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Post by sotypical42483 on Jun 27, 2006 18:01:24 GMT -5
I just started this one last night for the first time and I'm about a quarter of the way in and I have to say I'm already bored with all the history lessons and descriptions. Snore...
EDIT: okay, I finished it. It was okaaaay, I guess. I laughed when Abby stepped on the Prince's foot, I have to admit. I didn't understand the whole Kristy/Michel thing. Wasn't she "dating" Bart back home at this time?
The whole camp thing was stupid and boring. Janine standing up to Jerry was kinda cool, I guess, but mostly it was just boring. But, major props to them for bringing Susan back!
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lisa
New To Stoneybrook
Posts: 201
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Post by lisa on Jul 3, 2006 7:11:01 GMT -5
Instead we hear about 'Lord's Cricket Ground'..I'm pretty sure that you don't just turn up and sit down. There needs to exchange of tickets. I liked the fact that they went watch cricket...It's actually one of te two sports that I'm familiar with, so I actually understood what they were watching. And Kristy was right. Cricket does suck
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wanderingfrog
Sitting For The Arnolds
Official BSC Archivist
Posts: 2,552
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Post by wanderingfrog on Jul 3, 2006 14:38:21 GMT -5
I didn't understand the whole Kristy/Michel thing. Wasn't she "dating" Bart back home at this time? No, Kristy decided she didn't really want a boyfriend right now in #95, Kristy + Bart = ?, so they aren't going out after that point. This Super Special takes place after either #120 or #121 -- I'm only at #120 in my readthrough right now, so I couldn't tell you which one for sure.
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Post by sotypical42483 on Jul 5, 2006 13:32:21 GMT -5
^ahh, okay, thanks. I haven't read Kristy + Bart = ? yet.
Does that mean Bart disappears after that book?
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jen
Sitting For The Johanssens
Posts: 1,156
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Post by jen on Jul 6, 2006 7:15:08 GMT -5
Yeah, she pretty much stops seeing Bart. He gets mentioned every now and then, but more in an ex-boyfriend way than anything. I liked the Kristy/Michel stuff in this book... Liked Michel more than I liked Kristy, though. I thought she acted like a bit of a b*tch.
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Post by sotypical42483 on Jul 6, 2006 13:02:35 GMT -5
Kristy/Michel were okay, I just get bored of the OMG-I-hate-you-so-much-I-love-you thing.
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Post by aln1982 on Aug 18, 2006 16:34:22 GMT -5
actually liked this one pretty well. I loved Janine even though the whole playground thing didn't seem to fit with the rest of the book. Kristy and Alan belong together - even though he is annoying. I didn't mind the whole thing with her and Michel which surprises me because usually this kind of thing would bug me. Kristy's comment about a sweatshirt and jeans never having touched the skin of Stacey cracked me up, especially since Stacey needed to get over it with the whole clothes issue. I realize that losing your suitcase would be a pain but heaven forbid she wear clothes that belong to her MOM! As for Mrs. McGill, I liked her pretty well and thought Stacey was kind of unfair to her at the beginning. I can see why Mrs. McGill was annoyed with the other chaperon. I don't think it was so far fetched that Mal was related to Shakespeare. If anyone looks far enough back in their family tree, they can probably find someone famous. I found that I go back to John Alden and the Mayflower (like probably half of America when I was doing genealogy research. The comment about not wanting to be treated like a celebrity was too much though. As for Abby, she annoyed me more than usual in this book. I can't stand her. The chapter with Dawn and Susan seemed totally pointless and out of place though I was glad to see an old character brought back. Jessi - didn't really care one way or another. I'll put my thoughts about Claud and Janine on their threads later. In all, I really liked this one. Maybe because I've never been to Europe.
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starrynight
Sitting For The Kuhns
The Royal Diner of Pizza Express
Posts: 4,004
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Post by starrynight on Aug 18, 2006 17:53:41 GMT -5
I thought Janine working on the playground was a little strange. When had she ever expressed interest in working with kids before? Oh, and one more thing that I noticed while reading this one over the weekend....remember when Jessi calls Mallory on the fact that she's just been writing her way through Paris, and asks her to describe where they went? Mallory replies (in part) "The big jail place," meaning the Bastille. Well, the Bastille was torn down. It's just an empty town square-type place now. Do some research next time, people!
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gabbie
New To Stoneybrook
Posts: 144
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Post by gabbie on Aug 30, 2006 12:04:12 GMT -5
I haven't read it in a long time but this book irritates me. I think mostly because I grew up in Paris and so the inconsistencies bug me a lot.
I've just found the book 1) You don't catch the train to Paris from Victoria station. 2) Contrary to popular belief every hotel does not have a view of the Eiffel Tower 3) Where did Michel and Kristy find this patisserie they went to? If they are where they are described as being then there isn't a patisserie there. 4) EuroDisney is called Disneyland Pars 5) Plenty of people spend a lot of time in England and never meet a member of the royal family.
Sorry I can be a bit difficult over things like that. It just irritates me because several of these things could have been corrected by just reading a guidebook.
I did like - Kristy and Michel, I think it was cute - The touring of the sewers.
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Post by sotypical42483 on Sept 7, 2006 13:44:15 GMT -5
^I used to have a penpal who lives in Wales when I was like, 15 and she always referred to it as Euro Disney. Maybe she was dumbing down for me, though
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wanderingfrog
Sitting For The Arnolds
Official BSC Archivist
Posts: 2,552
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Post by wanderingfrog on Sept 8, 2006 12:15:34 GMT -5
I checked on Wikipedia to get all the dates exactly straight, but basically: "The resort officially opened as Euro Disney Resort and the first theme park as Euro Disneyland on April 12, 1992.... On October 1, 1994, Euro Disneyland and Euro Disney Resort changed their name to Disneyland Paris (after the opening of the Walt Disney Studios Park in 2002, Disneyland Paris was given its current name, Disneyland Park, and the entire Resort became known as Disneyland Resort Paris)."
So although the theme park used to be called Euro Disneyland (and I heard plenty of people refer to it as simply "Euro Disney" even though that wasn't its official name), before this time this book was published, and even before it would have been written, the name had been changed. Which means this is definitely an error that could have been corrected very simply, although it's quite understandable how the error came to be made.
A few months ago, I read The Devil Wears Prada, and the narrator mentions that when she went to Switzerland, she thought it looked just like the Switzerland pavilion at Epcot. The problem with this is that there is no Switzerland pavilion at Epcot, and that's a fact that would be sooo easy to check. Imagineers have considered it and even created some concept art for it, but there's never been a Switzerland pavilion.
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alula
Sitter-In-Training
Posts: 406
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Post by alula on Dec 14, 2006 19:24:52 GMT -5
I'm about 98% sure, without checking a reference, that Shakespeare's direct line ends with his grandchildren. I guess Mallory could be related via a Shakespeare sibling or something, but that bugged me, probably more than it should have.
Also, the Prince Abby tripped over looks kind of like George Clooney.
It also seemed really strange to me that if Stacey was so mortified by wearing her mom's clothes, surely she could have borrowed some basics from some other girls on the trip? I mean, I know she's trapped in Europe with all the unfashionable members of the BSC, but there's no Mari Drabek or Emily Bernstein who would have loaned her a skirt or something?
The playground plot seemed not all that interesting to me--and seriously, why would Jerry and (especially) Janine be interested in these jobs at all (when for Janine it means giving up another job--which I'm not sure I understand why she took either, since she's never seen interested in any kind of childcare before)? I can sort of understand why there might be so much competition for the middle-school slots, because there's really not much you can do at that age besides baby-sit (and we know who holds that monopoly) and mow lawns and stuff, but I guess I would think Janine could get a much more interesting job at Stoneybrook University or something that didn't involve being passive-aggressively sniped at by her ex-boyfriend.
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jen
Sitting For The Johanssens
Posts: 1,156
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Post by jen on Dec 15, 2006 0:52:01 GMT -5
I didn't understand Stacey being mortified about wearing her mum's clothes, either - she could have just borrowed something from Kristy or Abby! Kristy might be a bit short, but surely Abby might have shorts or something? Or even Mal or Jessi? And I thought the playground plot was boring. Half of them *had* no plots. Mary Anne, for instance. She gets pissed off at Cokie. Wow, like that doesn't happen in every other book...
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gabbie
New To Stoneybrook
Posts: 144
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Post by gabbie on Dec 15, 2006 9:01:09 GMT -5
Honestly I think Stacey was just being a brat about the whole clothes issue. She didn't have to borrow from her Mom since she was on a school trip full of 13 year old girls. If Abby and Kristy aren't cool enough then surely some of the other girls are.
I can never decide which is the worse plot of the book. Mary Anne who has none, or Mal who is obsessed with Shakespeare or Jessi and her professional dance thing. I mean seriously she is 11 years old. I think that they were violating labour laws with having her perform.
Why is it so hard for people to believe that the vast majority of people in Britain aren't royal. The vast majority of people in Britian haven't met royalty either. That is what always bugs me about the Victoria plotline.
EuroDisney was EuroDisney until the French got into a snit about it because it is in France. So now it is Disneyland Paris. I still call it EuroDisney because I'm difficult like that.
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alula
Sitter-In-Training
Posts: 406
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Post by alula on Dec 15, 2006 20:14:39 GMT -5
Exactly! Maybe I'm just a soft sell, but if I was on a trip like that and another girl lost her luggage, I'd have totally offered to loan her a couple of things to help tide her over, even if she wasn't my bestest friend. Of course, I may not be as "sophisticated" as Stacey, but I do have clothes besides t-shirts and sweats!
Seriously, was there a playground plot at all besides Jerry being a jerk to Janine, and thus Janine being a b*tch to Claudia? Considering that only five of the BSC even go to Europe AND there's a whole regular book (MA and the Playground Fight) about getting the jobs, it seems really weird that the camp is so dull. I guess Dawn had her one chapter at the special-needs camp, but that's not really a plot, although the Susan cameo was interesting. On the one hand, it always kind of bugs me when it's, like, assumed that because the BSC girls are so fabulous they should be able to take care of special-needs kids of all kinds with no special training--and autism is a sore spot for me, since I have a cousin with Asperger's Syndrome, which is a high functioning form of autism (she doesn't have the tics or most of the social phobias, for example) and then a second cousin with relatively severe autism, and so I've both read a lot about it and witnessed or experienced a lot of different aspects, so I may be too prickly too judge. They also made the description of the "hug machine" sound much scarier than it needed to be, I think, although I guess it's nice they gave (sort of) a shout out to Temple Grandin, the autistic professor who invented it. I kind of wish they'd used her name and said a little bit more about her, because I think she is a really brilliant and amazing person, but maybe they felt that would be sending a mixed message, since her level of success and functionality sadly isn't the norm.
I did like Stacey's story, actually, once she got over the clothes. I liked the idea of her becoming fascinated by history once she saw it involved real people, and that man seemed really sweet. (My grandfather's a WWII vet (well, most Americans of certain age are), and especially now that my grandmother has died, getting to his Navy reunions is one of the most important things in his life, so that all rang very true for me).
I found Michel just kind of blah. Not super clever or super funny or super debonair or anything. And Abby's story was pretty uninteresting, too. As for Jessi miraculously filling in for Dance NY? Oh, please.
And I must say, I know these trips are contracted through a travel company or something, but considering it's a school trip, you'd think they'd have to do SOMETHING educational. I mean, yes, they do tour some historical sites and museums, but that mostly seems to be optional, like you could go shopping or hang out at the hotel instead. My middle school sent us to Washington D.C. and on some miserable "outdoor education" camping trip, and we had to do tons of worksheets and stuff wherever we went, and then turn in a scrapbook and write an essay when we got home, because ostensibly, we were supposed to be learning stuff. SMS is so weird.
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