The Baby-Sitters Club #71: Claudia and the Perfect Boy

Claudia is sitting in her room, hugging herself and feeling sad because she doesn’t have a boyfriend. She makes a list of things she wants in her perfect guy, including being a good listener, lots to talk about, artistic and muscular. Stacey catches her and after later telling her what she was doing, she gives her some feedback on her list. Stacey then shows her a personal ads column and they get the idea to one for the middle school.

Emily is completely on board with the idea and gives her half a page in the newspaper. Of course it’s a huge success and everyone in school submits an ad. They eventually get another half page, just to compensate for all the letters. Claudia also finds a few letters that peak her interest. One is a guy who says he likes to swim and sketch.

His name is Brian and they go on a date, but it’s a disaster because he barely talks. He reveals that he likes to assemble model cars and sketch the finished cars. Then she goes out with Richard/Rock, who’s Alan Gray’s neighbor and goes to a private school. He’s obsessed with everything Asian and has a gross tattoo, plus he keeps talking to her about oriental things. She goes out with a few other guys when she puts in her own ad and accidentally answers Alan’s personal ad.

Then she gets a letter from a guy who sounds perfect for her, but he doesn’t leave a name or number. When she complains about it and keeps searching for him, she gets another letter from him saying that he’s out there and he’ll find her. She keeps freaking out and Stacey reveals that she wrote the letter to make her feel better. She’s kind of pissed, but then decides to give up on dating for awhile and just be happy alone.

The other storyline involves Mrs. Barrett discovering that Marnie is allergic to their dog. Buddy and Suzi hate their sister because they have to give up Pow. She puts an ad out and meets a bunch of people, but no one seems right. Eventually the Pike family decides to take Pow in and all’s well that ends well.

*Claudia gets a letter from a boy named Sean, who wants to start a support group for divorced kids. She talks it over with the BSC and eventually gives him the number of a therapist. I think it’s pretty shitty that she didn’t run the letter.

*The Pow storyline is such a tack on! If Marnie was allergic to the dog, wouldn’t she have shown symptoms before? There’s been entire scenes where she hugged the dog or sat on him and never once shown any symptoms.

*It’s kind of funny that the Alan thing wasn’t referenced in the Friends Forever books, especially after they started liking each other.

*Claudia ends up having the personals column and a matchmaking column in the paper, but of course she stops both of them after this book.

*She screws up a bunch of ads and Logan thinks Mary Anne is trying to dump him because of it, so he stops talking to her. Yeah, he’s a real winner. I’m sure she’d be stupid enough to advertise for a new boyfriend, knowing he would read the ads and use her real phone number.