanssen & they decide to go downtown & visit bellair's. stacey sees a nice headband she likes & she buys it, receiving $10 in change. she & the clerk joke about the counterfeiters & the clerk rolls her eyes & says people are making too big a fuss about it. stacey & charlotte continue on to a jewlery store, where stacey tries to buy a pair of earrings. she hands over then $10 she just got at bellair's, & the clerk informs her that it's a counterfeit bill & she'll have to call the police. not because she thinks stacey is the counterfeiter, but to report the bill. the police come & they want to question the jewelry clerk, the bellair's clerk, & stacey. charlotte grates on my nerves as she panics over stacey being arrested. shut the fuck up, charlotte. stacey is pretty embarrassed about having unknowingly passed a counterfeit bill. especially because the bill turns up to be a motherfucking color copy of a ten-dollar bill. hello? there is a huge difference between the way money feels & the way laser jet printer paper paper feels. get a grip, people. stacey decides she needs to solve the counterfeiting case in order to "clear her name". even though her name is already clear. a bunch of dumbass shit happens. the babysitters research counterfeiting methods. they stake out local copy machines. for a while, stacey thinks mr. fiske, her english teacher, may be the culprit. the babysitters even try to catch him in the act of photocopying a few extra bucks on the middle school copy machine, but he is of course just a ludicrous red herring. when kristy sits for the hoyts, she finds a middle school ID card with what looks like tasha's face on it, but the name is different. & when looking for a mop to clean up a spill, she almost opens a closet door that causes georgie to panic. kristy begins to wonder if the hoyts are the counterfeiters. because, you know, it's usually a family affair, involving seven-year-olds, right? stacey is horrified. she thinks terry is too cute to be a counterfeiter. oh, also, terry & stacey have been dating a little. because the only times stacey likes a dude that doesn't like her back is when the dude in question is too old for her according to the laws of the state of connecticut. one day, stacey, charlotte, & someone else (mary anne, maybe) are meandering around downtown when some dude carrying a big sack of something goes running past them in a parking lot. they hide behind a car & notice that the dude has a little tattoo on his ear...just like a dude who claudia observed asking at a shop about printer cartridges. after the dude splits, stacey peeks into the bag & discovers that it's full of counterfeit money. really? is the bag also printed with a comically oversized dollar sign? why the fuck did the dude just drop this bag of money in parking lot? did he not notice that he dropped it? was he being chased? what the fuck? it makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. but they decide he has to come back for it (why? he dropped it--maybe it's a drop spot & he has a colleague they will not recognize coming back for it). stacey calls claudia & asks her to bring a camera. then she calls terry & he joins the stake-out. sure enough, ear tattoo dude comes back & stacey snaps some photos of him picking up the bag. she says that she & terry will get the photos developed & take them to the cops. but then terry takes her aside & suggests that she go straight to his father with the photos. she's like, "oh shit, the hoyts ARE the counterfeiters!" but actually, terry explains that his real name is david hawthorne & his father is an undercover federal agent who travels--with his family--all over the country busting up crime rings of various types. they came to stoneybrook specifically to catch the counterfeiters. & the whole family has to assume new identities whenever they move...because that is a really sensible & smart way to raise well-adjusted children. stacey brings her photos to mr. hoyt, who uses them to somehow nab the counterfeiters in a sting that is not properly explained. the hoyts make preparations to leave again. terry & stacey meet at a playground to say a special goodbye. terry explains that it would be too risky to write to one another, but he'll always remember stacey. pretty convenient. i bet he has a girl in every town. he also tells stacey that she must always keep his secret. she can't even tell her BSC friends. dramatic! & also, realistic, because who is better at keeping secrets than a 13-year-old, amirite? this whole book is fucking ridiculous. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Dec 26, 2010
|
Jan 07, 2011
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0590470051
| 9780590470056
| 0590470051
| 3.70
| 1,430
| Sep 1993
| Jan 01, 1993
|
did not like it
|
this book is dreadful. dawn misses california, her father, & jeff. she finally asks her mom if she can move back to california for six months. mrs. sc
this book is dreadful. dawn misses california, her father, & jeff. she finally asks her mom if she can move back to california for six months. mrs. schafer calls mr. schafer, they both talk to the guidance counslors at their local middle schools, & they give dawn permission. she is stoked. at the last second, she becomes concerned that claifornia won't live up to her memories of how awesome it is, & she decides not to go, but mrs. schafer gently talks her into it. the babysitters club give her a surprise going away party attended almost exclusively by sitting charges & serving almost nothing but sugary sweets. that's it. the B-plot involves the run for your money charity field day thing. the schafer-spiers enter, as does the babysitters club. stoneybrook teams are playing against teams from nearby mercer & whiever town wins the most events will have money donated to the charity of its choosing. stoneybrook wins. there's some light amusement when richard considers entering an underwear race, & an even tries to practice for it, but other than that...boring. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Dec 26, 2010
|
Jan 07, 2011
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0590470043
| 9780590470049
| 0590470043
| 3.60
| 1,072
| Aug 01, 1993
| Jan 01, 1993
|
really liked it
|
i don't usually like mary anne books, but this one kept me surprisingly entertained. mary anne has become concerned that she is too self-centered afte
i don't usually like mary anne books, but this one kept me surprisingly entertained. mary anne has become concerned that she is too self-centered after dawn tried to address mary anne's constant self-consciousness with the truism, "most people aren't even paying attention to you." way to completely misunderstand dawn's point in the most ironically self-centered way, mary anne. anyway, she decides to address this issue by being more thoughtful & helpful to others. as a special surprise for the arnold twins, mary anne decides to take them to visit with elvira, the ludicrous goat that she & dawn goat-sat for in stacey's big crush. she claims the arnolds have never met elvira before, even though the arnolds actually spent quite a bit of time with elvira in the last elvira-centric book, if i recall correctly. while visiting with elvira & mrs. stone, mrs. stone suggests that mary anne make the acquaintance of mrs. towne, a nearby neighbor who does a lot of sewing & needlework. mary anne follows through & pays mrs. towne a visit. mrs. towne is a widow whose only son lives in st. louis. she is happy to show off some of her handiwork & mary anne is really impressed. mrs. towne knows how to do all kinds of sewing things mary anne would like to learn. mrs. towne suggests that mary anne take some lessons with her, & they agree to meet again on saturday. but on saturday, mrs. towne doesn't answer her door. it would be kind of awesome if this turned into a book that teaches kids a lesson about how to react when you discover a dead body, but instead mrs. towne has just fallen & broken her ankle. she seems delirious from the pain & can't get up, so mary anne calls 911. i have never broken my ankle, but...really? would she have just continued to lay there on the floor until she starved to death if no one came by & happened to take the liberty of letting themselves into the seemingly-empty house? she couldn't have crawled over to the phone & called 911 herself? sheesh. mary anne takes it upon herself to visit mrs. towne as much as she can & to help out a little with all the housework piling up everywhere. she feels bad for mrs. towne, being all alone with no one to help her (even though mrs. towne is being visited daily by a nurse & has some adult friends, as well as an adult child to call upon if things got really bad, as well as the means to hire a housekeeper, judging from the fact that she owns property in stoneybrook, CT, where the average two-bedroom apartment rents for $2000 a month). she is a little surprised at first that mrs. towne actually lets her help as much as she does, but when mrs. towne suggests that mary anne pay for her sewing lessons with housework, it all seems fair to mary anne. soon she is doing the laundry, washing dishes, putting away groceries, watering plants, weeding the garden, etc. mrs. towne starts calling her to leave babysitter club meetings to come over & do little chores around the house. mary anne skips a date with logan to help chase a wasp out of mrs. towne's kitchen. her friends begin to suggest that mrs. towne is taking advantage of mary anne's generosity...& eventually mary anne feels the same way. so she has a chat with mrs. towne, who backs down & admits that she was really just calling mary anne all the time because she was lonely. she decides to hire a housekeeper & just have mary anne over for some friendly sewing lessons & the occasional teatime. it's nice that mary anne & mrs. towne solved their problem so easily, but it's also total bullshit. i am actually an adult & i haven't had this kind of luck getting my adult friends to admit wrong-doing when they take advantage of other people. whatever, book. in the B-plot, mary anne offers beginner sewing lessons to some of her charges & soon has a little class going, pretty evenly split along gender lines. but soon all the boys drop out & start playing really macho dude games while they are being babysat. turns out a kid at school was teasing them for being boys who sew & they overreacted. mary anne talks with them & they rejoin the class just in time to contribute to the get well quilt the class is making for mrs. towne. i know a lot of adult readers make fun of the babysitters club books for pushing this message of anti-sexism (for example, pointing out how many women in stoneybrook hold presitgious jobs like mayor or doctor), but...i like it. i have never found it overly preachy, & it is a good message for kids. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Dec 26, 2010
|
Jan 07, 2011
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 044655703X
| 9780446557030
| B005K5ESQW
| 3.76
| 3,894
| Nov 02, 2010
| Nov 02, 2010
|
really liked it
|
a hilarious pseudo-craft book in the same vein as her hilarious pseudo-entertaining book, except that i think this one was possibly a little extra hil
a hilarious pseudo-craft book in the same vein as her hilarious pseudo-entertaining book, except that i think this one was possibly a little extra hilarious. there are also numerous possibilities here for people lacking senses of humor to become offended, so read at your own risk, ever mindful of your own buzzkill quotient. the whole time i was reading this, i kept thinking about the possibility that people would take the book seriously & some of this shit would end up on etsy. & then i realized that some of it already is on etsy. which kind of made everything even funnier. crafters for whom crafting is SRS BIZNESS might want to avoid this book. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Jan 05, 2011
|
Jan 05, 2011
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0439885175
| 9780439885171
| 0439885175
| 4.37
| 19,997
| 2008
| Nov 01, 2008
|
liked it
|
a graphic novel version of the book by the same name. cute, if not all that memorable. maybe i was distracted because i read it at the laundromat & i
a graphic novel version of the book by the same name. cute, if not all that memorable. maybe i was distracted because i read it at the laundromat & i kept getting up to see if the wash cycle was finished. as an aside, i was poking around on youtube last night, & i found a series of videos that act out these graphic novels using american girl dolls. the credits to the videos say that they are based specifically on the graphic novels, & they also mention that the graphic novels are based on the original series by ann m. martin, but it was definitely a little unsettling to contend with the reality that young girls today might be discovering the babysitters club through something other than the original babysitters club books. & that they then might be acting out the books using stop-motion technology & their vast collections of american girl dolls. it all made me feel about a thousand years old. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Dec 20, 2010
|
Jan 05, 2011
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0060598794
| 9780060598792
| 0060598794
| 3.72
| 264
| Apr 12, 2005
| Dec 27, 2005
|
liked it
|
a collection of essays on being a mother. this is in fact the second anthology generated by salon.com's defunct "mothers who think" column. can't pret
a collection of essays on being a mother. this is in fact the second anthology generated by salon.com's defunct "mothers who think" column. can't pretend that i am crazy about the "mothers who think" moniker. doesn't that imply that there are also mothers (presumably, not salon.com readers) that don't think? while that may be true, it seems unnecessarily judgmental & dichotic, as do more than a few of these essays. i don't think the contributors necessarily intend to come across as smug know-it-alls casting aspersions on other women's parenting techniques...but that is what happens sometimes. as with any book of essays, i enjoyed some entries more than others. i found the first essay in the book, about a young muslim single mother facing expulsion from her mosque due to having a child out of wedlock, nearly impossible to read. i feel for her situation & am on her side & all that good stuff, but jeez louise. this was the most grandstanding, soap boxiest thing i have read in my entire life, which is really saying something, when you consider all the anarchist literature i have read in my life. i almost just put the book down & abandoned it based on that one essay, but i'm glad i persevered because the rest of the book is a lot more readable. there are some misses, including the piece from the smug french lady who spends five pages condemning americans for having nannies (even though most american mothers do not in fact have nannies), only to turn around & admit that she inherited a home in california & hired herself a nanny to boot. she ultimately comes to distrust her nanny because she feels that the nanny & the author's daughter are too emotionally attached to one another. great story. just what i always wanted: to read the nanny diaries from the perspective of the asshole mom. she even includes an aside about how she herself was raised in part by a mexican nanny as a child, & how her mother traveled down to mexico in order to try to sneak the nanny's children across the border. it did not work. her mother spent the rest of her life wondering, "did i do the right thing?" what, get everyone's hopes up for an emotional reunion & a brand new life, only to have them dashed by border guards that any idiot could have seen coming? yeah, you probably did the exact opposite of the right thing. there are other pieces i wasn't crazy about either, but it's definitely a hugely varying collection, & when it's good, it's really really good. it definitely paints a somewhat realistic portrait of motherhood (we'll just leave aside the fact that pretty much every contributer is a professional, published author, or a professional in some other field, benefiting from tremendous amounts of class privilege, but blinkered in that uniquely american liberal way to said privileges--the piece about the wealthy woman who ran an advertising agency but lost it all & had to support her family by running a cleaning & housepainting service was pretty fucking tough to take as someone who actually grew up poor & is not interested in reading about the shame of rich people falling on hard times), & all kinds of different families are represented, which is cool. i guess it was pretty much what i expected. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Dec 20, 2010
|
Dec 20, 2010
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 1848872682
| 9781848872684
| 1848872682
| 3.27
| 375
| Jan 01, 2009
| Jan 01, 2009
|
really liked it
|
set in a dystopian near-future/alternate universe in which the current financial crisis has calcified into a new world order. set in england, which is
set in a dystopian near-future/alternate universe in which the current financial crisis has calcified into a new world order. set in england, which is being run by the national unity government, a quasi-dictatorship comprised of social scientists. frances, our 80-year-old narrator, lives alone in the home she bought her ex-husband out of after their divorce. she had been a well-known author & playwright in her younger days, but blew through her money while everyone else was blowing through their money, thinking the good times would never end. now she struggles to get by & has complicated relationships with her two daughters & various grandchildren. her ex-husband's son by another woman is now an adult & forms frances's grandchildren into a revolutionary cell bent on kidnapping a high-ranking NUG official (who happens to be frances's son-in-law) & staging a bloodless coup. they make frances's house their home base, & frances makes the decision to, first, try to prevent the kidnapping by warning her daughter. but in the process, she learns a long-kept family secret & decides not to prevent the kidnapping. instead, she waits until it's done & she's alone with the captive, & then she alerts NUG. &...yeah, that's pretty much the whole plot of the book. most of what surrounds this is frances's recollections of her youthful dalliances, her writing career, & the financial & political changes that took place, bringing the world to its current configuration. apparently frances is & was a radical feminist, & is sympathetic in some respects to the aims of her grandchildren's revolutionary goals, but she is also jaded by age & experience & has a lot of pointed things to say about youthful idealism & naivete in politics. i really enjoyed that aspect of the book a lot. the writing dragged at times. it took me a while to get into weldon's tendency to repeat the same phrases again & again. at first, i wasn't sure if it was a narrative device, or if she'd just forgotten that she'd already used that exact same wording a time or two already. but the plot & the characters kept me going, & i'm glad, because i found the story really engaging. i finished the book in just a few hours. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Dec 17, 2010
|
Dec 19, 2010
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0590456741
| 9780590456746
| 0590456741
| 3.82
| 1,284
| Jul 1993
| Jul 01, 1993
|
it was ok
|
the babysitters club once again exercises its bizarre ability to get adults to take them on free vacations. its summertime again (already?) & the pike
the babysitters club once again exercises its bizarre ability to get adults to take them on free vacations. its summertime again (already?) & the pikes are returning to their annual rental home in sea city. this time, they have enlisted mallory as a mother's helper (what happened to wanting mallory to be able to enjoy her vacation without having to look after her siblings?), & she petitioned for jessi to be the other mother's helper. the barretts have also decided to spend two weeks in sea city, renting the smaller cottage right next door to the pikes. mrs. barrett has hired dawn as her mother's helper. doesn't anyone take vacations without mother's helpers anymore? the pikes extended an invite for everyone else in the babysitters club (including logan) to come visit for a week. they're catching a ride with mrs. barrett's fiance, mr. dewitt, & his four kids. logan has to head home early to get back to work at the rosebud cafe (someone needs to call the cops on that place for violating child labor laws), but he is excited about getting to spend some time with mary anne. i can't help but wonder if the younger pike kids ever get pissed off that all of mallory's friends get to tag along on their vacations, while they are stuck with just each other. this book, despite being a super special, is amazingly boring. it starts off really slow, because most of the club is still back in stoneybrook, & we have to hear about how they are spending their lame summer. kristy has a big game coming up between the krushers & the bashers, & is struggling because her players keep dropping out to go on vacation. she gets down to only having seven players left (out of a team of like twenty kids), so she canvases the neighborhood in search of substitute players. she manages to interest quite a few kids, but none of them are actually any good. the krushers lose the game in a crushing defeat--34-1. meanwhile, claudia has to attend four weeks of summer school because she failed math. she quickly earns a reputation for being "the smart one," which goes to show how dubious this summer school really is. nonetheless, she becomes good friends with several other girls in her class. she is hopeful that they can continue their friendships during the regular school year, but she doesn't seem to hold out much hope. she says her summer school friends "know how strong [her] babysitters club friendships are." once again, the tyranny of the babysitters club squelches any attempts its members make at developing outside interests. mary anne & dawn are running a mini-summer camp for neighborhood kids. if you can believe it, their storyline is actually even more boring than the krushers storyline, & that's saying something, because i fucking hate the krushers. basically, the kids act like kids & wreak a little havoc. jenny sits on a hard-boiled egg, for example. can you believe it? mary anne & dawn should hang up their babysitting hats post-haste. not that things in sea city are much more interesting. jessi has decided to be a super sitter. you'd think that such a grand ambition would lend itself well to some kind of storyline in which reality intrudes & jessi learns that she can't be all things to all sitting charges, but the worst thing that happens is that the big sand castle-building contest that margo, claire, & suzi barrett wanted to enter is canceled due to bad weather. the girls are disappointed for all of one second before jessi suggests going home & making hot cocoa, & then everyone is happy again. wake me up when this book is over. stacey is in a really crummy mood. for some reason, she is totally bummed out about working as a mother's helper for the barretts instead of the pikes--even though the pikes are right next door, & her job seems to constantly involve looking after pikes as well. you'd think she's be pleased to be responsible for fewer children & have more privacy, but mrs. barrett gets on stacey's bad side on the drive down to sea city, because she's such a nervous driver. which translates to apparently being a terrible driver. the most interesting storyline in the book is between stacey & mallory. upon their arrival in sea city, all the kids immediately want to hit the beach. & when they do, they run into toby & alex, the boy mother's helpers that mary anne & stacey met back in book #8, boy-crazy stacey. regular readers may recall that stacey & toby heated up their romance again in book #34, mary anne & too many boys, & toby dumped stacey at the end of the book & apparently broke her heart or something. so stacey is not psyched to see toby again. he is very friendly to her & she's all like, "god, how can he even look me in the eye after dumping me like that?" i think it would probably be more mature & less embarrassing for her to laugh it off & act like she forgot it ever happened, but instead, she acts like a jerk. toby gets the hint & starts flirting with mallory instead. i know. mallory. no word on when his laser eye surgery is scheduled, but it clearly hasn't happened yet. he's all like, "wow, you have changed." gross, toby. anyway, mallory is like, "whoa, a cute older boy likes me!" she asks stacey if she is 100% done with toby & stacey confirms that she is. so mallory asks if it would be okay if she went out with him, because she thinks he likes her. stacey is like, "whaaaaat?" that is seriously her reaction. that's a quote from the book. but then she recovers & tells mallory to watch her step, because toby will probably just dump her & hurt her feeling like he did stacey's. mallory of is like, "right, thanks for the tip, i'm going to go on a date with him anyway." stacey gets pissed & starts giving mallory the cold shoulder...but she won't admit that she is jealous. stacey, stacey, stacey...don't you know that jealousy kills girls? these ladies would benefit from some riot grrrl zines, i think. so we have like eighty chapters where the stoneybrook girls are talking about their summers & nothing all that interesting happens in sea city. then finally the members of the club that remained in stoneybrook finally head out to sea city...& still nothing all that interesting happens. i honestly don't think dawn had her own plotline at all. all that happens is that she rooms with stacey for a few days & stacey snaps at her for using her towel. nothing really happens to kristy at all--not even anything as scintillating as verboten towel usage. ditto claudia. mary anne & logan get a little bit of a story in which logan becomes jealous of alex. he knows that mary anne & alex are friends & he can't imagine how any guy could hang out with mary anne in a setting as romantic as sea city & not want to kiss her. just as an aside, i think it would be really cool if it turned out that sea city was like the beach town in "the lost boys" & was teeming with vampires. that would make the book A LOT more interesting. someone should write some fan fic in which logan falls in with a crowd of "bad boys" that are actually vampires. anyway, we finally have our big climactic plot point. a hurricane is on course to hit sea city. after a lot of dithering, the pikes & the barretts decide to pack up & get back over to the mainland to wait out the storm in a motel. traffic is bumper to bumper because everyone in sea city had the same idea. before they can leave, the causeway that connects sea city to the rest of new jersey floods. so they all have to stay, but are evacuated to the elementary school overnight. the electric goes out & everyone has to sleep on cots. it is seriously not interesting. karen gets a chapter back in stoneybrook (why, god, why?) when the hurricane hits there. she gets to talk about helping seth the bearded carpenter tape the windows, & getting up the next morning to help clean up debris in the yard. FASCINATING. anyway, after the hurricane, everyone gets to go home again, to their beach houses. their houses are okay, although the beach is covered in dead fish. they decide to see their vacations through. toby FINALLY asks mallory out & she accepts. she even enlists claudia's help in picking out a special date outfit. but right before the date, she starts thinking about ben hobart back in stoneybrook, & she decides not to go out with toby. then she runs into stacey, who makes a few pointed comments, & mallory decides she DOES want to go out with toby after all. but when he comes to pick her up, she explains that she has a boyfriend & can't go out with him. he accepts that, though he makes some comment about her being "another cute girl". she is remarkably incensed by that, for someone who is in no way a cute girl. she accepted his date & then backed out at the last second. is she really wounded that he doesn't see her as a unique & special butterfly? come on, mallory. anyway, then everyone goes home & the last chapter is the usual round-up of letters everyone sends to each other. the best one is the one toby writes to mallory, asking if jessi is dating anyone & if he could maybe get her address. that guy is a dog. oh, & also, logan rents a horse & buggy to pick mary anne up & take her home (from the pikes' house?). she finds this romantic, as opposed to embarrassing. i call shenanigans on that. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Dec 14, 2010
|
Dec 14, 2010
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0590449583
| 9780590449588
| 0590449583
| 3.75
| 624
| Jun 01, 1993
| Jan 01, 1993
|
liked it
|
the krashers are playing a game against a team over in redfield, a few towns away from stoneybrook. for whatever weird reason (because it furthers the
the krashers are playing a game against a team over in redfield, a few towns away from stoneybrook. for whatever weird reason (because it furthers the plot, i guess), charlie is driving the whole team, plus bart & kristy, in a rented van. the players incude four bashers (joey, jerry, patty, & some other boy), plus four krushers (karen, david michael, jackie, & buddy). nicky also played with the krashers during the game, but got a ride home with his family. i don't understand why he didn't get a ride TO the game with his family, but no one asked me to proof these books before they went to print, so we'll just go with it. a huge storm blows in right after the game ends (the krashers won) & charlie is having trouble seeing to drive through the sheets of rain coming down. some of the kids get a little weepy because they are afraid of the thunger & lightning. bart points out charlie's turn off, but charlie says he is supposed to turn around by a big wall covered in ivy. jackie says they passed the wall ages ago. charlie drives for a while & takes a differnt turn-off to look for somewhere to get directions. they drive over a little bridge, & they pass a big creepy-looking mansion. it's the only house they pass before they reach another little bridge, which has been washed away in the storm. charlie turns around to get to the other bridge, but by the time they get back, it has also been washed away. the kids have no choice but to approach the creepy mansion & ask to use the phone or stay over until the bridges are fixed. just a little time out: how awesome would it be if the house they approach was in fact the house from "the rocky horror picture show" & dr. frank tried to get all frisky with charlie? okay, moving on. charlie & kristy go up to the little cottage near the house & explain their situation. the old man who answers looks a little creepy & explains that he doesn't have a phone, nor does the big house, but they are welcome to stay at the big house overnight. he says that no one lives there & he is the caretaker. he loads them up with bread, apples, blankets, & flashlights (because the power is out). so now the whole crew is staying overnight in a big creepy abandoned mansion. they decide to explore a little. the house is very well-maintained. the formal dining room table is fully set, & all the bedrooms are outfitted with bedding & there are even still books & knickknacks on the shelves. the kids are kind of bummed, because they miss their families & feel bad about making their parents worry, but they have fun exploring the house. until they wander into a bedroom that has a huge old-fashioned portrait of a grim-looking old man on the wall. the nameplate says "owen sawyer" & jackie flips out. he tells everyone about some ghost stories his older brother shared with him, about the big haunted mansion on sawyer road. supposedly it's haunted. kristy realizes that the road with the washed away bridges is sawyer road & they are staying overnight in the haunted sawyer mansion. in a bedroom that looks like it belonged to a girl, & features a portrait of a teenage girl named dorothy sawyer on the wall, karen finds an old diary. seriously, what is with various babysitters club characters constantly stumbling across old diaries containing useful information for their present circumstances? it happens in like every other book. anyway, dorothy writes in her diary that her father is over-protective & doesn't understand that she wants to travel & see the world. she also explains that she is in love with a young man named will blackburn, but her father doesn't approve of their union. although she fears that will will offer her only the same sheltered life she has with her father, she agrees to run off & elope. the diary's last entry is on the day before dorothy & will's planned escape. karen, kristy, & patty all wonder what happened next. they get their answer soon enough, when jackie is rooting around in an old roll-top desk & finds a scrapbook full of newspaper clippings about dorothy's mysterious disappearance. on the day she was supposed to elop with will, a huge storm blew in & washed away the bridges on sawyer road. authorities suspect that dorothy tried to swim across the stream to reach will & drowned in the current. her body was never recovered, but she was eventually declared dead. they also find a bunch of photos, of dorothy & her father & will. karen says dorothy looks familiar. bart, kristy, & charlie all think will looks familiar. after everyone snacks on some bread & apples, they eventually settle down with their blankets in the big, lushly carpeted living room, & try to get some sleep. meanwhile, in stoneybrook, everyone is freaking out about their disappearance. it's incredibly tedious. everyone keeps calling everyone else, wondering if they've heard from kristy or any of the other kids. bart's father even calls claudia. seriously? why the fuck would he call claudia & not, like, an adult? like watson? every time one of the sitters answers the phone, they think it's going to be someone calling with news, & of course it's not, because we the readers know that all the kids are stuck in a haunted mansion without phones. god, it's so boring. everyone is worried. that's all you need to know. like you couldn't have guessed. anyway, the morning dawns bright & sunny. the old caretaker comes to the door to announce that crews are out repairing the bridges & that the kids can get back on the road soon. buddy pulls kristy aside & says he thinks that the caretaker might be will blackburn. so kristy brazenly says, "excuse me, mr. blackburn?" & the caretaker hardly misses a beat before he's like, "yup, guilty as charged." he says he bought the mansion after mr. sawyer died ("of a broken heart," some say). he doesn't live in it because it's full of too many painful memories, but he keeps it looking nice in tribute to dorothy's memory. kristy asks him about the alleged hauntings, & he's like, "hauntings? there's no haunting. when people see lights & smoke coming from the chimney, that's just me. i have to come inside sometimes to keep the place looking good." kristy asks for more info & will actually says, "it's a sad tale. a tale of a man who loved a woman who died. that man is me." seriously, who talks like that? i might start. he basically confirms that he & dorothy were going to run away & elope, but she drowned & he was very sad. then they all play a little softball & then they get on the road. back in stoneybrook, there are joyous reunions all around. the babysitters club decides to have a sleepover to celebrate kristy's return. in the middle of the sleepover, karen interrupts to tell kristy that she stole a photo of dorothy from the mansion because she thought dorothy looked familiar. it would be a really awesome twist if dorothy turned out to be nannie. instead, mary anne looks at the picture & gasps. she recognizes the woman too. she thinks it's the woman who runs the sewing shop in town. naturally, mary anne is a regular customer, being an average 13-year-old girl & everything. karen agrees with mary anne. she apparently goes to the sewing shop all the time with her mom. the sitters decide to visit the shop in the morning & try to unravel the mystery. so they do. they troop on in (watson drives them downtown), & after some hemming & hawing, kristy is like, "excuse me, are you dorothy sawyer?" & even though this woman basically faked her own death, which i'm pretty sure is illegal, & has been living under an assumed name for the last sixty years or so, which is also illegal, i am pretty sure, she's like, "yup, that's me." she explains that she did fall in the brook when she tried to run away with will, but she was able to save herself. & when she did, she realized that this was her big chance to be free--free of both her father & her stifling fiance. she knew everyone would assume she drowned in the brook, so she runs off & has an awesome jet-setting life, traveling the world & living out her dreams. when she was ready to settle down, she came to stoneybrook ("near the village of my home," she says--exactly how old are these people supposed to be? they're talking like they came of age in 1834) & opened a sewing shop. kristy says that will is still alive & might like to see her. instead of being like, "um, i faked my death to avoid marrying him sixty years ago & he's been racked with guilt ever since, so i'm not entirely confident that he wouldn't just keel over with a heart attack if i showed up on his doorstep," she's like, "oh, that sounds like fun! i'll pop on by now that i know where he lives." well, he doesn't have a phone, so i guess he wouldn't exactly have been in the phone book. she's all, "that will give old will quite a turn!" i'll say. the last page is all like, "the krashers got home safely, everyone was happy to see us, & dorothy & will are soon to have a joyous reunion. isn't it great that we're all better people?" i'm taking a wait-&-see approach to that whole "joyous reunion" part. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Dec 14, 2010
|
Dec 14, 2010
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0590456679
| 9780590456678
| 0590456679
| 3.59
| 1,482
| Jun 01, 1993
| Jun 01, 1993
|
it was amazing
|
i had forgotten that this is totally one of my all-time favorite babysitters club books! i had forgotten due to the fact that the story is ridiculous
i had forgotten that this is totally one of my all-time favorite babysitters club books! i had forgotten due to the fact that the story is ridiculous & kind of icky. but peter lerangis worked magic with a premise that could have gone very bad. so, we all know that stacey's main character trait, aside from being a sophisticated new yorker & having diabetes, is that she loves math. this book opens with stacey sitting in match class. she is having trouble concentrating because spring has once upon descended upon the fair burg that is stoneybrook, & the air is full of the scent of lilacs. apparently, stacey has a kind of excessive relationship with that smell, & it is causing her to have all kinds of romantic daydreams & flights of fancy, so she's not paying too much attention to mr. zizmore's algebra problems. she perks up at the end of class though, when mr. zizmore explains that a student teacher from "stoneybrook college" is going to be teaching for the last few weeks of school. the student teacher's name is wesley ellenburg, & stacey is like, "great. we're getting a huge nerd for a student teacher." like "stacey mcgill" is the epitome of class & sophistication. (sorry, i have always had this weird antipathy toward the name "stacey," especially when it is spelled with an extraneous "e" like that.) after school that day, stacey walks home with dawn & mary anne. while they're sitting outside enjoying the sunshine, a neighbor named mrs. stone comes strolling up. she explains that she & her husband are going out of town for a few days, & they've hired someone to look after their small farm in their absence, but she's hoping that mary anne & dawn might be available to take care of elvira, who is only two months old & still needs a lot of special care & attention. as the conversation progresses, stacey gets freaked because she thinks they are talking about a baby, & mrs. stone says that elvira is always eating garbage, but the girls can keep her in the barn & everything will be okay. stacey asks, "what or who is elvira?" & mrs. stone says, "a kid." stacey says her heart sinks at this information, & she's about two seconds away from calling child protective services. then mrs. stone clarifies, "a baby goat." which should have been kind of obvious when dawns asked if elvira had horns yet, but hey. stacey's good at math, not conversational context clues. anyway, dawn & mary anne agree to look after elvira. the next day in school, stacey meets her student math teacher. & it turns out that he's totally hot. she thinks he look like tom cruise, but i'm ignoring that because i'm of the opinion that tom cruise is more fit to live under a bridge like the troll he is than be described as "hot". also, he's about two feet tall. anyway, the point is, stacey is in L-U-V. again. with an older man. again. someone's got daddy issues. the teacher tells the students to call him wes, & all the girls are crushing on him in short order. one of the boys tries to use a fake accent on him, & when wes catches him out, he wins over the boys in the class too. stacey tries to do really well with the classwork & her homework in order to impress wes. because dudes just can't get enough of girls that are good with math. actually, i think it's cool that stacey's crush motivates her to try to do well in school, since so many girls try to dumb themselves down to get boys' attention. not that wes is a boy. it's important to remember that he is 22, & therefore, stacey is being delusional & kind of icky. she decides out of nowhere that wes prefers women in dresses & skirts, so she agonizes over which of her best skirts & dresses to wear to school every day. i personally don't give two goddamns over what clothes dudes like on ladies. i started making more of an effort to not schlump around the house in pajamas all day because i know jared prefers it when i wear actual clothes, but that's as far as i go. when dudes are critical of my clothes, it's a dealbreaker for me. however, it's important to remember that wes has not actually said anything positive or negative about stacey's clothes, & her speculations about his opinion of her appearance are all a function of her own crazy crush on him. turns out that charlotte also has a crush on a boy in her class, a boy named bruce cominsky. stacey catches charlotte experimenting with her mother's make-up one day while she's sitting, & charlotte spills the beans & asks for stacey's advice. charlotte wants to know how you know the difference between love & a crush. stacey doesn't know how to answer her, & it starts making her wonder if maybe her feelings for wes are love. stacey? they are not. obviously no one has ever really succeeded in describing exactly the difference between a crush & love, but you definitely know it when you're in it (love, that is), & 13-year-olds are not really capable of it. especially with their 22-year-old math teachers that they have been having class with for all of a couple of days & with whom they do not have any kind of relationship. but lerangis really does an awesome job of describing that whole teen crush internal dynamic. after class one day, wes asks stacey to stay behind. his desk is covered in papers & he needs help organizing everything. stacey says something like, "wow, what a mess!" & then castigates herself silently for "making fun" of wes's disorganization. "just what he wanted to hear," she thinks. i think any dude you can't tease every now & again is not a dude worth crushing on, but hey. wes rolls with it just fine, & stacey suggests that he organize his papers in the hanging folders in the bottom drawer of mr. zizmore's filing cabinet. while wes works on that, he gives stacey the task of averaging the students' grades. which is SO unprofessional. students should not be allowed near the grade book. a few days later, he asks her to stay behind again because the filing system worked too well & he's a fucking dumbass who filed forms he was supposed to fill out & return to the administrators, like his W4. for some reason, he is incapable of rooting through the filing cabinet & finding the W4 on his own. so stacey of course helps him out, & then he gives her a ride to claudia's house for the babysitters club meeting. through all of this, she seriously expects him to ask her out on a date. all of her friends throughout the book keep focusing on how wes is practically in a nursing home compared to them, but look at it in the reverse. a 22-year-old teacher asking out one of his barely-teenage students? GROSS. naturally, he does not ask her out. but he does brush her hand at one point when changing gears & stacey thinks it must mean he likes her. again, gross, but also very true to the teenage crush mindset. meanwhile, mary anne & stacey are taking elvira with them on all their sitting jobs. doesn't strike me as a great idea, for the kids or the goat, but hey. all the kids in town love elvira & want to walk her on her leash & play games with her. though nicky pike breaks the rules & lets go of the leash at one point, causing elvira to break into the goldmans' garage & eat their garbage. finally stacey can't handle her feelings anymore, & she decides to express them in a terrible poem, which she writes out in her best i-dotted-with-a-heart handwriting & her favorite gold ink pen. she gives it to wes after class, & actually stands there while he reads it. for serious? he's like, "uh...thanks. it's...beautiful. i have to go now..." stacey is all like, what does it mean? it means he's just not that into, stacey. he prefers his dates to be old enough to drive. at first, stacey is embarrassed, but then she starts thinking about how boys mature more slowly than girls, so maybe he just doesn't know how to express his feelings for her. dude! his feelings basically amount to, "i do not want to get arrested over this girl." come on. stacey decides to take another chance on love & stays behind after class AGAIN, where she straight up tells wes that she has a crush on him. he turns pale & kind of hangs his head, & stacey bolts out of the room. again, she is sad because his reaction made her think her feelings were not reciprocated...& then she manages to AGAIN talk herself into thinking that he might like her, & that he just hasn't made his move because they are still student & teacher. she thinks maybe her big chance will come at the end of year spring fling dance, which wes is helping chaperone. at this point, i have no words. stacey is a real glutton for punishment when it comes to dudes, isn't she? but again, it's very true to the realities of teenagers with crushes, so it's actually kind of awesome. turns out charlotte also expressed her feelings to the object of her affections via poetry, & it went over like gangbusters. bruce went nuts for her, & even came to her house to recite his own poems under her window. this was a big turn-off for charlotte & she decided she doesn't like him anymore. stacey thinks, "some girls have all the luck." truth. why didn't wes start obsessively stalking stacey after she gave him her terrible poem? those lucky duck stalking victims! sam calls to ask stacey to the dance, & she almost accepts, but then remembers that having a date might cramp her style with wes. so she tells sam she already has a date. wes wears a tux to the dance, which makes stacey weak in the knees. she asks him to dance & they have a good time dancing to a couple of fast songs. stacey is all, "i've never felt this way with a boy before!" etc etc. again: he's not a boy. he is a man, & he is your teacher. give it a rest. stacey kind of stalks wes around the gym & watches him dance with other people, & then moves in to ask him to dance to a slow song. wes is all, "uh...gee...i'm pretty wiped out from all the dancing i have already done. i think i'm going to sit this one out," & stacey brazenly replies, "the next one might not be so...slow." she is like a cougar in reverse. wes picks up the hint, & is like, "stacey, we need to talk." he takes her aside & explains that stacey is suffering under the misapprehension that it would be in any way possible for them to have a relationship. wes is her teacher, & he is also nine years older than her, which is a far bigger gap than stacey seems to realize. he says that she is a great, smart, & attractive girl, but this is never ever going to happen, ever. stacey is like, "oh...okay," & is very sad. wes suggests that they be friends, & stacey accepts. & that's pretty much it. the stones come back from their trip & take elvira back, bruce decides he likes a different girl in charlotte's class (much to charlotte's relief), & stacey learns a valuable lesson about how she is jailbait. nice work, lerangis! ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Dec 13, 2010
|
Dec 14, 2010
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0439885167
| 9780439885164
| 0439885167
| 4.36
| 18,911
| Sep 01, 2007
| Sep 01, 2007
|
liked it
|
a graphic novel version of babysitters club book #4, mary anne saves the day. very cute. i like the way raina draws richard, so he looks a lot less ne
a graphic novel version of babysitters club book #4, mary anne saves the day. very cute. i like the way raina draws richard, so he looks a lot less nerdy. i also like the way she draws mr. prezzioso. he's pretty hot, for a cartoon. the drawing of mary anne giving richard the scarf she knitted was very sweet. but there's a sequence in which mary anne goes to the cemetery to visit her mom's grave, even though it's established in mystery #5, mary anne & the secret in the attic, that mary anne has never been to her mother's grave & doesn't know where she's buried. but whatevs. i guess it worked for the story.
...more
|
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Dec 13, 2010
|
Dec 13, 2010
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0590456660
| 9780590456661
| 0590456660
| 3.66
| 1,229
| May 01, 1993
| Jan 01, 1993
|
really liked it
|
dawn is all excited because jeff is coming to visit for a few days. she & mary anne are tidying up his room & making his bed for him, & richard sugges
dawn is all excited because jeff is coming to visit for a few days. she & mary anne are tidying up his room & making his bed for him, & richard suggests that they all takine a family trip together over the weekend, to either boston or washington d.c. thus begins our A-plot. our B-plot features the barretts. mrs. barrett has a new boyfriend named franklin dewitt. she seems really excited about him, & he's gone out of his way to get the kids to like him too. when mrs. barrett goes out on a dinner date with franklin to chez maurice (hence necessitating dawn's babysitting services), the kids want to wait outside for him to get back. dawn, mary anne, richard, & sharon all head out to the airport to pick up jeff. everyone is excited to see him, & he's excited to see all of them, & to catch up with his best stoneybrook friends, the pike triplets. damn. i gave this book four stars & i am realizing only now, writing the recap, that it's kind of boring. so i'm going to pick up the pace. basically, jeff gets grumpy because hanging with the triplets isn't as much fun as he thought it would be. they want to play softball & he wants to play soccer. they have other friends that jeff doesn't know & they don't invite jeff to tag along when they go to hang out with those friends. this causes him to be kind of a complainer back at the house. richard took a few days off work to look after jeff while everyone else is at work or school, but jeff doesn't have much fun. he & richard don't really have anything in common. richard takes jeff to some museums, which jeff finds boring, & when they try to play catch in the yard, richard is almost comically unathletic. dawn feels sorry for jeff & tries to be supportive of him, but ends up making a few comments that mary anne finds offensive. so dawn & mary anne start giving each other the silent treatment. meanwhile, it turns out that mr. dewiit has four children of his own. mrs. barrett calls for a babysitter to accompany the whole group on a picnic & play in the park. mallory gets the job, which is fortunate, because she is able to give mrs. barrett some useful suggestions on dealing with having a big family. for example, mrs. barrett is trying to pack picnic basket for the group, but she doesn't know what kind of sandwiches to make because she doesn't know what the dewitt kids like. mallory suggests just packing a loaf of bread & a variety of fixings so the kids can make their own sandwiches. mr. dewitt & mrs. barrett also seems surprised to discover that seven children, two adults, & a babysitter won't all fit in one car. they go to a petting zoo, but it's a disaster. it's crowded, a goat steals one of the kids' sandwiches, & everyone fights. mrs. barrett is very sad. she's way into mr. dewitt & is concerned that the kids can't get along with each other. by the time dawn's family leaves on their trip to boston, dawn & jeff aren't speaking to mary anne & everyone is feeling the strain. & here's where i'm going to get nitpicky, because i lived in boston for eight years. richard makes everyone get up at 5am so they can "be in boston by lunchtime". um...what? we've already established that stoneybrook is on the coast of connecticut, because the local community center offers boating lessons, leading to dawn getting stranded on a desert island. even if it's as far south as new haven, it still wouldn't take more than three hours to drive up to boston. & that's being very generous. let's say the family took two hours to get ready to leave & eat breakfast--which also incredibly generous. that would mean they arrive in boston at 10am. which is hardly "lunchtime". also, when they drive into the city, dawn says they have to cross the harvard bridge. the harvard bridge connects cambridge & boston along mass ave. it is north of the city. connecticut is south of massachusetts. what crazy-ass route are they taking that they wound up on the harvard bridge coming into boston proper? maybe this is why richard made everyone get up so early. he decided to take the scnic route in from maine. anyway, they do all the typical boston tourist crap. they stay at the parker house hotel near city hall, they walk the freedom trail, they have snacks at quincy market. but jeff is kind of acting like a jerk the whole time. before they even left, jeff announced that he wanted to go to washington d.c. after all, & richard said no, because they already made hotel reservations in boston, & jeff asked him to cancel the reservations. when they get to their rooms in boston, mary anne decides to stay with sharon & richard instead (bet they loved that) & jeff suggests ordering gross food from room service & sending it to mary anne's room. like that's a really good prank or something. but mary anne is kind of being a jerk too. jeff asks some question about some historical site they're seeing, & mary anne corrects him like he's an idiot. & then two seconds later, she asks if the boston tea party was a real party. okay, needle scratch. hold the phones. when i was in school & we did social studies, we mostly studied our own local history, which means i know way more than i ever needed to know about ohio & michigan going to war over the port of toledo (i'm from ohio, on the coast of lake erie). jared went to school in massachusetts & learned mostlu about massachusetts stuff, so he knows like everything there is to know about the revolutionary war. but we all learned about the boston tea party. it was kind of a big deal. & mary anne, going to school one state away, should definitely have some grasp of what the boston tea party was. come on, mary anne. get it together. anyway, with all the fighting going on, dawn feels obligated to take jeff's side. she also wastes practically her entire vacation writing gossipy postcards to the other members of the babysitters club about all the fighting going on. the next day, the family splits up. sharon takes dawn & jeff whale-watching, while richard & mary anne go to the MFA. afterward, the parents suggest that they all go to the aquarium (which made me wonder where they met up, because the whale-watching boats dock literally next door to the aquarium, & if i was dawn, jeff, & sharon i'd be a little annoyed at leaving the area only to turn around & go right back), but jeff doesn't want to go. they try to talk him into it, but he refuses. if i was his mom, i'd say, "too bad, we're going to the aquarium, like it or lump it." but sharon gives in & takes jeff & dawn (who decided to stick with jeff & her mom) to the science museum. which is all the way over in cambridge. how are they getting around? on the T? that seems like a lot of subway riding, if you ask me. but they only brought one car. cabs, maybe? that night, sharon & richard suggest a restaurant in chinatown for dinner, but jeff says he's too tired & wants to stay in & get room service. again, sharon relents, & again, dawn sticks with them. but the next morning, richard & sharon yell at everyone & tell them to make an effort to get along. they do some other tourist-y shit, i don't remember. then they get in the car to go back to stoneybrook. the kids all have a fight over the window seats & jeff declares that he wants to go home to california that night. richard puts his foot down & says no, his ticket is for sunday & that's that. plus they're having a photographer come to take a family portrait & jeff has to be there for that. meanwhile, claudia & shannon are sitting for the barretts & dewitts (anyone think maybe these kids might have an easier time getting along if their parents didn't dump them on sitters every fifteen minutes?). right away, the kids start fighting. so claudia takes the barretts into the backyard while shannon stays out front with the dewitts. the kids try to play games like red light green light & mother, may i? but it's less fun with fewer kids. so eventually the kids are practically begging to play together. which was claudia's & shannon's plan all along. by the time mr. dewitt & mrs. barrett come home, the kids are all getting along famously. problem? solved. when the photographer comes to take the family photo at dawn's house, sharon hulks out at dawn & jeff for not being dressed nicely, & then both richard & sharon freak out at mary anne for not being dressed nicely. everyone gets dressed up, but then they all argue about where to stage the photo. sharon wants everyone sitting on the porch. richard wants everyone in the living room, in front of the fireplace. richard gets the line of the book for suggesting that his idea is "elegant. more elegant than a family of hillbillies sitting on a porch." haha! finally the photographer suggests test shots in a few different locations. then mary anne holds up the proceedings even more by insisting that tigger be in the photo. sharon tries to say no, he's not a member of the family, he's just a cat, but richard convinces her to let mary anne hold the damn cat already. not that tigger is too pumped about the idea. the first batch of test shots is awful. everyone looks angry & tense. for some reason, this epic waste of time & money makes everyone laugh...& that makes them all make up with each other. they finally take some nice photos, everyone apologizes & hugs it out, & it's all very "the waltons family christmas". then jeff has to leave to go back to california. when the test shots arrive in the mail so the family can decide which shots to buy, they decide to frame an angry photo & a nice photo so they will be forever reminded of their family feud & how silly it is to fight. well, "forever"...until the house burns down in about sixty books. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Dec 13, 2010
|
Dec 13, 2010
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0590456652
| 9780590456654
| 0590456652
| 3.68
| 1,038
| Apr 01, 1993
| Jan 01, 1993
|
liked it
|
claudia's english teacher, mrs. hall, informs claudia that a big test is coming up, & claudia needs to do really well (not just pass) if she wants to
claudia's english teacher, mrs. hall, informs claudia that a big test is coming up, & claudia needs to do really well (not just pass) if she wants to pass english altogether. mrs. hall suggests that claudia take advantage of the tutoring available in the resource room, but claudia freaks. for some reason, she thinks using the resource room will cause everyone at school to think/know she's a dummy. that doesn't seem very charitable to the kids that currently use the resource room, but hey. at the babysitters club meeting that afternoon, mrs. rodowsky calls to request a tutor for shea, the oldest of the rodowskys. he has been struggling in school for a long time, & was recently diagnosed with dyslexia. however, even with a diagnosis that explains the real issue behind his learning difficulties, shea thinks he is dumb, & he has become suspicious of all the help & encouragement offered by adults. mrs. rodowsky hopes that tutor closer to him in age will be more successful. claudia immediately begs off tutoring duty & explains her own school situation to the other sitters. they suggest that she get a tutor too. claudia is sad...until stacey offers to be her tutor. claudia is pleased that her best friend is stepping up to make herself truly helpful, & agrees to stacey's offer. meanwhile, mary anne takes the first tutoring session with shea. the first time stacey comes over to help claudia study for her english test, she suggests that they work in the kitchen. she covers up all the clocks so claudia won't be distracted by the passage of time, & she gets very school marm-ish, making claudia work with spelling flash cards & such forth. claudia is grumpy, but tries to remember that stacey is trying to be helpful & be a friend. the next time stacey comes by for a tutoring session, she gives claudia a gift: a marbled composition book. at first, claudia is grateful, because she thinks stacey has given her a new sketchbook. claudia often uses the marbled composition books as sketchbooks because she can use them to draw in class & it looks like she's taking notes. then stacey explains that the notebook is claudia's new journal. she says that keeping a journal will help claudia practice writing in full sentences & paragraphs, & that she should try to work her vocbulary words into her entries. stacey will then correct her entries for spelling & grammar. claudia is NOT pleased. she thinks it's pretty damn presumptuous of stacey to think she's going to take a red pen to claudia's innermost thoughts. so she decides to write very impersonal entries in the "official" journal, for which she look up every single word & prevent stacey from finding any fault, & she'll keep a private journal in which she complains about stacey's dictatorial tutoring style. i think we all see the wacky mishap soon to occur. meanwhile, mary anne didn't have much luck with shea. he is really struggling & he really seems to think he is dumb. he often becomes frustrated & gives up on his work. & jackie & archie act weird when mary anne is over. she turns around to find them staring into shea's bedroom at the tutoring session, giggling together. at first she wonders if they're laughing at shea for needing extra help, but she reminds herself that jackie may be clumsy, but he's not mean-spirited. then she wonders if maybe they are jealous of the attention shea is receiving. after mary anne's first study session with shea, she goes to a babysitters club meeting, which is interrupted by janine delivering a note she found addressed to the babysitters club on the front door. it says, "you are nice." janine cracks me up by saying something to the effect of, "it appears you are receiving special recognition for your positive efforts. how gratifying." god, i love janine. none of the sitters have any clue who is sending the notes...but they all wonder if maybe it's a boy working up the courage to ask them to the upcoming spring dance at the community center. hey, geniuses? why is it addressed to the entire babysitters club, then? claudia isn't taking many new sitting jobs because she needs to spend all her time preparing for her english test, but she did have a job with the rodowskys already lined up. the boys are practicing softball when she arrives, & claudia notices that shea is a really good player, & really patient at helping the younger boys out with their skills. later, she asks him about his schoolwork & he becomes very critical of himself. claudia is all, "you can do it, shea, you're a smart kid," but she can tell it's not helping him. she knows because that's the same thing her parents & teachers have been telling her for years, & it's never helped her. but she doesn't know what else to say. at her next tutoring session with stacey, stacey asks to correct claudia's journal. claudia forks it over, feeling quite smug about its perfect spelling. so she's shocked when stacey starts marking it up with a red pen. turns out, claudia made quite a few grammatical errors (writing "it's" for the possessive form of "its," for example). claudia is outraged & asks how she's supposed to learn with all the confusing rules of the english language. stacey is also not especially impressed by all the work claudia did decorating her flash cards with cute drawings. claudia thinks stacey is acting like a stern alien teacher. it all comes to a head during the babysitters club meeting, when the girls get another weird secret admirer note on the door. this one says, "you're the greatest." stacey immediately concludes that it's for her, from sam. claudia hulks out & accuses stacey of being conceited. stacey has some choice words about claudia's lack of effort in school. claudia ends up kicking stacey out of her room, & hence, out of the meeting. all the other sitters are like, "holy shit." but none of them want to get in the middle of it. after everyone cleaves, claudia lets fly in her secret journal, writing all about how much stacey sucks as a friend & tutor. claudia has nother job at the rodowskys, but she's in a shitty mood because of her fight with stacey. shea says something about his homework, & rather than lathering him up with platitudes, claudia sighs & says, "i know what you mean." she goes on to explain that she really struggles in school too, & might even fail english if she doesn't do okay on an upcoming test. shea is really interested & curious in her problems, & asks her to help him work on his spelling. claudia's all like, "okay, but i'm going to have to see the words, because otherwise i will have no idea if you're spelling them right." while she is quizzing him, she notices that shea has developed a few little tricks for sounding out words & figuring out how they're spelled. she asks him about his technique & is bowled over by the elegant simplicity of his explanations. she then asks him to quiz her, & she tries out some of his tricks & finds they work for her too. shea crunches some numbers in his head & tells claudia how many questions she needs to get right to get a high enough grade to pass her class, & she is like, "whoa, how did you do that in your head?" it turns out that shea is really good at math, & lots of other things too. it's just reading & writing that are hard for him, because of his dyslexia. together, they make a good tutoring team, each helping the other. back home, claudia wants to tell stacey about her awesome session with shea...but they're not talking. claudia is sad. after the next babysitters club meeting, stacey asks for claudia's journal because she needs to correct it again. claudia is distracted & stacey accidentally takes the secret journal. we all saw this one coming. when claudia realizes the mistake later that evening, she is like, "oh shit. so much for having a best friend." she seems to have a pretty easy time compartmentalizing the problem, & gets to work on her flash cards instead. when the test rolls around, claudia works really, really hard...& scores a B-, which is enough to pass the class. she is overjoyed...but she still has to sort things out with stacey. meanwhile, the babysitters got another note, asking them to meet their admirers at the rosebud cafe on saturday morning. they become convinced that the admirers are cokie & grace trying to pull some mean trick of them (since sending fake admirer notes does seem to be cokie's stock in trade), so kristy suggests they all dress really badly & come armed with practical joke supplies. the whole "dressing badly" thing is a transparent plot device. i don't see how cokie & grace would be impacted in any negative way by the babysitters looking ugly. when the girls show up, they discover that their admirers are some of their charges--the rodowsky boys, the arnold twins, the braddocks--wanting to treat them to ice cream to thank them for being awesome sitters. the babysitters quickly de-uglify themselves (with limited success in cases like mallory) & enjoy their ice cream. that afternoon, stacey calls claudia & asks if they can talk. claudia heads to stacey's house, & they both wind up apologizing: claudia for writing mean things about stacey, & stacey for turning into a bossy britches over the tutoring. they patch things up, & later, claudia receives a hand-written note for shea, thanking her for study help & being a friend. the tagline on the cover is, "claudia & shea can't spell...but they can still be friends!" like spelling is some kind of pre-requisite for being friends in some parts of the world? weird. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Dec 11, 2010
|
Dec 12, 2010
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0590456644
| 9780590456647
| 0590456644
| 3.62
| 1,115
| Mar 01, 1993
| Mar 01, 1993
|
it was ok
|
the book in which the members of the babysitters club are staggeringly unsympathetic to a foster child. the "worst kid ever" is lou mcnally, an eight-y the book in which the members of the babysitters club are staggeringly unsympathetic to a foster child. the "worst kid ever" is lou mcnally, an eight-year-old girl whose father recently passed away. her mother had abandoned the family when lou was a baby, & in the absence of a guardian, lou & her brother jay are placed into foster care. as if this weren't bad enough, the foster care people can't seem to find a family that can take both kids, so lou & jay are placed with different families in different towns. lou is placed with the papadakises, across the street from kristy. hannie & linny are pumped about adding a new kid to the family. they think it will be like getting a new live-in friend. all the babysitters & neighborhood kids are also excited to meet the foster kid & get to know her. but shockingly, when lou arrives, she is not all that friendly. she's a big tomboy who makes fun of the "playhouse" that karen, hannie, & nancy dawes are building at watson's house (those girls love their fucking playhouses, don't they?). she would rather play soccer with the boys. she thinks the papadakises have too many rules, like asking to check the kids' homework after they complete it, & insisting that the kids get permission before wandering around the neighborhood without supervision. "it's like prison," she says. i like to imagine what lou's back story is, that she thinks basic adult supervision is like prison. everyone tries to be nice to lou at first, but lou's not really having it. on numerous occasions, the babysitters observe lou acting sad or lonely & they try to hug her, but lou always freaks out over it. it doesn't really take a genius to understand that this kid is going through a serious rough patch at a really young age, & that maybe they should try to be a little more understanding, but everyone in the book seems to be a fucking dumbass. they're all like, "what's the deal with lou? why isn't she skipping around puking rainbows?" uh...'cause her dad just died? & somehow the papadakises couldn't take jay as well, even though they live in a fucking mansion? & mr. mcnally somehow failed to write a guardianship into his will, even though that's the first thing a competent person does when he finds out he's having a child? & for some reason, even though the papadakises signed on to be a foster family, they still leave their kids with babysitters literally every single day? i don't know. the babysitters all have a sleepover at kristy's house one night, & when they get up the next day, lou is over with the papadakises. kristy discovers lou in the living room, having stuffed boo boo into a pillowcase & jumping on the couch with him, trying to convince shannon (the dog, not the person) to jump. when kristy rushes over to rescue boo boo, lou drops the cat on her & kristy gets all scratched up. kristy tells lou that it's cruel to tease animals & not to do it again, but ten minutes later, she walks in on lou having blindfolded shannon (the dog again) to see if she can find her bone without seeing it. this is when kristy decides that lou is the "worst kid ever". very charitable. the next time dawn sits for the papadakises, she has them all make carob brownies. lou drops a spoonful of brownie batter on hannie's head, & dawn loses her temper & sends lou to her room. she later finds lou in hannie's room, holding a baby doll & crying. lou says that everyone has abandoned her--her mother when she was a baby, her father by dying, even her dog, which ran away. (maybe it was dog-napped by mr. tate.) dawn lets her cry it out & tells her that the papadakises, the babysitters club, & all the kids in the neighborhood are there for her. dawn realizes that lou isn't bad--she's sad. she tries to push everyone away before they can leave her alone. the next time kristy sits for the papadakises, like twenty minutes after dawn's job, she gets a call from lou's social worker. the social worker needs to talk to lou right away. lou is convinced that the social worker has found her mother, who will be arriving post-haste to whisk her & jay off into a perfect new family. but the social worker actually informs lou that she's located her uncle--lou's father's brother. & he has agreed to become lou's & jay's new permanent guardian. not sure where the fuck this dude was in the whole time that jay & lou have been alive to this point--was their dad estranged from him or something? i don't tak to my siblings much, but we usually clue each other in if we're, say, having a child. anyway, lou freaks, because she only wants her mom, & she rampages through the house destroying everything, & eventually wrecks karen's playhouse (yay) & then disappears. kristy manages to track her down that evening at the brook near the school. she convinces lou to go home. by the time lou's uncle comes to get lou, she has become more agreeable to the idea. the papadakises throw her a going-away party, & jay is there too. he & lou have a touching reunion. the uncle tells lou that he has a special present for her: a puppy. lou is totally pumped & displays a lot more maturity & good dog care than she did when she was blindfolding shannon. the babysitters all hope that lou & jay will be well taken care of by their uncle & able to forge a new happy family together. but i still think it sucks that kristy described lou as "bad" just because she was acting out because she was going through so much emotional hardship. i guess she must be forgiven, because she lives in stoneybrook, land of the stepford child. throw a regular kid into the mix & the babysitters just can't handle it (see also: the barrett kids, jackie rodowsky). the B-plot involves a fundraiser at the middle school to raise money for a new computer lab. all the students are asked to bring in items that will be auctioned off. the babysitters have no clue what to donate. they think about things like free babysitting (only it's not "free" because obviously whoever wins it will have to pay for it), petsitting, etc. then kristy has one of her infamous brain waves & suggests writing to celebrities & asking them to donate items. all the babysitters do so, & shortly before the auction, their bounty begins to arrive: a baseball autographed by every member of the team that just won the world series, toe shoes from a famous ballerina, the blanket of the horse that just won the kentucky derby. mary anne is stoked when she receives a jacket that cam geary wore in his most recent movie. unfortunately, the babysitters are motivated less by their desire to have a sweet computer lab than they are by wanting to best cokie mason, who has donated a certificate for a three-minute shopping spree at the local record store. & they succeed. for whatever dumbass reason, everyone is totally psyched for the celebrity donations. the biggest ticket celebrity donation is cam geary's jacket, which goes for "over $100," according to kristy. really? the signed baseball went for under $100? a signed baseball from a world series team these days fetches thousands of dollars. i guess things were different in 1992 or whenever this book was published. but the babysitters are all amused & proud when stacey crunches the numbers & announces that their "24 hours of free babysitting" was the highest ticket item in the auction. which means someone paid over $100 for it. which means that they just paid at least $4 or $5 an hour for some babysitting. which is about what i charged in the early 90s when i was a teen babysitter. someone did not think their auction bid through all the way. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Dec 11, 2010
|
Dec 11, 2010
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0590449605
| 9780590449601
| 0590449605
| 3.68
| 484
| Feb 01, 1993
| Jan 01, 1993
|
liked it
|
this one opens with dawn thinking about how weird people get over their pets. she describes mary anne holding tigger the wonder kitten up to get kisse
this one opens with dawn thinking about how weird people get over their pets. she describes mary anne holding tigger the wonder kitten up to get kisses from dawn, & while she is babysitting for the barretts that afternoon, mrs. mancusi (she of the home zoo featured in book #22, jessi ramsey, pet sitter) strolls by, chattering away at her dogs. dawn finds all of this very weird. dawn says that she tries to avoid mrs. mancusi because she's worried she will want to have a long talk with pow, the barretts' basset hound. at the babysitters club meeting, mrs. mancusi calls about a short-term pet sitter. she & mr. mancusi decided to go out of town for a few days & they need someone to look after the menagerie. dawn is the only one free, so she grudgingly takes the job. she explains that she doesn't hate animals...she's just not crazy about them. she says that she's not a vegetarian because she feels sorry for the cows. she just doesn't like the taste of meat. who the hell doesn't like the taste of meat? okay, a lot of people. even people who eat it. but i love it. during dawn's second day pet sitting, cheryl, the great dane, is acting desperate to go outside. she follows dawn all over the house while dawn looks after the other animals, & flips her shit when dawn uses the word "walk". so dawn decides to clip cheryl to the stake in the front yard while she finishes up with the inside animals. when she gathers up the other two dogs for a group walk & goes outside, cheryl is gone. dawn checks the clip, but everything looks fine. it looks like someone let cheryl off the clip. dawn canvasses the neighborhood & enlists the help of the other babysitters & their charges for the afternoon, but they can't find cheryl anywhere. dawn has to break the news to the mancusis when they get home. the babysitting B-plot is that a boy in new hope coaches a softball team similar to bart's bashers & kristy's krushers, & wants to organize a game. so bart & kristy put their teams together & choose the best players to form the krashers, the stoneybrook all-star team. as softball plots in babysitters club books go, this one is pretty fucking boring, so i'm not going to waste any time on it. all that matters is that the big game is in new hope, which actually impacts the (admittedly ludicrous) A-plot. so. dawn feels bad about cheryl going missing. she still feels bad when she attends a krashers practice a few days later. during the practice, she notices a dark green car in the parking lot. it's the same dark green car that she noticed while she was walking the mancusis' dogs on her first day. she feels creeped out & wonders what the green car is doing there. the next thing we know, shannon, david michael's bernese mountain puppy, goes missing. of course everyone is really sad about this. kristy is even late to a babysitters club meeting because she was out looking for shannon. then dawn reads in the paper that there has been a rash of dog-nappings in various small towns near stoneybrook, & even within stoneybrook. dawn begins to wonder if the missing dogs were actually napped, which would explain why they haven't wandered home on their own. there's also a new pet store in town, which mary anne likes to visit in order to buy new cat treats for tigger. mary anne is totally going to grow up to be that lady who has a cat mosh pit. she'll have like seventy cats & she'll just throw cat food up in the air & let the cats duke it out for nourishment. mary anne convinces dawn to go to the pet store with her, & dawn sees the car again. she becomes convinced that the car belongs to the pet napper. she gets all the babysitters on the job to ride their bikes around town & look for the green car. because it's easiest to find a moving target when you are also moving, right? anyway, somehow they find it & dawn writes down the license plate number. she then take the number & gives it to the police. the cop she talks to seems really bored & unimpressed with her efforts, but says he will call. because cops routinely call random civilians that bring in crime tips to let them know how those tips worked out? i don't think so. anyway, he doesn't call, so dawn follows up on her own, & the cop practically laughs her out of the station. turns out the car belongs to karl tate, one of the richest men in town (& the cop tells dawn this...why?). the cop is sure that there's no way karl tate is involved in any dog-napping. again...why? because rish people are always so virtuous? dawn is disappointed, but she doesn't know what else she can do. then she gets an idea about the pet store. she, kristy, & mary anne visit the pet store. dawn makes a note of what dogs they have available, & then asks for a dog breed they don't have. the owner says they don't have that kind of dog, but maybe he can get her one if she leaves a hefty deposit. dawn says she'll ask her parents & leaves, but she actually got the information she wanted. she finds it very suspicious that the pet store seems to offer dogs to order. she says most pet shops would have recommended a breeder, or had information about specifically when to expect a certain breed of dog to be in stock. there's something fishy about this pet store. at the krashers game in new hope, dawn is sitting in the stands when she galnces over & sees a woman in a red sweatsuit--not mrs. mancusi--walking a dog that looks a lot like cheryl, the missing great dane. dawn bolts from the stands & tracks the woman & her dog to a local field that people use as a dog run. she is sure that the dog is cheryl. she gets mary anne to stay put & keep an eye on the woman while dawn runs off to call the police. a new hope cop arrives & asks the woman how long she's had her dog, which she is calling cleo. the woman says, "about a week," & goes on to explain that she got the dog from the new pet store in stoneybrook, & "she cost the world, but she was worth it." dawn jumps into the conversation & exclaims that the dog is stolen. the woman is amazingly credulous & is all, "well, someone must really be missing this dog!" she agrees to go down to the station & the new hope cop says that she'll call dawn later with all the details. because cops do that for people that were not actually victims of any crime. oh wait, no, they don't. anyway, after the game (the krashers won), dawn & mary anne go to the station & arrive just in time to see mrs. mancusi's joyous reunion with cheryl. shannon is there too, & david michael is stoked to see her. the cop who first dismissed dawn is there (even though he was a stoneybrook cop & i thought they were in new hope at this point) & he's all, "you were right! turns out mr. tate was stealing all these dogs! he lost a bundle in real estate & needed to make some money. he pitched the idea of a dog-stealing ring to that new pet store & they were all over it. people would request a breed & they'd go out & steal it for them. turned out they made better money doing that than running a regular pet store! but they're all locked up now & the dogs will be reunited with their owners. i don't think any more dogs are going to be stolen around here!" way to just say that all these people are guilty before there's even been a trial. what the fuck. this is not the way cops operate. whoever wrote the book even had the cop saying things like, "he lost a bundle, see." because cops talk that way. ridiculous. & the conclusion is so "why, it's old man withers from the haunted amusement park!" "& i would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!" the scene in which the cops stopped mr. tate & pulled off his realistic latex face mask to reveal his true identity is not in the book...but i think we can all assume that's what happened. god, the mystery books are terrible. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Dec 09, 2010
|
Dec 09, 2010
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| unknown
| 3.26
| 268
| 2010
| unknown
|
it was ok
|
well, if you have insomnia, here's your cure. this book kept putting me to sleep. it is so dry, & so tedious in its writing style, & so repetitive, &
well, if you have insomnia, here's your cure. this book kept putting me to sleep. it is so dry, & so tedious in its writing style, & so repetitive, & so dull...dear god. i admit, i am probably not the target audience. i do yoga every now & again, but am definitely not devoted to it in any way. i just do it sometimes because it helps my arthritis pain. i have no interest in the spiritual components, or arguing over whether or not there are inherent spiritual components, or bikram yoga, etc. i thought this book was going to be a little more lively. i read a very positive review that claimed that it was funny & engaging, & i was imagining kind of a romp through the history of yoga in the united states & all the hijinks people got up to in their bizarre & unique interpretations. yeah, that totally did not happen. it started off with folks like thoreau & other new england mid-19th century intellectuals who became intrigued by "hindoo" spiritualism. &...this is about the time that i fell into an irreversible coma. oh my god, i know more about thoreau living on walden pond from reading the first two chapters of this book than i got from reading "walden" in high school. it wasn't exciting then & it's not exciting now. the author has a really grating writing style. she somehow manages to write the most convoluted sentences, & then she piles them up into paragraphs. they are not grammatically incorrect...they just don't make a lot of sense. for example: "theos arrives at his teacher's house & was also greeted by a man he's often seen around town. this [...] man had [...] specifically come to meet him. then he was at [the teacher's] the next morning too [he who? the man or theos?], this time with a special yoga scripture in hand. [...] theos was new to the language & assumed [the teacher] would read it. when he went to open the book [he who? theos? the teacher? the man?], its owner [still unclear who the owner is] immediately grabbed it, insisting he couldn't let [the teacher] see it. theos chastised the poor fellow [the man? the teacher?], telling him he was 'just like the rest of the yogi racketeers in india'. [who? the man? is the man a yogi? the teacher, who is definitely a yogi?] [the teacher] told hi m [who?] his teachings [what teachings? what the hell is going on?] were 'tommy rot', suggested he go back to his cave [who?], & threw him out [who?]." see what i mean? another example: "as part of the requirements for his doctorate, theos had to publish one hundred copies of his dissertation & file them with the philosophy department at columbia. [his girlfriend] covered his expenses, & in 1944 columbia university printed five hundred copies of [the dissertation as a book] &, surprisingly, sold out all four hundred extra copies." huh? theos had to publish one hundred copies himself, & then the university published 500 copies on their academic press label...& sold "the extra four hundred"? what extra four hundred? there were six hundred copies made altogether. i don't understand. jared suggested that this means that columbia only printed 400 copies on top of what theos made himself, & then sold them all...which would mean the author used such an excess of detail in constructing this paragraph that she obfuscated a very basic point. there's shit like that all over the book, so it takes about a million years to read it, & once you parse through the incomprehensible text, you're still stuck reading a book that is quite boring. it didn't really pick up until the end, with all the talf of cults & corrupt gurus, but even the author even managed to make that about as dull as dishwater. unless you are OBSESSED with yoga, do yourself a favor & skip this book. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Dec 08, 2010
|
Dec 08, 2010
|
Kindle Edition
| ||||||||||||||||
| 0865476810
| 9780865476813
| 0865476810
| 3.83
| 969
| Aug 17, 2010
| Aug 17, 2010
|
did not like it
|
this book was a chronic pain...in my ass. i really expected something more out of this book! it had positive reviews in the "new york times" & the "ne
this book was a chronic pain...in my ass. i really expected something more out of this book! it had positive reviews in the "new york times" & the "new yorker," & i was really hoping to connect with it, as i have suffered from chronic pain for over thirteen years. but it was such a disappointment. the book is broken up into five big parts, each of which purports to examine the issue of pain from a slightly different perspective. the first part looks as the religious tradition of pain, & this is where the book & i got off on the wrong foot. there are few things i find more tedious than religion. there was all this shit about how some religions look upon pain as a curse or a justified punishment for sin. that's really great & everything, but i am not religious & do not look at pain that way, so it was really boring. the only thing about this section that was remotely interesting was the stuff about "trial by ordeal," but... the major problem with this book is that each of the five sections is broken down into numerous sub-sections, anywhere from a page to maybe five pages in length. each tiny sub-section is a cursory examination of a small, limited aspect of examining the nature of pain--as a case study, in terms of medical breakthroughs, through the prism of the author's personal story, etc. as such, there was no space for any idea to really blossom & develop. it's like the book tried to be all things to all people who have ever experienced chronic pain, & the result was a frustrating hodgepodge of nothingness. far & away the worst parts of the book were the bits about the author's own personal experiences of chronic pain. i know from personal experience how difficult it is to write about pain without coming across as whiny, selfish, & narcissistic. the writer did not succeed in any way in avoiding these pitfalls. often when writing about pain case studies (the author spent several years traveling to pain clinics & meeting with patients & their doctors), the author compares herself against other pain patients...generally in an effort to find the other pain patients lacking in some way. either they are not complying with potentially helpful treatments, or they expect unrealistic miracles from their doctors, or they complain too much about their pain, or their life activities indicate that their pain is not as bad as the author's. all of this was just awful to read & it made me HATE the author (her goofy, hideous author photo on the flap jacket also did her no favors--she looked like she was trying to look like a teenager). at one point, she writes about seeing an orthopedist & receiving a diagnosis of a degenerative shoulder condition. "will it get better?" she asks. he points out that it's DEGENERATIVE. which means, no, it won't get better. she seems dumbfounded by this information. seriously? SERIOUSLY?! how is it that a college-educated writer who knows enough to seek out an orthopedic specialist apparently does not understand the meaning of the word "degenerative"? she also spends a lot of time feeling sorry for herself because she was diagnosed with arthritis at the tender age of 33. she waxes lyrical (in her own imagination) about how very young this is, & wonders how she can live out another fifty years of life with an arthritic shoulder. as someone who was diagnosed with arthritis in her spine, neck, hips, shoulders, knees, ankles, wrists, & hands at the age of 22, my sympathies were limited. suck it the fuck up & shut up. i don't know who the audience for this book actually is, but i don't think it's for chronic pain sufferers. i learned pretty much nothing from this book, & not until page 290 does the author offer the tidbit that consciously thinking about pain (by, say, reading a book about chronic pain) can make pain worse. well, thanks. i'd kind of already caught on by then. there was nothing in this book that helped me find a better way of coping with my pain, or made me relate in some uplifting way to other chronic pain sufferers (particularly the author). the prose was stilted & excessively pretentious. it seems like an armchair book for people without chronic pain who think they are smart. i think each chronic pain sufferer needs to make their own decision about whether or not to subject themselves to this book. i acknowledge that there is some possibility that a chronic pain sufferer for whom maybe the condition is still new, or who feels more sad than i do about their pain, might glean some tidbits from this book. but don't say i didn't warn you. you're in for a rambling, incomprehensible, piteous, pretentious whinefest of epic proportions. proceed with caution. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Dec 06, 2010
|
Dec 07, 2010
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 059092589X
| 9780590925891
| 059092589X
| 3.73
| 1,233
| Feb 01, 1993
| Jan 01, 1997
|
it was ok
|
i feel like there are 76 different plotlines in this book. we open with jessi at ballet class. at the end of class, mme noelle tells everyone that the
i feel like there are 76 different plotlines in this book. we open with jessi at ballet class. at the end of class, mme noelle tells everyone that the ballet school is going to be hosting a children's beginning ballet class for local under-privileged youth, & she asks for volunteers that might want to work with the kids. jessi volunteers right away & is surprised that more of her classmates are not chomping at the bit to spend their regularly scheduled dance class time (for which they pay out the nose) teaching strange children ballet skills for free. but one other girl in the class, mary, does volunteer. in the locker room later, mary remarks that she is having a hard time doing the pas de chat because she can't get enough height of her jumps. another student, mindy, suggests that mary lose some weight. she says she lost weight & could jump higher as a result. "don't you find that to be true, jessi," asks mindy. jessi starts to say no, but gets distracted by something. at that afternoon's babysitters club meeting, a call comes in that none of the regular sitters can take, & mary anne says she knows logan is busy that day as well. they have to call shannon. but kristy frowns & asks someone else to do it. she explains that shannon has more free time recently, & has been spending it by hanging around with kristy & monopolizing her time. she doesn't want to risk calling shannon & getting shanghaied into another tedious hang-out. stacey tells kristy to tell shannon to call her, claudia, dawn, etc. they all think shannon is cool & would like to get to her know her better. this makes kristy happier, & she makes the call to shannon. at the first under-privileged kid dance class, jessi notices a few kids that seem especially talented. one is a dark-skinned little girl who seems to naturally fall into proper ballet postures, but is very shy. another is a rowdy latino boy with tons of energy & natural grace, but a tendency to disrupt the concentration of the other kids around him. jessi helps out with the class as much as she can, & afterwards, mary is again complaining about her weight. mindy again encourages her to try dieting. jessi is confused because mary is already quite thin, but she brushes off her concerns. the volunteers all decide to go out for snacks together at burger king. mary seems alarmed by the idea of eating at burger king, & is reluctant to order anything, & even more reluctant to eat what she ordered. one of the boy volunteers, a latino dude named ramon, remarks that the class teacher, mme dupre, doesn't really seem to be pushing the kids to do any real ballet. she just let them fool around. he suggests that she doesn't think it's worth teaching them anything because they are mostly poor &/or of color & won't go on to have ballet careers after all. i imagine him jumping up on the table & being all, "mme dupre doesn't care about black people!" he asks jessi to back him up, but she demurs & says that she doesn't feel she has ever faced prejudice in her ballet classes. jessi is the dinesh d'souza of the ballet world. & from here the story drags on. jessi notices that mary is a little thinner during every ballet class, & she starts wearing baggy clothes to hide her body. she frets over her weight, skips a trip to burger king in order to go running, & even faints in class one day. the naturally talented kids that jessi noticed on her first day of volunteering with the kids' class continue to be good dancers, & the high-spirited little boy dedicates himself to learing the steps after mme dupre benches him one day for distracting the other students. ramon backs off his assessment of mme dupre when he realizes that the first class was basically just a taster, & that she is planning to make the kids work. claudia, stacey, & dawn spend more time with shannon, & kristy acts more & more pissed off for reasons no one can understand. finally, jessi tells the other babysitters & aunt cecelia her suspicions about mary. they all agree that mary may be on the road to anorexia, & that jessi should say something to her &/or mme noelle. jessi also realizes that the under-privileged kids she's teaching won't be able to afford to continue taking ballet classes after the free starter class is over. she mentions this to the other babysitters & kristy suggests soliciting corporations to sponsor some of the more talented kids. she offers to talk to watson about it. kristy also finally admits that she's been pissy because she was worried that the babysitters were replacing her with shannon as a friend. she was jealous. she apologizes to shannon & everyone feels better. jessi confronts mary about her fears regarding anorexia, mary gets pissed, so jessi goes to mme noelle. there's all this narration on jessi's part about how mme noelle probably has no idea what's going on with mary. because i'm so sure a professional ballet teacher is totally unfamiliar with the symptoms of anorexia. mme noelle talks to mary's parents, who enroll her in some hardcore eating disorder treatment program. watson volunteers to fund two scholarships for under-privileged kids, & they go to the two kids jessi noticed on her first volunteer day. this wasn't that awful of a book, but i don't know what all the kristy/shannon drama had to do with anything else. just a way to bring the other sitters into the story somehow, i guess. but there was already an A-plot (mary's anorexia) & a B-plot themed around kids (the volunteer class), so the kristy/shannon stuff seemed like a distraction. & the volunteer class stuff was incredibly tedious. the little girl who got the scholarship had taken a few lessons before, but her mom pulled her out after a neighbor said that a black girl could never really be a professional ballerina, so lessons were a waste of money. i can't believe that the mom would listen to that shit. jessi talks to her & explains that she has gotten some big parts in performances "even though" she is black. sometimes i wonder what the hell is going on with jessi's racial self-perception. then i remind myself that her books are written by white people, which explains a hell of a lot. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Dec 2010
|
Dec 07, 2010
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0590925865
| 9780590925860
| 0590925865
| 3.71
| 1,853
| Dec 1992
| Feb 02, 1993
|
liked it
|
the book opens with mary anne babysitting for the arnold twins, & you can tell right away that it's a lerangis book, because when carolyn tries to com
the book opens with mary anne babysitting for the arnold twins, & you can tell right away that it's a lerangis book, because when carolyn tries to communicate something up the stairs from the basement, it is written in phonetic gibberish. lerangis loves his allergy-speak & muffle-speak. carolyn is in the basement because she is building a time machine. this is our babysitting B-plot. the A-plot gets going on the babysitters club meeting that afternoon, when mary anne pages through one of claudia's fashion magazines & is intrigued by some of the short hairstyles on the models. she asks the other girls what they think of her possibly getting a haircut, & they kind of laugh at her. stacey authoritatively declares, "it's just not you." at home that evening, mary anne is grumpy & eventually she realizes that it's because her friends were less than supportive of mary anne making a change in her appearance. she made a new year's resolution to "be the best [she] can be, in all possible ways" (sheesh), & she thinks that also includes her appearance. she looks through some of her own magazines & finds another model with a short style. mary anne looks in the mirror with her hair pulled up & realizes she has a nice jawline & short hair could really flatter her. she goes downstairs & asks richard if she can get a haircut. he is agreeable, & even suggests making it a father-daughter outing at the washington mall. mary anne is excited & asks him to keep it a secret from dawn & sharon, because she wants to surprise everyone with her new look. on saturday, mary anne & richard go to the mall & have a great day. mary anne gets her haircut & she loves it. she gets a free makeover at a new cosmetics shop, & richard lets her buy some of the make-up the stylists used. richard & mary anne also go in 50/50 on some new clothes for mary anne. when they get home, she rings the bell so she can really surprise sharon & dawn--& does she ever! they are speechless, but finally sharon enthuses over how great mary anne looks. dawn doesn't really say anything at all. later that evening, mary anne calls logan & asks him to come by the next morning because she has a "surprise" for him. dawn gets on the extension & spills the beans about the haircut. mary anne is really angry (yes, angry! mary anne!) with dawn for that. when logan comes by the next day, he thinks mary anne looks great, though he tells her that what really matters most is that SHE likes the way she looks. when mary anne goes to school on monday morning, she tries to brace herself for her classmates' reaction to her new look, but it's pretty much overwhelmingly positive. she gets a few "wow"s, including one from cokie mason, & shawna riverson shoots logan some dirty looks because she thinks he has his arm around some hot new girl. but when mary anne sees kristy, claudia, & stacey in the hall, they are less enthusiastic & make comments like, "we told you it wasn't you," &, "it'll grow out." it' also obvious that dawn spilled the beans to the rest of the club before they had a chance to see the haircut for themselves. mary anne has a hard time dealing with the negative reaction from the other babysitters, so asks logan to come to the next few babysitters club meetings, for moral support. but when he can't come on friday, she has to face it alone, & everyone is surprisingly nasty to her, making little comments about all the time she's spending with logan & her new clothes & such forth. plus, there's a rumor going around at school that some high school boys are interested in mary anne & want to invite her to the high school winter dance. mary anne suspects that at least one of the rumors was started by kristy. mary anne decides not to go to babysitters club meetings until someone apologizes to her. which means she is missing a lot of meetings. & when she's sitting for the arnold twins & finds carolyn out collecting dollar bills from neighborhood children in exchange for a trip in her "time machine," she's not sure what to do. she thinks about calling kristy or stacey for advice...but she's not talking to her friends. so she's stumped. & then logan starts acting weird with mary anne. he avoids her all day at school & calls in the evening to ask if they are still on for the january jamboree. mary anne is confused until logan explains that he knows about mary anne's plans to go to a high school dance with one of her high school suitors. mary anne sets him straight & they have a good laugh. dawn overhears & makes some asshole comment, which causes them to have a fight. but then mary anne feels bad about the fight & asks dawn to talk. which is kind of bullshit. as much as i hate mary anne, dawn is clearly in the wrong here & i wouldn't talk to dawn until she got over herself. but i guess this is why mary anne is often described as "sweet & sensitive" & i am not. when they talk things out, dawn confesses that she fell left out of mary anne's big trip to the mall with richard. dawn is all, "we're sisters. we're not supposed to have secrets. wouldn't you be hurt if i was thinking about eating meat or something & i didn't talk to you about it first?" basically, dawn is being a jealous hater who thinks mary anne isn't allowed to make decisions without her. the rest of the babysitters club was basically just falling in line behind dawn (save for mallory & jessi, who generally try not to get mixed up in fights the eighth graders have with each other). dawn also admits that it made her feel sad & jealous to see how close mary anne & richard are. it made her miss her own dad, & that was hard for her. & i'm sure watching dawn & sharon hang out is no big whoop to mary anne, whose mother is DEAD, so she can't even go visit or call her on the phone if she starts feeling bummed. dawn is really a self-centered piece of work in this one. but mary anne is more understanding than i would have been, & eventually they are laughing & back to normal. they go to a babysitters club meeting, where everyone falls silent when mary anne walks into the room. no details are offered about how they patch up their differences. mary anne just narrates that it was a "long talk". i seriously don't know what the fuck these girls have to say besides, "i felt weird when you cut your hair because i fear change, which is totally my problem & not yours. i'm sorry for being an enormous asshole. please forgive me." it's almost hard to take the conflict in this book seriously because it's so lopsided & weird. in the last chapter, carolyn unveils her time machine & seems nervous about the fact that she KNOWS it's not going to work. mary anne convinces her to pretend it works & give all the kids their money back. they can all just play a big game of pretend & have fun. which they do, & it works out great. i'm not sure what applicable A-plot lessons we were supposed to draw from the time machine story, but at least it gave mary anne a chance to rain on mallory's parade by claiming that she (mary anne) was the one who talked to mrs. arnold & convinced her to let the twins express their own unique personalities (which mallory actually did in BSC book #21, "mallory & the trouble with twins"). i know ann was still writing the books back then, but get your shit together, lerangis! ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Dec 04, 2010
|
Dec 04, 2010
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0606025065
| 9780606025065
| 0606025065
| 3.90
| 1,014
| Dec 1992
| Dec 1992
|
liked it
|
jessi becomes the sixth-grade correspondent for the stoneybrook middle school newspaper on the same day that auditions are announced for the all-schoo
jessi becomes the sixth-grade correspondent for the stoneybrook middle school newspaper on the same day that auditions are announced for the all-school all-ages play, "peter pan". jessi thinks she's a shoo-in for the role of peter pan, so she decides to write an article about it for the paper as an on-the-spot reporter. she shares her great idea with the other members of the babysitters club & everyone is excited. dawn wants to audition for tiger lily, kristy wants to be nana & the cocodile, claudia wants to work on the sets, mallory wants to do costumes, & stacey just wants any old role. mary anne wants nothing to do with the play--but she's excited for her friends anyway. then jessi tells everyone about how she'll have tons to write about, since she'll be playing peter pan. everyone is like, "...". jessi explains that she has tons of performance experience & is a great dancer, so of course she'll get the part. she doesn't really seem to notice their confusion or take it seriously. when try-outs roll around, half the kids in town are auditioning. dawn is pretty shaken up because cokie mason also wants the role of tiger lily. dawn doesn't relish the idea of competing with cokie. but they both try out & they're both really good. kristy is also good, stacey impresses everyone, & jessi's dancing is phenomenal, although her singing & dancing are just all right. jackie rodowsky does a great job with his line reads, even though he is predictably clumsy during the dancing. sam thomas is fantastic. when call-backs happen, everyone in the club who tried out is asked to stay...except for jessi. but she's not worried because she knows the director has already decided to cast her as peter pan, & doesn't need to see anything more. a few days later, the cast & crew list is ready. cokie is pumped because she got the role of tiger lily, just like she wanted. she smirks about beating dawn out for the part...until she sees that dawn got the role of wendy, which is the female lead. kristy is crushed about losingthe role of nana & the crocodile to pete black...& dumbfounded over being cast as peter pan. jessi was cast as a pirate & she is VERY disappointed. stacey is playing mrs. darling...& sam is playing mr. darling. jackie rodowsky is playing michael darling. logan is a pirate. claudia is the set designer & mallory is the costume assistant. at the club meeting that afternoon, everyone is marveling over their parts in the play. jessi just sits in the corner, huffing & puffing. finally she yells at them all & points out that they all got bigger & better parts than they wanted or expected, while she's supposed to play some dumb pirate. she decides not to be in the play at all. she breaks the news to the director at the first rehearsal, & he accepts her resignation, but asks her to stay on to help coach the little kids on their dance routines. he also explains that he chose not to give her the part because she's already had so much stage experience, & while her dancing was exceptional, she was no better than anyone else at acting or singing. jessi interprets this to mean that he just wanted to give someone else a shot. as the rehearsals progress, everyone faces their various challenges (as this is a super special, after all). kristy is having a lot of trouble learning her lines & everyone is afraid she's going to bomb on opening night. claudia is concerned that one of her sets is going to come crashing down & kill someone. mary anne is recruited at the first rehearsal (which she attended with matt & haley braddock, as their babysitter) to be the backstage babysitter. she is also enlisted as jackie's personal coach, since he is kind of a handful. stacey is embarrassed by the way sam keeps calling her "mother" & "mrs. darling". she also wonders if he's acting a little funny since the play has thrust both stacey & his high school friends into each other's orbits. sam is indeed feeling weird about that. his high school friends tease him a lot for dating a girl in middle school, & he doesn't want stacey to know & have her feelings hurt. he jokes about their roles as mr. & mrs. darling to show his friends how much fun he's having with her, but it backfires when stacey loses her temper with him. dawn decides that the play is sexist & keeps trying to change the words to reflect more modern ideas about women. she offers to teach peter how to sew his shadow back on, & to show the lost boys how to cook. mallory is embarrassed by her responsibilities for measuring boys for their costumes. logan temporarily gets kicked out of the play when he makes a ruckus backstage & distracts everyone, but he talks to the director & is re-instated. & we've already established that jessi is grumpy about not getting the part she thought she deserved. but everyone gets their shit together eventually. kristy learns her lines (though she blanks for a second on opening night & karen has to whisper her lines to her--oh, i forgot to mention that karen pitched an ever-loving fit over wanting to play tinkerbell, even though tinkerbell isn't played by a real person. she wanted to wear a fairy costume. & the director foolishly conceded, but four days before opening night, karen freaked out because she wanted fairy noises & flashing lights to accompany her on stage. karen is a grade-A brat. the scenery doesn't fall on anyone. there's some trouble between mary anne & mallory with the backstage babysitting. mallory is basically taking over mary anne's job & mary anne gets mad & tells mallory to back off. so mallory does so, & lets the kids run wild, thinking mary anne will regret not appreciating mallory's help. but she soon discovers that mary anne has everything well in hand after all, & that she's been falling down on her job of keeping track of costumes. somehow a bunch of tiger lily's & mrs. darlin's wardrobe items get swapped. not sure how you confuse pieces of an indian princess costume with pieces of a victorian housewife costume, but whatever. stacey & sam talk things out & patch up their differences. dawn reads her lines as they are written. & at the last second, pete black breaks his nose & has to bow out of the play, so jessi fills in as nana & the crocodile, which works out well, because jackie had been scared of the crocodile & screamed every time he saw it. but he feels better once he knows it's jessi inside the costume. opening night goes off without a hitch, jessi feels better since she got to be in the play after all, & everyone is happy. i guess. except for me, because i read this book. it wasn't as horrible as i remembered...but it's still a little bit horrible. all the crap about jackie being afraid of the crocodile gets old fast, i get sick of the babysitters club constantly bickering with cokie (at one point, dawn says she doesn't remember why they are feuding, but they are feuding nonetheless, which seems really childish to me), & all the crap about mallory being embarrassed to measure boys is totally ridiculous. how does she think costumes get made? also, babysitters club meetings are suspended while everyone is working on the play. funny how kristy panics about canceling meetings in a host of other books, lest the club lose business, but when it's convenient for the plot, it's no big deal. i have also never heard of a school hosting a play in which the cast was not just comprised of its own students. there are kids from half the schools in town in this play. ridiculous. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Dec 2010
|
Dec 02, 2010
|
Paperback
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
my rating |
|
|
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| 3.77
|
it was ok
|
Dec 26, 2010
|
Jan 07, 2011
|
|||||
|
| 3.70
|
did not like it
|
Dec 26, 2010
|
Jan 07, 2011
|
|||||
|
| 3.60
|
really liked it
|
Dec 26, 2010
|
Jan 07, 2011
|
|||||
|
| 3.76
|
really liked it
|
Jan 05, 2011
|
Jan 05, 2011
|
|||||
|
| 4.37
|
liked it
|
Dec 20, 2010
|
Jan 05, 2011
|
|||||
|
| 3.72
|
liked it
|
Dec 20, 2010
|
Dec 20, 2010
|
|||||
|
| 3.27
|
really liked it
|
Dec 17, 2010
|
Dec 19, 2010
|
|||||
|
| 3.82
|
it was ok
|
Dec 14, 2010
|
Dec 14, 2010
|
|||||
|
| 3.75
|
liked it
|
Dec 14, 2010
|
Dec 14, 2010
|
|||||
|
| 3.59
|
it was amazing
|
Dec 13, 2010
|
Dec 14, 2010
|
|||||
|
| 4.36
|
liked it
|
Dec 13, 2010
|
Dec 13, 2010
|
|||||
|
| 3.66
|
really liked it
|
Dec 13, 2010
|
Dec 13, 2010
|
|||||
|
| 3.68
|
liked it
|
Dec 11, 2010
|
Dec 12, 2010
|
|||||
|
| 3.62
|
it was ok
|
Dec 11, 2010
|
Dec 11, 2010
|
|||||
|
| 3.68
|
liked it
|
Dec 09, 2010
|
Dec 09, 2010
|
|||||
|
| 3.26
|
it was ok
|
Dec 08, 2010
|
Dec 08, 2010
|
|||||
|
| 3.83
|
did not like it
|
Dec 06, 2010
|
Dec 07, 2010
|
|||||
|
| 3.73
|
it was ok
|
Dec 2010
|
Dec 07, 2010
|
|||||
|
| 3.71
|
liked it
|
Dec 04, 2010
|
Dec 04, 2010
|
|||||
|
| 3.90
|
liked it
|
Dec 2010
|
Dec 02, 2010
|
Loading...
