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Post by sugarmonkey on May 11, 2006 9:08:30 GMT -5
The subplot was weird. Who would leave their 6 year old in the care of people that were total strangers to the kid? Dawn and Mary Anne seemed to roll their eyes at everything thing the girl did. Can you blame her? She's only 6 and her parents leave her with strangers in a strange place for 3 weeks while they leave the country. On vacation. With a flimsy excuse that the kid wouldn't enjoy the trip. And yet when Stacey was a child she went to Europe.
Stacey the sophisticated New Yorker was just naive and lame, lame, lame. At least her mother pretty much told her that. I do think that it was unnecessary to ground her though. She didn't do anything wrong. And at least the book was realistic in the way the other club members greeted Stacey.
I think the main problem between Stacey and the BSC was the fact that Stacey was growing up in a way that was different from them. She believed fashion, boys, and doing cool things (concerts) was 'sophisticated.' Meanwhile the other members are basically kids from hicktown.
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macca
Sitting For The Newtons
Posts: 2,084
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Post by macca on May 12, 2006 0:42:22 GMT -5
Yeah, that whole concept was just... bizarre. And the book really portrayed Amy in a negative light, you just wanted to shake the little brat. Then consider the circumstances and her behavior is completely understandable.
ITA! Which is unrealistic in itself. If Stacey was truly so impressed by those girls and so eager to look "cool" she wouldn't have been lecturing them every five minutes. Why couldn't they make her take a daring risk, which doesn't pay off, and Stacey truly learns who her friends are, as opposed to her merely just reprimanding the girls every time they suggest something remotely unethical and being so incredibly dense and naive.
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fluffy
New To Stoneybrook
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Post by fluffy on May 15, 2006 1:08:20 GMT -5
Exactly. It would be an interesting (and realistic) change, and address the issue more straightforwardly if for once, Stacey had actually been involved in the girls' 'bad' behavior rather than tailing them around, nagging at them. I suppose it would be too much for a BSC book. Stacey's new friends are also dismissed straight-off as the hopeless 'bad kids' not to be mingled with. The issue's dealt with more realistically in the California Diaries.
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lilafowler
Sitting For The Johanssens
Posts: 1,163
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Post by lilafowler on Jun 25, 2006 21:40:35 GMT -5
The diversity of the "bad girls" clique was bizarre. In my high school (we didn't even have cheerleaders in middle school), no cheerleader would have hung out with anyone who wore flannel. Typical BSC -- even the degenerates are PC.
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Post by morbiddadestiny on Jun 26, 2006 11:34:31 GMT -5
the "bad girls" look like such losers on the cover. one of them looks like an ogre. and i can't for the life of me figure out which one is supposed to be sheila, the gorgeous head cheerleader with a perfect figure. ogres. they look like OGRES.
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Post by greer on Jun 26, 2006 16:41:55 GMT -5
^They are so grunge on the cover! Stacey looks like someone's mom.
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Post by morbiddadestiny on Jun 26, 2006 17:04:36 GMT -5
^ yeah, that too. they're ALL wearing flannel. and the girl on the far right has a montrous head and has tucked her white t-shirt into her high-waisted mom jeans. not exactly in crowd material. geez.
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macca
Sitting For The Newtons
Posts: 2,084
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Post by macca on Jun 26, 2006 17:17:47 GMT -5
^They are so grunge on the cover! Stacey looks like someone's mom. Yeah, well Stacey ACTED like someone's mum in that book, so it's probably appropriate ;D
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Post by booboobrewer on Jun 26, 2006 17:58:55 GMT -5
the "bad girls" look like such losers on the cover. And one of 'em's missing. I always thought to myself that the one on the left was either Heather or Mia (they seemed like the same person in the book. Jacqui and Sheila felt more distinct), the one in the middle is Jacqui, and the unwashed looking one on the right is Sheila. I read this book before Stacey and the Cheerleaders, so when she was described as beautiful, I was like WTF? Immediately an image of the grungy looking Sheila in a backwards cap came to mind and I was totally confused.
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macca
Sitting For The Newtons
Posts: 2,084
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Post by macca on Jun 26, 2006 22:45:06 GMT -5
^ well, Mallory's always portrayed as the ugly sturdy dork and is a gorgeous, leggy model on the cover of California Girls. Jessi is presumably female, but always looks like a man on her covers. Stacey and Claudia are supposed to be beautiful, but there are countless examples where that's not the case.
Hehehe, those covers are pretty inaccurate all round, really.
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Post by sotypical42483 on Jan 2, 2007 12:26:30 GMT -5
The thing that made me laugh the most about this book was the wine they snuck into the concert. Sheila snuck it in IN HER SOCK. Now I ask you, how much wine can you actually fit in your SOCK? Certainly not enough to get drunk. I know this is BSC land where everyone wears giant floppy socks, so maybe she had a flask. But still, you couldn't even fit that much wine in it! Silly wannabe bad girl, she should've gone for the hard liquor.
I would've been pissed if I was Stacey's mom and these stupid 13 year old girls were all hanging out at my house all day too. I'm not saying I'd make Stacey get a job, but I would've restricted her friends coming over a bit.
I felt really bad for Amy in this book. Poor thing. I still don't understand how she got from MA/Dawn's to the mall though. How did she know where to go?
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jen
Sitting For The Johanssens
Posts: 1,156
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Post by jen on Jan 2, 2007 18:59:57 GMT -5
I totally didn't remember the wine being snuck in in Sheila's sock! Gross. Feet germs.
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gabbie
New To Stoneybrook
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Post by gabbie on Jan 3, 2007 8:54:51 GMT -5
Wine in her sock? That's hysterical. Especially since any 'bad girl' worth her salt would have had a flask of hard liquor somewhere. For someone who is supposedly so sophisticated and streetsmart Stacey sure is naive and gullible in this book. I agree about the subplot too. Poor Amy. I would have been much worse than her if I had been dumped off with strangers at age 6. Because they might be related but if she didn't know them then they were strangers.
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Post by aln1982 on Apr 11, 2007 23:27:45 GMT -5
I have always wondered if the thing about "Stacey couldn't drink because she's diabetic" was true since my aunt is type 1 diabetic (diagnosed a bit later in her teen years than Stacey) and I had never heard it mentioned. But she never drinks at all but no one in my family (with the exception of her husband once in a while having a glass of wine at Christmas) does, so this wasn't any big deal. Yesterday, I thought to ask her and I found her answer interesting. True, she might not have all of the facts. I should probably do some actual research but I thought I would post what she said anyway. The statement about Stacey not possibly being able to drink never seemed accurate to me so maybe I wasn't wrong to feel this way.
I realized that I forgot to answer your question about diabetes and alcohol... Actually there are mixed views on this. Some doctors say that alcohol raises blood sugar, but most say it lowers it. Ironically, studies seem to show that the alcohol content makes the blood sugars drop like an insulin reaction. Most diabetics can drink alcohol in moderation just like anything they eat. As long as the portion is not huge, most people are fine with white wine or light beers. Mixed drinks are another story because of the increased sugar content though...
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Post by booboobrewer on Jun 15, 2007 18:07:03 GMT -5
Reading this today, and I was more interested in the subplot this time around. I sympathized with Amy; I was really shy and clingy at age six and would have hated to spend that long a time with people I didn't know. I felt really bad for Dawn and MA, too. They seemed to be sooo looking forward to her visit and put in a lot of effort over the three weeks (why did they put girly stickers OVER Jeff's superhero stickers when decorating the room? It's not like she'd really care). Amy's parents should have prepared her better. They wanted a vacation for themselves and her completely out of the way. I don't know exactly how she knew to get to Bellair's, either. I guess she tried looking up the address to the train station and got confused. And very convenient for Claudia to have been filling Stacey in on the situation from the start...if not for that it would have taken Stacey longer to find out who she was and what she was doing, and then think to call Dawn and Mary Anne.
And random, but where does Dawn's mom work? There's a mention of a Mrs. Ballmer who works at Bellair's, and I know I remember reading about her in Dawn's Big Move when Dawn calls her mother at work and Mrs. Ballmer answers the phone.
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