Amalia Diary 1

[nothingtolose18]

Just reread this book and again, I really liked Amalia. She seems like such a nice, funny, sweet person! I bet she'd make an awesome friend. Also thought it was so nice of her and her sister Isabel to volunteer at the women's centre - it actually really inspires me to be a better person, and help people out
Her boyfriend is scary! Poor Amalia.

To me, these books are not part of the same universe as BSC (I was so shocked when I realized, reading Dawn Diary 1, that this Dawn was the same as the BSC Dawn! I hadn't realized it was a spin-off of the BSC at the time).

I think of the girls in this series to be at least sixteen. AMM definitely should have aged them a couple years for this series.

[lionessblack]

Yeah, I completely agree. I think the CDs really should have been a freshman year series versus putting the eighth graders into high school. Age them up a year, plus then they're only two years age difference from all the older boys with their cars and what not.

But I guess if they aged them for CD, they would have to have aged them for FF, though that wouldn't have been the end of the world.

[greer]

cd came out almost two years before ff, so i guess they would have had to age the BSC.

[Penny Lane]

I wish they would have aged them for FF. I think FF would have been more successful if the sitters had been aged, ever so slightly. having them start 8th grade again was just so weird.

[nothingtolose18]

^ I know! Well, I didn't read the first FF book, but I can imagine. I know that many other books had them starting school, but it wasn't really explicit that 'OMG, it's eighth grade' (like I'm assuming the first FF book was..?) I mean, would it have killed AMM to age them even just one year?

[courtky10]

^That always got on my nerves too. I kept waiting for AMM to finally make someone have a birthday and turn 14.

[anzuhana]

I found James to be horrible. He seemed to be a complete control freak. I liked how Amalia's sister, Isabel, and Maggie helped her see that she's in an abusive relationship (is that the correct term?) and convince her to end it. I like how her friends are supportive of her breaking up with James.

[oldmeanie]

I agree that they should have been aged up in CD... moving the 8th graders into the high school building was super forced, and it would've made the plots more believable. Honestly, I think even the regular BSC series would work better if they were aged up a year or so as well. They worry WAY too much about having boyfriends for 13-year-olds.

That being said, I actually like Amalia way more than I remember. She seems to be more stable than the others and I can totally relate to how she feels like she can't talk to people. Plus she's an artist! I would have 100% have been friends with her when I was 13.

I really don't see it as realistic that she's a band manager though, especially for a high school band. Like what? How did that happen?

James is a tool. I have no idea how people didn't notice this earlier aside from Ducky.