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Post by sotypical42483 on Apr 14, 2006 12:13:47 GMT -5
1) What is up with Mrs. Barrett hiring Mallory to accompany her, Franklin, and the kids to the zoo and stuff?? Her and Franklin can't watch their own children? I thought that was really freaking weird.
2) Jeff - what a brat!! He was so rude to Richard!! Richard tried to entertain him and even tried to play catch with him and all Jeff could do was complain that Richard wasn't athletic enough.
3) Dawn - She kinda flip flopped. Half the time she was super bratty, too (making fun of Richard at the BSC meeting!) but at least she recognized her little brother was being a pain in the ass!
4) Mary Anne - She looks soooo cute on the cover!!!
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macca
Sitting For The Newtons
Posts: 2,084
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Post by macca on Apr 14, 2006 18:02:59 GMT -5
Word on all your observations, particularly the first two. The parents of Stoneybrook were always hiring the BSC to accompany them on holidays/outings. For instance, the Pikes seemed incapable of spending any time with their children in Sea City, even making the girls take seperate nights off.
Richard really had absolutely no idea about young boys - thinking Jeff would appreciate hospital corners and so forth. WTF? But yeah, wasn't Jeff taught any manners? So what if his stepfather was clueless? No excuse for being blatantly rude.
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Amalia
Sitting For The Braddocks
Her Original Point of View
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Post by Amalia on Apr 15, 2006 22:48:49 GMT -5
^ Yeah I agree. We know that he doesn't really like Connecticut; hence he moved back. They didn't have to emphasize the point by making him so rude when he comes back and such a nice and cool kid in California.
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jen
Sitting For The Johanssens
Posts: 1,156
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Post by jen on Apr 16, 2006 1:01:46 GMT -5
Yep, agreed with everything! I liked the start of it, when Jeff first arrived and they had a great time at the movies and at dinner. Then it was all downhill from there...
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Post by buffykay70 on Apr 16, 2006 3:35:55 GMT -5
yeah, i hated jeff in this book, i usually like him, but he was such a little crappy brat, aaarggh.
and who cares about mrs barrett (whats her name? is it natalie, i dont know) and franklin and their 40 kids. whatever happened to their mother??
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macca
Sitting For The Newtons
Posts: 2,084
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Post by macca on Apr 16, 2006 5:24:37 GMT -5
^ I've often wondered the same thing. Why does Franklin have primary custody?
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jen
Sitting For The Johanssens
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Post by jen on Apr 16, 2006 6:20:31 GMT -5
Maybe they never had a mum. Maybe a stork just brought Franklin for kids of different ages one day.
Not only does it seem strange that Franklin has primary custody of all four kids (Maybe that's not so strange... Maybe the mum is an abusive drunk who ran off with her boyfriend?), it seems strange that the mum is NEVER mentioned. Ryan is only 2! Where is the Mrs DeWitt? Franklin's divorced, right? So that implies that the wife is still alive...
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inge
Junior Sitter
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Post by inge on Apr 16, 2006 8:56:01 GMT -5
Jeff was such a brat in this one. Ugh. I usually like him but not in this one. In fact, they were all bratty. And what's with MA and Dawn always fighting? And I didn't really care for the subplot with the 34 kids either. Also the trip was way to much like a tourist guide. Not one of my favorite book, obviously.
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macca
Sitting For The Newtons
Posts: 2,084
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Post by macca on Apr 16, 2006 17:09:57 GMT -5
I don't think she was supposed to be dead, knowing those books it would've been mentioned and we'd have had the obligatory plot in which one of the older kids is pissy about their dad remarrying, basically being a moody little bully, and eventually the girls work out it's because he/she is grieving for their mother and MA can identify with them because she lost her mother too at a young age... you know the drill...
Personally I think it's a case of deadbeat-mum in this book, the female Patrick Thomas. But Ann never likes to portray women in a negative light so she just pretends the first Mrs DeWitt never existed.
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Amalia
Sitting For The Braddocks
Her Original Point of View
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Post by Amalia on Apr 16, 2006 20:54:28 GMT -5
Do the Dewitt kids talk about her?
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jen
Sitting For The Johanssens
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Post by jen on Apr 17, 2006 5:35:54 GMT -5
Nope, which I found strange... At least Mr Barrett makes an appearance and tries to take an interes t in his kids' lives.
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macca
Sitting For The Newtons
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Post by macca on Apr 17, 2006 6:15:58 GMT -5
^ but Mr Barrett is yet another bad guy, remember? Mrs DeWitt is just... absent. I guess even Ann knows that a mother who abandons her kids can't be portrayed in a positive light, so to get around that issue, Franklin just has four children who apparently fell from the sky.
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jen
Sitting For The Johanssens
Posts: 1,156
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Post by jen on Apr 17, 2006 7:55:07 GMT -5
Heh, that's a great way of putting it... four kids who just fell from the sky. It still seems so bizarre, though. To have four kids, reasonably close in age, and then to pack up and leave and never hear from them again?! Can any mother really do that?
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Post by sotypical42483 on Apr 17, 2006 12:23:52 GMT -5
I have always just assumed the DeWitts's got divorced, and part of the reason Mrs. Barrett and Mr. DeWitt get so serious rather quickly is because they bond over that.
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macca
Sitting For The Newtons
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Post by macca on Apr 17, 2006 17:15:52 GMT -5
^ It's just incredibly unusual for the father to have primary custody and the children's mother to never, ever be mentioned.
jen, I wouldn't think any mother really could pack up and leave four kids behind, one of whom is a two yr old. I can think of one similar real-life example, but the kids were all in their teens and early 20s when the mum ran off.
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