Young Adult Revisited

Is it weird that I don't really care for the later books that took the focus off the twins? Anyway, you might remember Michael Harris from that earlier book where he was a controlling dick who was engaged to Maria before she wound up with Winston. He is now a dirt bike racer, a hobby we never heard mentioned before, dating April Dawson, a girl never mentioned before the last book. As much as she loves him, she doesn't like that he's so serious all the time. He goes to bed early every Friday night to prepare for the race the next day and only seems to care about racing. Oh, and he completely hates Artie Weston. The two were once friends, but they had some falling out and no longer speak. April really, really wants to know what happened, so she goes right to the gossip hounds. Lila thinks they fought over a girl, someone else said Michael almost killed Artie in a race, someone thinks it was some other stupid problem, and someone else suggests it was Artie who ...

It's the summer before eighth again, which makes me think that these girls must be incredibly stupid to keep repeating the same grade. Stacey is off to Manhattan for the summer, and Claudia's parents decide to make their vacation a surprise. Mary Anne, Kristy, and Abby all plan on going to Camp Mohawk, but at the last moment, Mary Anne decides to stay home. Kristy gets a call from Logan early on to say that he wants to drop out of the club to focus more on sports. She gets upset because she thought Mary Anne already knew but calms down when she finds out she didn't know. Then, she gets a letter from Jessi. She just got into a new ballet school that meets six times a week and has to drop out. Abby then reveals that she too wants to drop out to focus on soccer and have fun not sitting or dealing with meetings. Kristy is so upset that she stops talking to her entirely. They spend half the book not talking with Abby trying to explain things to her. Kristy fina...

Julie is a camera buff. She has a new idea for the class picture and runs to tell her advisor about it but finds him meeting with her rival David. David's dad is a manager at some camera store and thinks he's hot shit. When she gets an assignment, he just randomly shows up and take photos anyway. Julie tells her teacher about her idea, David butts in, and the teacher decides to turn it into a competition as to who will take the class picture. The next day, she goes bike riding with her best friend Reena. They come across a yard sale, and Julie finds an old camera. The lady running the sale flips out and tells her to drop it and leave. Her daughter comes up and tells Julie to just take it. When she gets home, her mom has to tell her how a Polaroid camera works, which suddenly makes me feel uber old. Julie takes her picture, and Reena complains because she has red eye in it. When Julie tries to scan and edit it, the picture gets worse. Reena suddenly starts screa...