Everything Changes

It's summer (for the last time!), and, well, everything is changing for the members of the BSC. I think I'll recap this one Super Special style.

Kristy is freaking out about how the BSC will run in July. Abby, Mary Anne, Stacey, Claudia, and Kristy herself are all going to be out of town for the whole month, Dawn won't be in Stoneybrook until August, and no one else has much time for sitting. Things get worse from there: first Logan and then Jessi drop out of the BSC completely. At least heading back to Camp Mohawk as a CIT will take Kristy's mind off of things. She's not happy that Mary Anne decides not to go at the last minute, but she and Abby are in the same cabin, which gives them a chance to get to know each other better. They actually get pretty close....and then Abby drops out of the club, too. Kristy refuses to speak to her for days, until their campers unite to try and get them talking again. Abby explains that she just wants some free time, and being in the BSC was definitely getting in the way of it. Kristy understands how Abby feels....which scares her.

As I said, Mary Anne decides to stay home rather than go to Camp Mohawk. There's so much up in the air with her family and her life that she feels she should stick around to see what happens. Logan is also proving to be a bit of a problem; he's trying so hard to be supportive of Mary Anne with everything she's gone through that he's actually smothering her. She tries to talk things out with him a couple of times, but it just doesn't go very well. Mary Anne realizes that she needs to consider a permanent break-up. In other news, her grandmother visits from Iowa, and brings a bunch of Mary Anne's mother's old things to replace what was lost in the fire. Also, Richard decides not to take the job in Philadelphia. They're going to renovate the barn into a house, and they'll be renting the Goldman's house (next door to Claudia) in the meantime.

Claudia's family takes a vacation to Monhegan, an island off the coast of Maine. The Kishi parents want to "get back to nature," which means no phone, tv, computer, etc. Claud isn't exactly thrilled with the whole idea, but she actually gets pretty into it. There are artists around for her to hang out with, and Monhegan is beautiful. She even gets to eat lobster every day of her trip. As it turns out, Claudia is the only one in the family who really took the "getting back to nature" theme of the trip seriously; Janine snuck her computer into the house, her mom gets caught reading a cheesy romance novel when they're supposed to be reading worthwhile stuff, and Mr. Kishi sneaks over to the neighbor's to watch tv.

Stacey spends the month of July in NYC with her dad and Ethan. It's fun at first....until her dad sees Ethan outside of some adult nightclub and restricts the amount of time they can spend together. Then, Mr. McGill drops another bombshell: he and Samantha are seriously thinking of living together. Stacey doesn't want this to happen, even though she likes Samantha. They decide to wait another month before making any decisions; they're taking things slowly. Also, Mr. McGill lifts the restriction on Stacey's Ethan time after the four of them (Mr. McGill, Samantha, Stacey, and Ethan) have dinner together and he sees how mature Ethan really is.

After everyone gets back from vacation, the four original members of the BSC get together. It's pretty clear that they won't be able to run the BSC like they did before, since it's only the four of them now (Shannon dropped out when they called her to see how much she'd be able to help in the coming year). They decide to cut back on their number of meetings per week, and on the amount of sitting they do. Kristy is really sad about this, but even she knows that it's for the best.

Rating: 3.5

Thoughts and Things

• In Claudia's first postcard to Stacey after she finds out that she's going to Monhegan, she says she's never been stuck on an island before. I guess she hasn't read SS#4. :)
• Another inconsistency: Stacey decides she wants to learn to needlepoint, but she brought some needlepoint with her to Sea City in #8. I can forgive that, though; #8 happened well over 10 years before this book. She probably just forgot how. :)
• It really, really annoys me how Kristy refuses to use words like I, he, she, we, the, etc. in her journal entries. It just doesn't work.
• Lobster every day for a whole month might get a little....old. ANYTHING every day for a whole month would.
• The whole book consists of Kristy writing to Mary Anne (and vice versa) and Claudia writing to Stacey (and vice versa). Am I really supposed to believe that Kristy never wrote to Claudia, Stacey never wrote to Mary Anne, etc?
• Mr. McGill keeps emphasizing that the club he saw Ethan outside of was for ADULTS. Was he trying to imply that it was a strip club?
• I have to say...I'm really looking forward to NOT having to slog through a chapter 2 from here on out!