Young Adult Revisited

So originally I had this plan, where at some point I’d start reviewing Baby-Sitter’s Club books, but only after I made it through a good chunk of the teen books. Then I stumbled onto a thrift store that had something like 30-40 of the books for 25 cents! I knew it was now or never, so I snagged them. I’ll try to space the books out some, so you don’t end up with a ton of BSC book reviews all at once. That same store had a couple SVH and Fear Street books too, so yay! LOL It’s been a long time since I picked up a Baby-Sitter’s Club book and I probably should have started with a different one. At least this one has Mimi, who I completely forgot about! Basically it’s summer, which I’m guessing is the summer between 7th and 8th grade, back when the books followed some sort of realistic path. Claudia is taking summer art classes and the BSC decides it would be “fun” to start a new play group for kids in the neighborhood. Somehow they get parents who think it’s a smart idea to leave the...

Sweet Valley High #120: In Love with the Enemy I love Ken Matthews. I hate Jessica Wakefield. By the transitive property, I should hate Jessica for loving Ken…or something like that. It’s big game night in Sweet Valley, which must mean it’s a Friday night. Though don’t they have games at weird times of the week, like a Wednesday night game sometimes? Apparently SVH and Palisades are having a big rivalry and it’s driving both schools crazy. Foreshadowing perhaps… Todd agreed to hold seats at the game for Liz and Enid because Liz was working on a story. They get there late and the only seats they can find are on the opposing side. They meet these two girls Caitlin and Marla, who work on the other school’s newspaper. They start talking about a way to get the two schools together. Liz suggests a poetry reading and Enid correctly says that only a few people would show up. They finally decide to host a co-dance and get so excited with the idea that they miss the end of the game. Jess has bee...

I kind of hate these books because while it’s over 300 pages long, we really only get a few pages of new shit and the rest is packaged from old books. This one takes place from the time Todd moves back to Sweet Valley to the one where she sets up Dana and Aaron. At the beginning of the book Todd is taking Liz out for their anniversary, but he seems really preoccupied with something. In a very un-Liz moment, she thinks about how much she likes the fancy restaurant and how it’s a “perk” to dating a rich Todd. You know, as opposed to the poor Todd she wasted all those other books on. Eventually Todd confesses that his friend Michelle is coming into town from Vermont. He and Liz almost broke up after she found a letter the girl wrote, calling Todd cute buns and signing it with a bunch of kisses. Is this something that actually happened in the books? I have no idea, but I can’t remember it. Todd is kind of an ass too because they have plans for their anniversary and he wants to bring Michel...

Whoa! This book is so old that it was before they started putting the little “heartbeat” line on the spine of the Point Horror books! So Blind Date centers on Kerry. He’s just your ordinary kind of high school guy, except that he was in a car accident about a year ago. He doesn’t remember anything about that night, but he remembers the headlights of another car coming towards them. He lives with his annoying brother Sean and his cop dad, who does nothing except talk about his brother Donald. Donald was some huge deal/popular football player and the only reason Kerry even gets a spot on the team is because of his brother’s legacy. During a practice, he accidentally rams the quarterback, who has to be carried off the field. His buddies and his girlfriend all vow revenge. Plus he gets tossed from the team. Not long after, Kerry gets a mysterious phone call from a girl. She tells him that his friend Margo, who moved across town, wanted to set them up. Amanda and her were friends, but now A...

I never read any of the Terror Academy books because I was a little too old for the young adult books by the time they started coming out. I think I stopped reading them around 1994, except for a few, so this is all new to me. Shannon and her brother Patrick are on a bus, moving to live with their dad. Apparently their mom dad and he fell into a deep depression and became an alcoholic. He moved away and they lived with their grandparents for awhile. Now he has a new job, got a new apartment and he wants his kids back. Of course Shannon isn’t ready to trust him at all because she’s kind of a bitch. Like her dad stops at the grocery store and she freaks out because it’s next door to a liquor store. She literally doesn’t see anything in the strip mall other than the liquor store and thinks he’s drinking again. Plus she keeps talking about this horrible thing he did at her birthday party. It’s actually kind of weird because Pine keeps insinuating that her dad did something really bad. She ...