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Post by BuckinghamAlice on Jan 25, 2012 20:05:26 GMT -5
I'm the weird person who was born and raised in California and wants desperately to move. One of the places at the top of my list is Connecticut, interestingly enough.
But all the CA stereotypes made my eyes hurt from rolling them so hard. All the BSC books that are set in CA make me seriously doubt whether AMM has ever been here. It's not the glistening oasis of these books, lol.
This wasn't really one of my favorites. My boredom from reading about CA and my distaste for Dawn made this one sort of drag. I did like seeing her with Jeff again, and her dad seems like a pretty good guy, but this one was just okay for me.
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Post by anzuhana on Jan 25, 2012 20:52:26 GMT -5
BuckinghamAlice, in the author info at the end of California Diaries, it says that Ann visits Calfornia frequently. Take it for what it's worth.
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Post by BuckinghamAlice on Feb 1, 2012 17:02:53 GMT -5
Then when she flies in, she must go through some fantasy airline that takes her to the California you see on TV. Oh well... lol.
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oldhickory
Sitting For The Arnolds
Heather Loves Boys and Gym
Posts: 3,270
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Post by oldhickory on Feb 13, 2012 1:05:56 GMT -5
i reread this book up the other day and was shocked how tan dawn and jeff look on the cover. if you cover their faces up they genuinely look black. and since this book takes place in spring, i doubt dawn spent that much time outside while she was still in stoneybrook.
i am visiting my mom's house for the first time since i moved out, and i am feeling a lot of the sadness dawn experiences. even though her wishy washy-ness bothers me, i feel for her. it's such a weird feeling to be homesick for the place you are at.
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Post by zoar3 on Feb 13, 2012 12:46:49 GMT -5
^Aw, hug oldhickory. I don't think (despite her claiming otherwise) Dawn ever felt at home in Stoneybrook. I hope you come to feel happier in SD.
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Post by virgoscorpio on Feb 22, 2012 0:38:48 GMT -5
So I've started re-reading this book yet again and I'm noticing a few things that bother me. So this is the first book written by a ghostie, right? You can kind of tell. Sharon is dating Trip in this book? That kind of surprised me seeing as she married Richard 7 books after. Plus Richard and Sharon met books and books and books ago. I know the BSC timeline is never that consistent but that, as I said, bothered me.
This might be one of my favourite Dawn books, with The Ghost at Dawn's House. Usually I am empathetic to the California plots, but I really liked it in this one. Clover and Daffodil seemed a lot more distinctive in this book. Usually I clump them together for some reason.
Cute cover, as people have mentioned.
Also, I actually remember my friend reading this in Grade 4 or something. Is that weird? I even remember her leaning on the yellow soccer goal with it.
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Post by candykane on Feb 23, 2012 22:40:21 GMT -5
Nah, it's not weird to remember your friend reading this book. Then again I've always been told I have a memory like an elephant and I remember tons of random little things from my own life so it never strikes me as weird when others also do.
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Post by BuckinghamAlice on Mar 6, 2012 21:17:02 GMT -5
So I've started re-reading this book yet again and I'm noticing a few things that bother me. So this is the first book written by a ghostie, right? You can kind of tell. Sharon is dating Trip in this book? That kind of surprised me seeing as she married Richard 7 books after. Plus Richard and Sharon met books and books and books ago. I know the BSC timeline is never that consistent but that, as I said, bothered me. That bothered me as well. But Sharon was dating like three dudes all at once... presumably she's so "absent-minded" that she's forgotten that she's already seeing someone else. And I'm assuming "absent-minded" in this context is code for "stoned out of her gourd like 90% of the time." And it's pretty weird... a lot of the books leading up to Great Romance make it seem like Richard and Sharon had gone out a few times, had fun, and were now cooling things completely.
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Post by zoar3 on Mar 6, 2012 22:01:11 GMT -5
^Lol, I would hope even Sharon could keep count of who she was dating. I wonder if Ann and Co. came up with the Sharon/Richard storyline before Dawn was invented or after. I have a hunch the Schafers entire reason for coming to Stoneybrook was for the "great romance." ITA with you, Buckinghamalice that the lack of Richard/Sharon even interaction let alone dates after they first "re-met" totally made it sound like they were over. I also (still) think it is so very weird that neither Dawn or Jeff had any (that we knew of) objections to their mom dating immediately after the divorce. It would seem like that might be more of a reason for their wanting to go back their Dad and CA (what they knew) then all of a sudden Jeff fighting with others and well I won't get started on Dawn. I'd better cool my post right off now since we all know how big a Dawn fan I am!
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oldhickory
Sitting For The Arnolds
Heather Loves Boys and Gym
Posts: 3,270
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Post by oldhickory on Mar 6, 2012 22:27:04 GMT -5
^ i agree. i do think at least part of the reason jeff became so much trouble was because he was pissed at sharon for abandoning them -- it wasn't fair for her to take them away from home, and then go out and have fun while her kids were home still trying to process everything. in WLKC, MA admits to dawn that it was hard seeing richard remarry even though she liked sharon and dawn so much, and i was really pleased to see some sort of honesty.
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Post by zoar3 on Mar 6, 2012 23:12:02 GMT -5
^Thanks for reminding me of that. I wish we had read that conversation earlier. I also think it was odd that neither Sharon or Richard ever talked with their kids about the idea of the marrying. IDK, my biggest gripe besides Dawn in general and that I wished it had been Richard and Elizabeth marrying, was that there was zero get togethers/hang outs, trips, whatever (like the Barrett-DeWitts) beforehand. No fun, informal time for all 5 of them to be in the same space and get to know how that would work. I was glad things worked out though.
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Post by virgoscorpio on Mar 6, 2012 23:40:36 GMT -5
^ I read MA and the Search for Tigger the other day and I was going to bring it up there but it works better here since we're discussing it. I thought it was lame to have the Logan is being a douche subplot (where in reality he was worried about getting kicked off the team). They SHOULD have focused more on Sharon and Richard dating. They bring it up in the book but it's glazed over. Before MA and the Great Romance, neither MA or Dawn's earlier books really talked about their parents relationship as being hardcore, only that they were dating.
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Post by zoar3 on Mar 7, 2012 0:12:10 GMT -5
^That reminds me of something else. This probably really should go in the "Great Romance" thread. Even for someone such as Mary Anne who seemed convinced that Richard didn't care to talk about his past (I know we were never told that broadly just in terms of Alma but in this case it seems true) to never have asked her dad about Sharon when they were young. Was nothing ever said of the yearbook entries to either parent? I never thought of this but if Sharon really had kept all her HS yearbooks from SHS, wouldn't Dawn have looked at them at least once?! I think she might just have had their been more time between the divorce and move to CA. It seems odd that Dawn never heard of "Richie" and vice versa beforehand.
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wanderingfrog
Sitting For The Arnolds
Official BSC Archivist
Posts: 2,552
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Post by wanderingfrog on Mar 7, 2012 17:00:07 GMT -5
there was zero get togethers/hang outs, trips, whatever (like the Barrett-DeWitts) beforehand. No opportunity for all 5 of them to be in the same space and get to know how that would work. I was glad things worked out. I don't wish anyone "bad" but they were all lucky that it did! Well, it also depends upon your definition of "worked out." Dawn and MA "resolve" their problems with sharing a room by Dawn playing tricks on MA to convince her the room's haunted, MA moves to her own room, and Dawn never tells her the truth. Ever. And they still fight an awful lot. Jeff and Richard don't get along all that well, which makes total sense since they barely know each other. There is the whole thing in Dawn's Family Feud, and not too long after that, Dawn moves back to California. There are plenty of families in the world that are WAY more dysfunctional than that, and Mary Anne, Richard, and Sharon do seem to function well as a family unit, but the Spier/Schafer blending could have "worked out" a little better than it did!
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Post by zoar3 on Mar 7, 2012 18:24:31 GMT -5
^Good point, Wanderingfrog. Let's not forget that MA and Dawn maintained a love/hate relationship almost constantly. IMO, except for initially, never did have a healthy friendship. As far as the family unit, everything seemed based on food and that always ended up what Dawn wanted. IDK it would have been nice to have seen more of the friendship between Richard and Sharon. Yes, I know probably the main reason more family life wasn't described was because Ann and co figured it would be much more dibble hearing about the girls themselves. I would have liked a little more of the family stuff.
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