Hello everyone,
Welcome to another installment of First Line Fridays hosted by Hoarding Books.
A School for Unusual Girls by Kathleen Baldwin
“”What if Sir Isaac Newton;s parents had packed him off to school to reform his manners?” I smoothed my traveling skirts and risked a glance at my parents. They sat across from me, stone-faced and icy as the millpond in winter.”
Happy Reading,
Janelle L. C.
Hello everyone,
Today’s review is on Mary Anne Saves the Day by Ann M. Martin.
Mary Anne Saves the Day is told from Mary Anne Spier’s point of view (she is one of my favorite Baby-sitters Club character because I can relate to her a lot). During a meeting of the BSC a fight breaks out and the members aren’t talkign to each other. This is especially hard for Mary Anne, who has been best friends with Kristy since they were babies and she is very shy. However, she meets the new girl, Dawn Schaeer and she has a new friend. However, tensions continue to rise between the BSC members, especially when Claudia gets jealous of how close Mary Anne is close to her grandmother, Mimi. The club continues to keep going although the members don’t interact with each other.
In addition to the drama wigh the Baby-sitters Club, Mary Anne decides to talk to her father about being a little less strict on her. She finally proves herself to be mature and responsible when one of her babysitting charges has a high fever and Mary Anne has to spring into action and try to save her.
I really liked this book, I enjoyed getting to know Mary Anne more, however I didn’t like that the BSC was fighting throughout the whole novel. However, I did like that it caused Mary Anneto come into her own, and in some ways this is her coming of age story.
I also enjoyed seeing Dawn being introduced into the series because she is another one of my favorite characters in the series. I also loved watching her friendship with Mary Anne start. Overall, this was a good addition to the series and I enjoyed rereading it. 4/5 Stars.
Happy Reading,
Janelle L. C.
Hello everyone!
Today’s review is on The Truth About Stacey by Ann M. Martin.
The Truth About Stacey is told from Stacey McGill’s point of view and follows her as she continues to adjust to life in Stoneybrook, Connecticut . One thing about Stacey that makes her different from the other members of the Baby Sitters Club is that she has diabetes.
Most of the book is centered on her and her parents’ obsession with trying to find a cure for her Diabetes. Stacey however just wants to live her life as best she can while managing her diabetes. She also enjoys getting to know the other girls in the club better, especially after she was ostracized by her former friends in New York. However, on a trip to New York to meet yet another doctor, Stacey has a chance to repair her friendship with her former best friend, Laine.
While this is going onm the Baby-sitters Club is faced with competitioon from a group of 8th graders calling themselves the Baby-sitters Agency. Once the BSC starts losing clients, they know they need to do something to step up their game.
This was a quick trip down memory lane and it was interesting to see how over 30 years ago (this book was published in 1986/1987), not much was known about diabetes, at least not as uch as we know today. I also enjoyed reading from Stacey’s perspective because she is slightly more complex than Claudia, and she is also kinder in how she thinks about Kristy and Mary Anne, even though she sees them as “immature”, unlike Claudia who was kind of down right mean about them.
I also liked hwo the Baby-sitters Club stood up to the Baby-sitters Agency and “fought” fairly to save their business, unlike their competitors. I’ve been enjoying my reread through the series! 4/5 Stars.
Happy Reading,
Janelle L. C.
Hello everyone,
Welcome to another installment of First Line Fridays hosted by Hoarding Books.
More of Me by Kathryn Evans
“I have grown in strength inside her. Filled her cells with mine until we must split apart.”
Happy Reading,
Janelle L. C.
Hello everyone,
Today’s review is on Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls by Ann M. Martin.
This is probably one of the few Baby-sitters Club books that I didn’t read as a kid, so I was really excited to pick this one up.
In this second installment of the series, all four girls are on high alert after reading about a jewelry thief known as the Phantom Caller, who has hit several houses in a town not far from Stoneybrook. Things get even scarient when almost all four girls receive weird phone calls during their various sitting jobs, especially Kristy and Claudia. Will the Phantom Caller be apprehended, or will the girls continue to wonder if each creak is the presence of the thief?
I enjoyed this installment in the series, it was the perfect blend of a typical Baby-Sitters Club books with elements of mystery involved. I also liekd that we got to see the girls being proactive and trying to keep their clients safe, even if it was from paranoia.
I also liked that this was told from Claudia’s perspective, although there were times when she was kind fo condescending to Kristy and Mary Anne. I get that both her and Stacey are supposed to be a little bit more sophisticated than the other two, but I believe there is a way to show that without being rude about it. I did also enjoy seeing more of Claudia’s relationship with her sister, Janine, and how she wishes they can be friends again like they used to be when they were little kids. I also enjoyed getting to know Mimi, her grandmotherand just how even though she knows Claudia is smart, she doesn’t put as much pressure on her as her parents do.
Overall, this was a fun read and I can’t wait to revisit the Baby-Sitters Club again! 4/5 Stars.
Happy Reading,
Janelle L. C.
Hello everyone,
Today’s review is on Kristy’s Great Idea by Ann M. Martin.
With all the craziness going on in 2020, I decided to revisist another one of my favorite series from when I was an adolescent, The Baby-Sitters Club by Ann M. Martin. I was also inspired to read it when one of the BookTubers I follow read it, as well as the fact that Netflix released a series based on the books. I remember loving them as a kid and I was able to find the first 5 books in the series at my local used bookstore, and it looks like almost all of them are available on e-book through my local library. I am planning on writing reviews for each of the books as I read them. I don’t know if I will read all the books in the series since there are over 150 books (!), but I want to read at least the first 15-20 books in the series. Also, it should be noted that these books can be read in any order.
Kristy’s Great Idea follows 12 year old Kristy who, after watching her mom struggle to get a babysitter for her younger brother, comes up with the idea of the Baby-sitters Club where clients can call and have access to four experienced babysitters. She asks her friends to join her: Mary Anne Spier, Claudia Kishi, and Stacey McGill. As they get started there are a few hiccups at the beginning, for instance prank calls, and someone calling for a petsitters, but things seem to go well!
The book follows each of the girls on one of their jobs, which in turn introduces the readers to some of their regular clients. It aso deals with Kristy having to come to terms with and accepting her mom’s relationship and engagement to Watson Brewer, and the fact that her parents aren’t getting back together.
We also get to see these four chracters come together and become friends and how they are all different and how it initially causes conflict, especially since Kristy is very opinionated and doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone.
I enjoyed getting to know each of the main characters and I’m looking forward to getting reacquainted with them as I start rereading the series. 4/5 Stars.
Happy Reading,
Janelle L. C.
Hello everyone,
Welcome to another installment of First Line Fridays hosted by Hoarding Books.
Scythe by Neal Shusterman
“The scythe arrived late on a cold November afternoon. Citra was at the dining room table, slaving over a partivularly difficult algebra problem, shuffling variables, unable to solve for X or T, when this new and far more pernicious variable entered her life’s equation.”
Happy Reading,
Janelle L. C.
Hello everyone,
Today’s review is on The Summer Before by Ann M. Martin.
The Summer Before is set the summer befre Kristy has her idea for the Baby-sitters Club. We follow each of the characters on their journey throughout the summer.
For Kristy, she is hoping that her estranged father will come back and is disappointed when he doesn’t. She is also opposed to the fact that her mom is seeing someone else. Mary Anne finally gets her dad’s permission to start babysitting, which she is ecstatic about. Claudia feels ike she is growing apart from Kristy and Mary Anne, and she experiences love for the first time. And we also drop in on Stacey, who is getting ready to move from New York City to Stoneybrook, Connecticut. She is also adjussting to being diagnosed with diabetes and being ostracized by her former best friend.
I am going to be honest…while I do like the Baby-Sitters Club series, I personally feel like this book was a let down. It just seemed unnecessary, and there were a few incosistencies that we are given about these characters compared to what we are told in the first four books of the actual series.
Overall, it’s okay, but it isn’t necessary to read. I personally would tghink that it is best to skip this one and just jump into the series. 3/5 Stars.
Happy Reading,
Janelle L. C.
Hello everyone,
Today’s review is on She, Myself and I by Emma Young.
She, Myself and I is a book tha has been on my physical TBR for over three years – ever since I received an ARC at YallWest in 2017 – and I’ve finally had a chance to get to it. Before I get started with my review, I do want to note that this a review for the ARC and not the final version of the book, so there are probably some difference from what I read and the final copy.
She, Myself and I follows Rosa who is a quadraplegic as a resut of a nerve disease which is slowly killing her. However, she has an opportunity to have a new lease on life when a doctor in Boston asks her to take part in an experimental surgery – a brain transplant. Her and her family move form Londno that she can have the surgery.
Everything goes according to plan and Rosa’s brain is successfully transplanted into the body of brain-dead Sylvia Johnson. While Rosa starts to recover from her surgery, she struggles to find her identity – is she Rosa or Sylvia? Who is she really? Matters are not helped when she overhears a nurse praying over her for her death because she believes that the brain transplant was evil. This incident haunts Rosa and causes her to question herself and her existence even more. The one day she meets Joe, and intern for Bostonstream, who writes stories about the people he meets in the park outside the hosputal. With his help, Rosa sets out on a journey to find out who Sy;via was in order to find herself – she ultimately disocvers that it is up herself to decide who she is moving forward as Rosa.
I liked this book – however it lagged in places and seemed a little bit jarring at times. I liked following Rosa on her journey to discovering herself and her self-worth. I did enjoy the allusions to Frankenstein in this book and how Rosa in some ways views herself as a type of Frankenstein’s monster because of the brain transplant.
I also enjoyed getting to know Joe and how he treats Rosa and respects her privacy, even though he is a journalist. I like how he cares about upholding integrity and not making advances in his career.
Another character I really liked was Rosa’s brother Elliott. Even though he was a typical brother, he also provides some wise advice to Rosa, which ultimately helps her come to terms with her identity.
While I liked the novel, it was hard to get into and it just seemed very open-ended, which I think was the point. 3/5 Stars.
Happy Reading,
Janelle L. C.
Hello everyone,
Welcome to another installment of First Line Fridays hosted by Hoarding Books.
Lost Stars by Claudia Gray
“A ship sliced through the shale-gray sky overhead, so quickly it was no more than a line of light and a distant screech almost lost in the wind.”
Happy Reading,
Janelle L. C.
H
Meanderings of a BookWorm 