The Baby-Sitter’s Club #127: Abby’s Un-Valentine

I never read any of the Abby books because she joined the club after I stopped reading the series. I’ve read a few lately where she popped up, but it wasn’t a major story. I’m still not sure how I feel about the character, but I do look forward to seeing an updated version where she and Kristy embark on a love affair.

It’s almost Valentine’s Day in Stoneybrook and Abby is hating it. She does point out that she likes Logan and Mary Anne’s relationship because the two are actually friends, but she doesn’t really care about anyone else. She’s also sick of seeing red and pink everywhere. Even her English teacher is going over love poems in class.

There’s also a huge dance coming up and it’s all anyone wants to talk about. Claudia and Mary Anne have dates, Stacey’s new boyfriend Ethan is coming down from NYC and even Jessi is planning on going with a group of friends. Wait, she has friends away from the BSC?

At the same time, this guy Ross wants to date Abby and he keeps coming around. She thinks he just wants to be her friend, but he makes it pretty clear that he wants more from her. He brings her flowers, sticks up for her in class and is just generally around all the time. He even buys her a book of cartoons from The New Yorker, which she learns Stacey helped him pick out.

The annoying thing with this book is that everyone acts like they’re right. Abby is certain that she doesn’t want a boyfriend and everyone else think she does. Stacey and Claudia just think she’s scared of having a boyfriend and Abby points out that she’s dated before, just not in this town.

Her twin sister Anna wants to go to the dance and date, but no one is interested in her. Abby suggests she go to the dance with a group of friends and she gets all shy and embarrassed. Abby think it’s weird how she has this super great group of friends and yet her poor sister has no one.

Abby comes up with an idea, which she compares to one of Kristy’s great ideas. Since Anna likes Ross and Ross likes her, she’ll just fix him up with her twin. She invites him over and when Anna can’t decide what to wear, they switch shirts. Ross thinks Anna’s Abby and she doesn’t know how to tell him that he made a mistake. They’re getting along great, until he realizes that he’s with Anna. He thinks they switched on purpose, gets pissed, storms out and won’t talk to them.

The only way she can think to make things better is if they both surprise him and apologize. Ross realizes that he has more in common with Anna and asks her to a classical music concert. The two end up going to the dance together and Abby celebrates by going to a horror movie with Kristy. She wins a huge box of chocolates and rolls her eyes, but then decides to take it to their next club meeting and share.

*The movie they see is The Pizza Man about a killer delivery guy. I love horror movies and even have a horror movie blog, but that sounds terrible to me.

*Claudia wears hiking boots with silver laces and pictures of mountains that she painted on the sides herself, with a long sweater in white and blue.

*Stacey wears a cool outfit with over the knee boots, a brown leather skirt and a pale sweater. I love this, but it sounds way out of place for a 13 year old girl. It actually sounds like something Jessica Wakefield would wear.

*Kristy and her family are raising a guide dog named Scout, but it’s almost time to send the dog to guide dog school. Andrews pitches a fit because he thinks she’s his dog. In the end, David Michael agrees to share Shannon with him and everyone says good-bye to Scout. It made me a little sad though.

*Abby hates it when the girls in her class talk about true love. I think it’s a little ridiculous too that a teacher would let junior high girls compare their current relationship to the way a poet describes true love.

*Stacey gets pissed off when Abby makes a comment about people dating just to be dating, whether they like the person or not. And yet how many boyfriends has Stacey had in this series?

*It’s kind of weird to read Abby’s descriptions of Dawn and Mallory and even weirder to realize that they’re no longer in the books.

*I’m kind of digging Abby’s outfit on the cover. I showed it to the boyfriend and he rolled his eyes, but agreed that “it’s not too bad” after I showed him some of the older covers.