Mary Anne and Camp BSC: Chapters One through Three. (Hee!)
Here it is, my long awaited first snark.
This is an incredibly odd book. I can't exactly put my finger on why, but there's something very, very off about it. The dialogue is awkward, the writing style is bizarrely repetitive, and the narration is all over the place. With that said, let's see how much damage I can do here.
[Cover courtesy of dibbly-fresh.com, of course.]
The cover is eerily reminiscent of the illustration in the center spread of SS #10, Sea City, Here We Come! It is, however, considerably more chaste than the center spreads Karen Brewer will likely be posing for in ten years or so.
Mary Anne is shown here in a vaguely flattering (albeit somewhat out-of-character) pair of Daisy Dukes that are quite possibly a hand-me-down from Dawn, who was forced to purchase an entirely new wardrobe after she hacked up all of her clothes in an attempt to impress Lewis Bruno. (Hmm...maybe someone will beat Karen to that center spread after all.) At any rate, they're a bit easier on the eyes than the girls' traditional "mom jeans," which I was previously inclined to believe were the only style Bellair's carried.
The tagline states, "Everyone's a happy camper --- except Mary Anne!" I disagree. Karen looks decidedly terrifying, and the other children look appropriately terrified...and about as midget-like as one would come to expect. Ah, continuity. Good job, Hodges. I wonder if the midgets are a not-so-subtle nod to the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz, as we're hit over the head with allusions to the movie in virtually every single book in the series.
Let's see. "The author gratefully acknowledges Nola Thacker (notorious for her awkwardly off-the-cuff references to previous plotlines) for her help in preparing this manuscript." This particular installment contains so many unnecessary non-sequitur flashbacks that eventually, I started feeling as if I were reading the novelization of a Family Guy episode. (Not a work-safe link, naturally.)
Chapter One:
Our story starts off with Mary Anne making a painfully dumb pun about "Pike's Peak" whilst sitting at the Monkey House for the American branch of the Weasley family Pikes. Her co-sitter? None other than the Eldest Monkey herself. Hoo, hoo, hoo, ha ha ha.
Exactly four paragraphs later, Mary Anne admits that her "Pike's Peak" pun is dumb. Holy hell...it's like she read my mind. If she'd been a few seconds earlier, we would have had to hook pinkies and say "jinx." (Um, MA? If you know it's so dumb, why'd you start the story with it? Oh, right. Every Baby-sitters Club book needs a hook in the first sentence.)
I need to find something to mix my vodka with, and fast. I have a feeling I'm going to need more than a quick shot to get through this.
The seven youngest Pikes are tearing around the yard in an intense game of freeze tag. Pow Barrett-Pike is right in the middle of all of it, howling "Hoo, hoo, hoo!" in a clear nod to the monkey joke I made a few minutes ago. Goddamn, this book really is reading my mind. Did I pick up a copy of The Neverending Story by mistake? On a side note, I've never heard a Basset hound make a "Hoo" sound before, but what do I know --- I only own two of them. Perhaps one of the Weasley twins Pike triplets Transfigured him from a messenger owl. Mary Anne awkwardly segues back and forth from a running monologue detailing the sitting job to irrelevent mentions of everything from Dawn's evironmental consciousness to the time that Sharon dropped the remote into the fish tank. (Wait, I'm thinking of Mary Anne Gets Heart Disease.) There are two "...but more about that later" brushoffs in less than two pages, and Pow inexplicably switches to "Baroo, barooOOOO," which is more like it, but I'm still not convinced that the book isn't re-writing itself as I go for the sole purpose of accommodating my snarking. God, I'm three pages in and already feel as if my head is going to explode. And this isn't even a Lerangis masterpiece.
Mary Anne finally realizes that I'm highly annoyed (and completely lost since I haven't read the first 85 books) and kindly offers to back up so she can introduce herself. She rudely tunes out Mallory and her subsequent sitting charges for about four pages to break the fourth wall and explain to me how she went from half-orphan to being the proud owner of a full-fledged "big family," despite the fact that it's nowhere near as huge as the Pikes'. She is then snapped back to the present by Mallory saying the word "huge" at the exact same time she was thinking it, leaving her to wonder if Mallory has turned into some sort of mind-reader, and causing me to consider burning the book in effigy because I'm now fully convinced that its sole purpose of existence is to torment me with its uncanny self-awareness.
Was Mallory trying to tell Mary Anne how huge Ben Hobart is "down under?" Hardly. If Mary Anne had been listening, she'd know that Mal was lamenting about the vast amount of time between the last day of school and the beginning of the civic center's summer activities. Uh-oh, I smell a subplot.
Hot damn, I was right. Since this book occurs during the "Stacey vs. the BSC" story arc, Mal is concerned that there won't be enough sitters to take on the plethora of summer sitting jobs that will undoubtedly come in. They drop the subject after a moment of discussion, ending with Mallory voting "to bring it up at the next meeting." Because K. Ron insists that they use parliamentary procedure during all club-related business. And...with that, I'm out of vodka.
Back at Casa Schafer/Spier, Richard bursts through the back door, obscenely late for dinner, and announces "I'm home, and I'm a happy man!" Has he been out fathering yet another illegitimate child? I suppose some things are better left to the imagination. Mary Anne gives herself props for her contribution to the dinner menu, toast with "chopped up little chunks of garlic and onion on top." (Ew. But, to be fair, I'm an incredibly picky eater.) I do have to wonder if she used butter or something to actually adhere the chunks to the toast, otherwise, wouldn't they just fall off as soon as it was picked it up? I suppose it's far too small of a detail to get hung up on; Sharon would probably just scoop them up after the meal and put them in the fish tank anyway. Thus, I digress.
Richard acts completely out of character for the next few paragraphs, and I grab an ice-cold Miller Chill, because I'm already starting to sober up. Sigh. We find out that Richard is happy because his law firm has just completed a merger, and he'll be travelling more frequently, starting with a two-week trip to Cincinnati. Sounds kind of fishy to me, but who am I to judge? Sharon is delighted at the prospect of "baching it," and I pause to wonder if she's planning to compose some sort of sacred musical masterpiece. Ah, I see. It's pronounced "batch," as in, "to be bachelor girls." How quaint. Everyone seems oddly thrilled with the arrangement, and we fade out to the laughter of a happy family. Little do the Schafer/Spiers know, they're the only ones laughing.
Chapter Two:
Dear God, it's only Chapter Two and I've already found this much to snark? Here I was, thinking this would be difficult, but you guys are right; this stuff practically writes itself.
Ugh. We start off yet another chapter with yet another pun. Is this subtle foreshadowing to Abby's arrival just three books later? Poor K. Ron is trying to call the meeting to order, but Claudia is far too busy taking junk food orders to pay attention. It turns out she's searching for a package of jujubes, which K. Ron is holding. Everyone laughs for no reason whatsoever, and K. Ron hands Claudia the candy "good-naturedly." (Remember those jujubes and that "good nature"; they'll both come into play again shortly.)
What follows is fairly standard Chapter Two fare... In the beginning, Kristy Thomas created the Baby-sitters Club. The town of Stoneybrook was void of a central telephone number in which to reach several experienced baby-sitters at once. Then Kristy said "Let there be a club," and there was a club, and Kristy saw that the club was good... blah, blah, blah, Watson is a real, live, millionaire, Claudia's sister is a real, live, genius (yes, they actually use the "real, live" cliche in both instances). There's an awkward nod to the "Claudia's Personals" column, which she started while looking for the perfect boy. (That's one! One unnecessary reference! Ah, hah, hah, hah.) Dawn is very environmentally conscious...which MA already mentioned, in those exact words, in Chapter One. That's the third unique time in two chapters that this book has repeated itself verbatim. Weird.
Skim, skim... Shannon's dog just had puppies. She also had puppies seventy-five books ago, one of which she gave to David Michael, who named the puppy Shannon. So if Shannon the puppy is still a puppy, and Shannon the person also has puppies, how many pecks of pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick? I don't know how much longer I can do this.
Mallory and Jessi are best friends who, like most best friends, are very different, although (are you sitting down?) Jessi is not explicitly referred to as "black." She simply has black hair and brown skin and nothing else is said about it. Amazing.
Blah, blah, blah. Logan is a great guy who can be incredibly stubborn, which is why he and Mary Anne broke up for a bit forty-five books ago. (That's two! TWO unnecessary references! Ah, hah, hah, hah.) Claudia puts a jujube between two potato chips (See? I told you they'd be important later) and Mary Anne brings up that there's a "potential problem." K. Ron goes into micromanagement mode and wonders if Jamie Newton's irritable bowel syndrome is flaring up again. But, never fear, it can all be solved by opening a day camp in (where else?) Mary Anne and Dawn's backyard. Then Peter Griffin pops in out of nowhere and says, "Hey, that reminds me of the time you and Dawn had that OTHER day camp in your backyard," and a hilarious flashback ensues. I wish.
Chapter Three:
Two club meeting chapters in a row? This time, however, Logan is attending, so for his benefit, there's lots of unnecessary, dull, repetitive discussion about the upcoming day camp, herefore referred to as Camp BSC. Camp BSC will run every weekday from 9 AM to 5:30 PM, blah, blah, blah...wait. 5:30 PM? But what about meetings? Are they going to time-warp from Mary Anne and Dawn's backyard to Claudia's bedroom? Is there no allocated cleanup time? What if a parent is late? This is absolute anarchy, and I don't like at all. Nope, not one bit.
Mallory mentions that as long as the kids have fun on the first day of Camp BSC, it won't matter if the camp's activities suck the rest of the time because as long as they have that one good memory, they'll be less likely to notice. The hell kind of logic is that? Moving on...
"Circus! Circuses! A circus!" says K. Ron, out of nowhere. No, she's not crazy, she's just having an Idea. K. Ron moves to parallel Camp BSC after the circus camp Karen once attended (That's three! THREE unnecessary references! Ah, hah, hah, hah.) As a matter of fact, that's where she got the Idea (she says modestly). Claudia is all about it, of course, because she once had a circus-themed birthday party that no one came to. (That's four! FOUR unnecessary references. Ah, hah...screw it.) "Lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my," says Shannon (the person), out of nowhere. (See? I told you these books are peppered with Wizard of Oz references.)
"I want to be a ringmaster," K. Ron said. She grinned good-naturedly when we all started laughing. There you have it. Kristy has now been referred to as "good-natured" (twice) and "modest," all within the first three chapters. Why do I feel as if they're awkwardly trying to downplay her heinous bitchiness with random positive adjectives? It doesn't matter, though, because suddenly, Janine pops in and announces that she and Charlie are done getting it on in her room is here and the meeting is officially adjourned.
Thank. God.