Little Sister #2: Karen's Roller Skates
Okay, guys. I’ve been lurking for a while and I’ve never snarked anything before, so here goes! Bear with me. Thanks to the unsnarked-books list I selected good ol’ LS#2: Karen’s Roller Skates. I hate Karen with the burning, fiery passion of a thousand suns, so here’s hoping I can make it through this without lighting both my eyes and the book on fire.
This cover is… decent. Karen looks a bit awkwardly frozen in midair and looks creepily like a girl I know but there’s not much I can snark here. The tagline is “Watch out, Karen!” which… is self explanatory. Dumb Karen.
Chapter 1
“Look out! Look out! Coming through!” Shock of shocks, it’s dialogue to kick us off on our adventure today. Karen apparently has no control over herself on roller skates and instead of stopping or going around people, she demands they jump out of her way. Interesting. Oh, and she is “seven years old. [She is] a world champion skater. Well, maybe not a world champion skater. Well, maybe not a champion at all. But I am good. Very good.” Holy sentence fragments, Batman! That, and if you were so good I would think you would be able to go around people and/or stop rather than screeching for them to jump out of the way while you speed wildly down the sidewalk. JUSSAYING.
Karen got her skates a few weeks ago! And these are the things our WORLD CHAMPION SKATER can do: skate forward, “skate forward fast,” skate backward, turn around, stop without falling down-uh, pretty sure those are things most people with a basic grasp on roller skating can do. Except maybe the backwards part-and “try any trick [she sees.]” Well then. Her dad always says “Be careful, Karen, we don’t want any broken bones!” HELLO FORESHADOWING.
Blah blah blah random drivel-Karen outfit description! Yaaaaay! But not. “This is what I wear when I skate: shorts with a stripe up each leg; red and white striped socks; a red and white jersey; a red headband; wrist guards; knee pads; and of course, my skates. My skates are so, so cool. They are red. They are the lace up kind. The wheels are yellow.” The yellow seems kind of random here since everything else is red and white, but I guess it doesn’t matter. What DOES matter, however, is the UNGODLY abuse of the semicolon there. It’s as if AMM just discovered the shiny new semicolon button the keyboard and decided it was a perfectly acceptable substitute for a comma. It’s not.
Again Karen screeches “COMING THROUGH!” and Nancy and Andrew leap out of the way. I bet Karen would learn to go around them or stop pretty quickly if they didn’t move one day and she tripped over them. Just saying.
Stock big house/little house paragraph in chapter one here. Karen insists on writing “the state of Maine” multiple times instead of just “Maine” because she’s an idiot and appears to believe nobody will know what she’s talking about if she doesn’t clarify that it’s a state. We end with Karen looking forward to a weekend of roller skating and then, all by itself in a Dramatic Cliffhanger…
“There was a new trick I wanted to try.”
Chapter 2 is boring. It’s about three pages long and is just the usual big house/little house/92308 pets blather that nobody honestly cares about. Morbidda Destiny is a witch because Karen sees her gardening and using a broom, because nobody ever sweeps and anyone who owns a broom is a witch.
Chapter 3 is titled “Oops!” though I feel like that’s a severely understated reaction. Karen blathers on about how she doesn’t have two pairs of skates or two skating outfits so she has to remember to bring them back and forth and BAWW it’s a pain in the neck. Karen is halfway through putting skates on when Elizabeth comes out and asks her to walk Shannon. The dog, not the person; that would be weird. She thinks about saying no and then decides instead thaaaat she has an excellent idea so she calls Andrew, who dutifully comes running. Clearly he is at her beck and call. It makes me slightly uncomfortable.
She lets Andrew ride his trike with Shannon running along beside it so she can skate with them too. She said a few minutes previously that she wanted to walk Shannon as well as skate, and I fail to see how this is the same thing, but I will not ask. I get too fixated on the little things. As Karen is putting her skates on she realizes she forgot her wrist guards inside but she doesn’t feel like going to get them, so she figures she doesn’t need them. I want to know why she’s not wearing a helmet, actually-I never did, but it seems like if they’re worried enough to give her all these other safety measures a helmet would be a good idea.
“Hey Andrew! Want to see a trick?” Apparently Andrew likes all kinds of tricks. We get a whole list. “Magic tricks, skating tricks, diving tricks, any kind of tricks. Even April Fool’s Day tricks.” So Karen goes into the garage and finds two coffee cans. I’ve never had a garage; is it common for folks to keep empty coffee cans laying around in there? That’s peculiar. So anyway, even though Karen’s nervous and so is Andrew (who is sitting on his trike and not moving, as people are wont to do when they’re paying quite close attention to things) she skates forward as fast as she can, LEAPS over the coffee cans…
And lands on her feet.
In a fit of excitement, she turns around and falls on her ass, and THAT’S when she hurt her wrist. It seems to me like without any momentum going unless your bones are pretty weak or you’re quite unlucky, you aren’t going to break your wrist doing that. I’ve fallen many times and caught myself on my hands from a standing position, and neither of mine have ever been broken.
Chapter 4 is titled “Broken Wrist” since AMM is excellent at suspense. I suppose you could have figured out that something was going to happen but I am eighteen years old and as a pre-teen, I was not half as smart.
Karen starts in about how her butt hurts, then she looks at her wrist and screams. Apparently it’s bent at a funny angle, she can’t move her fingers, and when she tries to move her wrist it hurts so bad she gasps. I’ve broken things before, and I more than gasped when trying to move a freshly broken bone. Andrew comes over, sees her wrist, and starts to cry, so he leaves Shannon with her to keep her company while he runs in the house to get Watson, because when you have a broken wrist, you really want to worry about a rambunctious Bernese Mountain Dog puppy. When I chipped my spine I didn’t want the dogs anywhere near me.
Watson and Kristy come out in a panic, Watson picks Karen up and lugs her inside, and she bawls to Elizabeth about how her wrist is broken. Elizabeth says yes, it is, and then goes off to call the doctor. I’m not sure who thought this was an appropriate first move, because if I knew for sure something was broken and couldn’t move it, I wouldn’t call the doctor to see what they say. “Karen, honey, Dr. Dellenkamp wants you to go to the hospital.” Well fucking DUH. I don’t even know why they bothered, I’d go straight to the ER. Elizabeth tells Kristy to stay here and watch the kids, but NO! Kristy refuses to babysit! (OH HORRORS!) and insists that she go to the hospital with Karen. Without really protesting, Elizabeth stares at her.
Kristy stares at Elizabeth.
Elizabeth stares at Kristy.
Kristy stares a-okay, I’m done. Anyway, Elizabeth says that’s fine and Karen tells us that Kristy is the best, best big sister ever. They go out to the station wagon and Karen lays down in the back, Elizabeth covers her with a blanket and tells her it’s fine to “scream and yell and give Dr. Dellenkamp a hard time if she wants to.” Uh, how about no? Since when has this ever been okay? I mean, I know she was joking, but really. So they pull out of the driveway so fast the tires squeal (but they called the doctor instead of heading straight to the ER. I see.) and Kristy yells “THERE’S THE EMERGENCY ENTRANCE!” like Karen’s going to die in the next fourteen seconds if she doesn’t get treatment RIGHT NAO GOD DAMNIT. It’s at about this point that Karen starts to feel scared, because she’s never been to a hospital before.
Hopefully this was alright, it’s about six thirty AM here so it’s time for me to get some sleep!
Coming up… X-rays! The Bone Doctor! Karen being a whiny prissy bitch who thinks everyone should treat her like royalty! Stay tuned, folks.
This cover is… decent. Karen looks a bit awkwardly frozen in midair and looks creepily like a girl I know but there’s not much I can snark here. The tagline is “Watch out, Karen!” which… is self explanatory. Dumb Karen.
Chapter 1
“Look out! Look out! Coming through!” Shock of shocks, it’s dialogue to kick us off on our adventure today. Karen apparently has no control over herself on roller skates and instead of stopping or going around people, she demands they jump out of her way. Interesting. Oh, and she is “seven years old. [She is] a world champion skater. Well, maybe not a world champion skater. Well, maybe not a champion at all. But I am good. Very good.” Holy sentence fragments, Batman! That, and if you were so good I would think you would be able to go around people and/or stop rather than screeching for them to jump out of the way while you speed wildly down the sidewalk. JUSSAYING.
Karen got her skates a few weeks ago! And these are the things our WORLD CHAMPION SKATER can do: skate forward, “skate forward fast,” skate backward, turn around, stop without falling down-uh, pretty sure those are things most people with a basic grasp on roller skating can do. Except maybe the backwards part-and “try any trick [she sees.]” Well then. Her dad always says “Be careful, Karen, we don’t want any broken bones!” HELLO FORESHADOWING.
Blah blah blah random drivel-Karen outfit description! Yaaaaay! But not. “This is what I wear when I skate: shorts with a stripe up each leg; red and white striped socks; a red and white jersey; a red headband; wrist guards; knee pads; and of course, my skates. My skates are so, so cool. They are red. They are the lace up kind. The wheels are yellow.” The yellow seems kind of random here since everything else is red and white, but I guess it doesn’t matter. What DOES matter, however, is the UNGODLY abuse of the semicolon there. It’s as if AMM just discovered the shiny new semicolon button the keyboard and decided it was a perfectly acceptable substitute for a comma. It’s not.
Again Karen screeches “COMING THROUGH!” and Nancy and Andrew leap out of the way. I bet Karen would learn to go around them or stop pretty quickly if they didn’t move one day and she tripped over them. Just saying.
Stock big house/little house paragraph in chapter one here. Karen insists on writing “the state of Maine” multiple times instead of just “Maine” because she’s an idiot and appears to believe nobody will know what she’s talking about if she doesn’t clarify that it’s a state. We end with Karen looking forward to a weekend of roller skating and then, all by itself in a Dramatic Cliffhanger…
“There was a new trick I wanted to try.”
Click to viewChapter 2 is boring. It’s about three pages long and is just the usual big house/little house/92308 pets blather that nobody honestly cares about. Morbidda Destiny is a witch because Karen sees her gardening and using a broom, because nobody ever sweeps and anyone who owns a broom is a witch.
Chapter 3 is titled “Oops!” though I feel like that’s a severely understated reaction. Karen blathers on about how she doesn’t have two pairs of skates or two skating outfits so she has to remember to bring them back and forth and BAWW it’s a pain in the neck. Karen is halfway through putting skates on when Elizabeth comes out and asks her to walk Shannon. The dog, not the person; that would be weird. She thinks about saying no and then decides instead thaaaat she has an excellent idea so she calls Andrew, who dutifully comes running. Clearly he is at her beck and call. It makes me slightly uncomfortable.
She lets Andrew ride his trike with Shannon running along beside it so she can skate with them too. She said a few minutes previously that she wanted to walk Shannon as well as skate, and I fail to see how this is the same thing, but I will not ask. I get too fixated on the little things. As Karen is putting her skates on she realizes she forgot her wrist guards inside but she doesn’t feel like going to get them, so she figures she doesn’t need them. I want to know why she’s not wearing a helmet, actually-I never did, but it seems like if they’re worried enough to give her all these other safety measures a helmet would be a good idea.
“Hey Andrew! Want to see a trick?” Apparently Andrew likes all kinds of tricks. We get a whole list. “Magic tricks, skating tricks, diving tricks, any kind of tricks. Even April Fool’s Day tricks.” So Karen goes into the garage and finds two coffee cans. I’ve never had a garage; is it common for folks to keep empty coffee cans laying around in there? That’s peculiar. So anyway, even though Karen’s nervous and so is Andrew (who is sitting on his trike and not moving, as people are wont to do when they’re paying quite close attention to things) she skates forward as fast as she can, LEAPS over the coffee cans…
And lands on her feet.
In a fit of excitement, she turns around and falls on her ass, and THAT’S when she hurt her wrist. It seems to me like without any momentum going unless your bones are pretty weak or you’re quite unlucky, you aren’t going to break your wrist doing that. I’ve fallen many times and caught myself on my hands from a standing position, and neither of mine have ever been broken.
Chapter 4 is titled “Broken Wrist” since AMM is excellent at suspense. I suppose you could have figured out that something was going to happen but I am eighteen years old and as a pre-teen, I was not half as smart.
Karen starts in about how her butt hurts, then she looks at her wrist and screams. Apparently it’s bent at a funny angle, she can’t move her fingers, and when she tries to move her wrist it hurts so bad she gasps. I’ve broken things before, and I more than gasped when trying to move a freshly broken bone. Andrew comes over, sees her wrist, and starts to cry, so he leaves Shannon with her to keep her company while he runs in the house to get Watson, because when you have a broken wrist, you really want to worry about a rambunctious Bernese Mountain Dog puppy. When I chipped my spine I didn’t want the dogs anywhere near me.
Watson and Kristy come out in a panic, Watson picks Karen up and lugs her inside, and she bawls to Elizabeth about how her wrist is broken. Elizabeth says yes, it is, and then goes off to call the doctor. I’m not sure who thought this was an appropriate first move, because if I knew for sure something was broken and couldn’t move it, I wouldn’t call the doctor to see what they say. “Karen, honey, Dr. Dellenkamp wants you to go to the hospital.” Well fucking DUH. I don’t even know why they bothered, I’d go straight to the ER. Elizabeth tells Kristy to stay here and watch the kids, but NO! Kristy refuses to babysit! (OH HORRORS!) and insists that she go to the hospital with Karen. Without really protesting, Elizabeth stares at her.
Kristy stares at Elizabeth.
Elizabeth stares at Kristy.
Kristy stares a-okay, I’m done. Anyway, Elizabeth says that’s fine and Karen tells us that Kristy is the best, best big sister ever. They go out to the station wagon and Karen lays down in the back, Elizabeth covers her with a blanket and tells her it’s fine to “scream and yell and give Dr. Dellenkamp a hard time if she wants to.” Uh, how about no? Since when has this ever been okay? I mean, I know she was joking, but really. So they pull out of the driveway so fast the tires squeal (but they called the doctor instead of heading straight to the ER. I see.) and Kristy yells “THERE’S THE EMERGENCY ENTRANCE!” like Karen’s going to die in the next fourteen seconds if she doesn’t get treatment RIGHT NAO GOD DAMNIT. It’s at about this point that Karen starts to feel scared, because she’s never been to a hospital before.
Hopefully this was alright, it’s about six thirty AM here so it’s time for me to get some sleep!
Coming up… X-rays! The Bone Doctor! Karen being a whiny prissy bitch who thinks everyone should treat her like royalty! Stay tuned, folks.