macca
Sitting For The Newtons
Posts: 2,084
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Post by macca on Apr 19, 2006 17:13:15 GMT -5
aln1982, once again I agree with a whole lot of what you're saying. I was just kinda "whatever" about Amelia's death, for reasons I explained earlier. She had no history as a character and therefore as a reader, I really couldn't relate to the overly forced crippling grief everyone seemed to be feeling.
I'm not into the whole "saving the planet" thing either and find most "greenies" incredibly annoying. Don't even get me started on vegetarians ;D ... anyway, it didn't seem as if the owner cared much about his property at all, if he didn't care about it becoming a junk yard, why would he care about the kids turning it into a garden?
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Post by lovelylemontree on Jun 1, 2006 14:41:23 GMT -5
It definitely could have been planned better. And knowing how far in advance these books were planned out, I don't know why Ann M. and the ghostwriters didn't have Amelia make appearances in several books previous to Mary Anne and the Memory Garden. Although, I would have preferred they'd killed off a regular minor character. Not necessarily a more prominent secondary character like Pete Black, Emily Bernstein or Alan Gray, but someone like Dorianne Wallingford or Rick Chow. Just someone who'd been around since the beginning, but was insignificant. Through the entire book, I just kept thinking, "who cares?"
Has anyone seen Amelia's huge entry in The Complete Guide To The BSC? It's longer than Emily Bernstein's, Erica Blumberg's, and other characters who were in more than one book.
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macca
Sitting For The Newtons
Posts: 2,084
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Post by macca on Jun 1, 2006 19:24:11 GMT -5
Glad to see I wasn't the only insensitive one ;D
Mary Anne's ongoing depression and need to work through her crippling grief really just didn't make sense.
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Post by bscfan24 on Jun 2, 2006 2:17:35 GMT -5
I think this book would have made more sense if it had been, like, a teacher getting killed. You know, one that everyone loved or something. i've had that happen to me before and I think the impact would have been a lot bigger than just a student. I don't know. It's hard to say- I haven't read this book in ages.
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lilafowler
Sitting For The Johanssens
Posts: 1,163
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Post by lilafowler on Jun 2, 2006 11:54:24 GMT -5
Has anyone seen Amelia's huge entry in The Complete Guide To The BSC? It's longer than Emily Bernstein's, Erica Blumberg's, and other characters who were in more than one book.OMG, yes. When I first saw it, I was like, "Oh, Amelia must have been in more books that I just didn't remember," but then I realized it was all just the weird nuts we learned at her funeral. One thing that stuck out to me was her stuffed rabbit, Nibs -- how did they even work that into the eulogy?
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Post by greer on Jun 2, 2006 16:05:48 GMT -5
SMS was a small school--according to the CG, it has 387 or so students, I can't remember the exact number--although I don't think that's really true. My high school was 400 people and when everyone knows everyone, it's more shocking for a tragic event to take place.
I don't think it would have been better for Pete Black or Emily to have gotten killed; I think it would have been too traumatic for the intended age group.
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wanderingfrog
Sitting For The Arnolds
Official BSC Archivist
Posts: 2,552
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Post by wanderingfrog on Jun 2, 2006 18:58:31 GMT -5
I was so used to characters randomly appearing for a plot in one BSC book and then disappearing that I was actually impressed that Amelia was mentioned offhand in one other previous book and didn't appear for the very first time in this one. Because that's the sort of thing I would have expected -- for them to kill off a character who'd never been in any of the other books. Although of course I agree that the death would have had more impact if it had been a more regular minor character (edited to say, Not like Pete or Emily, but still someone who'd been mentioned more than just once.). I would have preferred that. I think this is the first book with a scene in Dr. Reese's office. As macca said, Mary Anne's secret in Chain Letter is that she had gone to see Dr. Reese. Her English grade dropped a little and then she started stressing about everything else in her life, so she saw a therapist for a little while. I don't think she was still seeing Dr. Reese at the time that CL takes place, but I'm not sure. Just got to add that I liked the part about Amelia and the flexed arm hang, because I had the school record at my junior high for the flexed arm hang in gym class when I was the BSC's age.
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Post by hurricanebill on Nov 29, 2006 5:34:43 GMT -5
Of course the school was all devastated over Amelia's death. They live in a small country town called, "Stoneybrook", where everyone would know everyone. Far out the town is so small, it even has private schools.
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Post by liss31d on Nov 29, 2006 7:57:47 GMT -5
If someone had died in my school (which is pretty small), I think a lot of people would be shocked and some would feel upset even if they didn't know the student. If someone I didn't know that well but had been in the same class as me for years died suddenly, I would definitely feel upset due to the frightening realism of life being so fragile and the fact that you can die at a young age is hard for some people to deal with. Most of the students at SMS probably never knew any one who died that young (which I think is mentioned in the book).
I know a lot of people said it would have been better if it had been a character mentioned more in the series. I understand what you mean but at the same time I think it's good they had someone who had just been a regular classmate. The book wasn't necessarily about the pain of someone very close to you being dead, it's more about the pain that someone you knew or knew of has died, in such a terrible way. There's also the horrible pain for the parents who have survived the crash, with their 13 year old daughter dead, and for the brother whose big sister has died... that really hit me, 'cause I'm really close to my family and I couldn't even imagine how I'd feel if that happened. It's definitely a book that makes me feel uncomfortable reading, especially since it's a BSC book that doesn't normally deal with big issues.
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Post by bscfan24 on Nov 29, 2006 20:42:55 GMT -5
Whenever someone died (or a student's parent died) at my school, it was usually mentioned to us kids and they had counselors for some of us, if we wanted to. I don't really know if they did that whenever my dad died (I know they did whenever my friend's mom did about 3 months before my dad died, but I wasn't in school after my dad died, obviously). My high school had a heck of a lot more people than Stoneybrook did (our senior class was almost bigger than the entire SMS population), so I would imagine SMS would have all sorts of things like that for their students. Haven't read this book in ages, so I can't remember what all they did for it. I would imagine that, being so small, they'd have a huge impact on all the students, whether you really knew Amelia or not. Okay...now I'm extremely depressed. Even more so than I've been all day long. I need to go and find something happy to do/ think about. Sorry for bringing the thread down a bit with my rambling about whenever my dad died. It'll be 5 years on the 18th, so it's on my mind a lot lately. Maybe I should have skipped over this thread lol
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Post by sotypical42483 on Jan 2, 2007 12:14:59 GMT -5
So I'm the only one who liked this book? I LOVED it. I cried like 19 times when reading it!! I thought it was so sad. I actually STOPPED reading because I was crying, lol. Anyway, I really loved MA's reaction. She is so sweet and this book made me like her even more. I don't find it unrealistic that MA was grieving for a girl she wasn't THAT close with. MA is sensitive enough as it is, she cries when people in movies die and she doesn't even know them. I loved the plot about Kristy dealing with it. It was really cool to see Kristy kind of humanized for a while. And Dr. Reece's diagnosis of Kristy seemed right on, I really liked that and it does seem like a way Kristy would react. I skipped over Dawn's crap cause seriously... all these sad (to me!) chapters, then a random Dawn chapter about some stupid lot? No thanks. Didn't flow at all! Dawn's chapters are my only complaint about this book. Ohh and the part when Josh was back at school and MA went to talk to him and he broke down crying was so sad I can't believe I'm the only one who cried during this book! I feel like such a dork.
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jen
Sitting For The Johanssens
Posts: 1,156
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Post by jen on Jan 2, 2007 18:56:27 GMT -5
sotypical, I agree about Dawn's subplot! It seemed a bit useless and random. I don't remember if I've posted about this book before, or what I said, but I do like it. I don't reread it that often because I don't like reading about sad things, and this book was definitely a sad one.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2007 23:26:18 GMT -5
Killing off one of the Shillaber twins would've made for an interesting read.
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gabbie
New To Stoneybrook
Posts: 144
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Post by gabbie on Jan 3, 2007 8:45:22 GMT -5
I agree about one of the Shillaber twins because it would definitely affect both Mary Anne and Kristy since they were friends.
I'm torn about the reaction of the school. On the one hand it seems a little over the top. On the other hand it was a small school. I went to boarding school and a boy in my year died. The people who were truely devastated were his friends and those who had been in his house for five years. The rest of us were upset but not devastated.
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Post by aln1982 on Apr 7, 2007 16:00:54 GMT -5
Ah - I was the last poster on this one too. Sorry! I reread again and liked it more this time. Still didn't like it much but didn't actually dislike it. Most of my thoughts remain. The only thing that has changed is that I used to think it was weird that all of the kids attended the funeral and that the death of one student hit the whole school so hard. But a few months ago, a 17 year old boy from our town died in a car accident (ice storm and no seat belt) and the school had pretty much the same reaction as SMS. Assemblies, mass grieving, closing school for the funeral, counselors brought in, so I guess it is plausible. Of course, he was a popular student (as Amelia was) who was involved in lots of activities. Two years ago, though, a brother and sister from our same high school died in a car crash and people barely noticed. Guess it depends on who you are. As for the Dawn subplot, still hate it. Can't say TREASPASSING! enough.
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