Summary
Stacey is sad when Mr. Zorzi, her math teacher, announces that he'll be turning over the class to a student teacher for the last few weeks of the school year. Stacey is sure the new guy (Mr. Welsey Ellenburg) will be total nerd. When she walks into class on Wes's first day, though, she's proven totally wrong. He's totally hot, and Stacey is madly in LUV from that moment on. She chooses her outfits based on what she thinks Wes would like most, takes more care than usual with her homework, and even volunteers to stay after school a couple of times to help him get things organized
Wes doesn't exactly do a whole lot to discourage Stacey. Once, he even gives her a ride to a BSC meeting after she's done helping him after school. Stacey is so convinced that he's in love with her that she writes this horribly awkward poem that compares the two of them to stars...AND THEN GIVES IT TO WES. He's uncomfortable about it, but Stacey still hasn't given up hope. A week later, just in case he didn't get the point of the poem, Stacey actually goes and tells him she loves him. He doesn't respond, and poor dillusional Stacey is crushed. He doesn't actually SAY anything to her about the situation until the spring dance. Wes is a chaperone, and Stacey dances with him (not smart, Wes!). When a slow song comes on, he tries to beg off, but Stacey insists. So, Wes pulls her to the side and tells her that there isn't a chance for a relationship between them. He lets her down as easily as possible, but Stacey is still disappointed...especially since she turned down a date with Sam Thomas with the hope that Wes would ask her to the dance.
Also, Charlotte Johanssen has her very first crush, and Dawn and Mary Anne are goat-sitting for little Elvira.
Rating: 3
Thoughts and Things
- Stacey says she puts jokes into her math homework so she won't seem like a dork. Heh.
- Wes is 22....which seems really young to me now. Scary.
- And the prize for the best name of a character that's mentioned only once is.....Diane Dumschat! (it's all in how you pronounce it, and yes, I'm 12)
- Peter L. really nailed the whole 13 year old, crush on a teacher thing. That's even scarier that "old" Wes being 22.
- If hoping that Stacey and Wes meet up as adults and end up together is wrong, then I don't want to be right. :)
Diane Dumschat?! Please tell me this was a Lerangis book!
ReplyDeleteWhen I read this as a child, I thought Wes was doing the right thing. Reading it now, as a high school coach...He never actually did anything illegal, but I'm sure some broke some school rules. And he was putting himself in stupid situations that could very easily have been misunderstood. Giving her a ride? The only athlete I gave rides to alone was my younger brother!
ReplyDeleteYes, it's a Lerangis book, Sadako! :)
ReplyDeleteAlso, yes, I can't believe he let himself be alone with Stacey so often, and that he was so clueless about how she felt about him until she gave him that embarrassing poem! The ride thing would never fly today, in the age of student/teacher relationships.
Agreed. Letting her see the W2 form? And his SS #? WTF? Can we say boundaries? Especially since Stacey is PSYCHO STALKER?
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure that giving students a lift is allowed, i have a teacher who is constantly offering lifts home. Its actually really creepy and uncomfortable when she always asks if she can drive you home, I so want one day to be like "Sure miss you can drive me home, I'll be a my dads tonight, he lives in Weipa" (Weipa is at the other end of the state and is kinda remote; 3 day train ride or 4 hour flight :D)
ReplyDeleteA teacher giving a student a ride isn't quite as bad in a small town as it would be elsewhere, though since he'd just moved there (?) it'd still be a bit weird.
ReplyDeleteI remember how weird I found it when I was 11 and realized I was about the same age as these girls and they acted more like 14 and 16 year olds than 11 and 13 year olds (that's when I stopped reading them, though a few years later I began picking one up from time to time). I am now 22--23 next month!--and this summary makes me wonder what the heck I would do if I were a teacher and a 13 year old student had a crush on me. I would have no clue how to respond to that, so honestly, even though he didn't make the best decisions, I can't be too hard on him. It's an incredibly awkward situation.
Ooh, I was also 13 and in the 8th grade when I developed a crush on a new substitute teacher. I didn't write him a poem but I do remember writing him a letter. I also gave him a gold and a silver gel pen for Christmas--- I was a very naive preteen who actually thought he could love me back. Didn't I learn from anything from this book???? This happened in 1997-1998, and I'm pretty sure this book came out a few years before that, and it was one of the ones I actually owned, as opposed to many of the earlier ones that I checked out from the library.
ReplyDelete