Thoughts before reading:
Not only have I definitely read this before, I think it was one of the first ones I ever read, because I remember actually finding it scary. I was a bit of a wuss when I was little, ironic since I became obsessed with horror by middle school. Thanks to this book though, I was scared of chain letters until around that same age. I distinctly remember being horrified when I got an email chain letter in 6th grade. Until now, I'd totally forgotten about this book and the connection there... I was probably only 7 or 8 when I first read this. I got it from the library when I was starting to get tired of the Little Sister books.
I think there's also a Christopher Pike or R. L. Stine series about a chain letter? They used to be a big thing, but I doubt any kid even knows what they are anymore.
Not much to say about this cover, it's pretty bland. These two do look a bit like they are in a B horror movie though, with those bitchin 80s outfits.
The basics:
Mary Anne and Logan are eating lunch with the rest of the BSC on a typical school day. Her and Logan have been dating for a bit, and he sometimes eats with them, and sometimes with his guy friends. On this particular day Mary Anne notices Cokie Mason and Grace Blume, two other 8th graders, looking at her and Logan.
After school that day she gets a chain letter in the mail that she's supposed to send to 20 people, or else get bad luck. She's a little worried, but throws it out anyway. Immediately the next day, she starts having constant bad luck: falling out of bed in the morning, spilling food, a stuck locker, can't find things, etc. She even forgets a sitting job at the Newton's. By the end of the day, she's convinced it's all because of the chain letter. The rest of the BSC also begins to think everything bad that happens to them is from the letter, even things that happen all the time.
Not long after this has started, Mary Anne gets a package in the mail addressed to her and the rest of the BSC in letters cut out from magazines. Inside is a necklace and a note saying it's a bad luck charm and she better wear it all the time, or else. She does as told, but everyone still gets more superstitious and paranoid. The girls go to the library to research witchcraft, so they can ward off the evil forces of the charm. (There's a sentence I never expected to write in a BSC summary!) Unsurprisingly, they don't find anything helpful.
It's also almost Halloween, and Mary Anne and Logan attend the Halloween Hop together, dressed as cats. She has fun, except for when Cokie cuts in on them and makes a snide comment about her bad luck necklace. However, when she gets home from the dance, there's another creepy note at her house. This one directs the club to go to Old Man Hickory's grave at midnight the next night- Halloween.
Once she hears about this, Kristy calls an emergency club meeting. There it's decided they will have a sleepover party the next night so they can all get out of their houses late, and Charlie (Kristy's brother) will drive them to the cemetery. All evening Mary Anne is nervous and jumpy, and her dad notices. She finally mentions the charm to him, and he tells her it's just a mustard seed, which is a symbol of faith. Hearing this, she realizes it's not a universal symbol of bad luck, so Cokie would have had no way to know about it.
Finally having figured everything out, and just in time, the girls arrive at the cemetery early and prepared. When Cokie, Grace, and their friends arrive, the BSC scares them with masks, flashlights, sheets, etc. Logan also shows up, having received a call from Grace to come to see something crazy. He's amused to see what's going on, calling Cokie's group cowards. From there they admit everything they did, just so Logan would get fed up with the club and notice other girls at school.
Later that night, the girls celebrate their victory at the slumber party, during which Mary Anne breaks a mirror. Cue spooky ending music... then she decides she can make her own luck, good or bad.
Timeline:
First Halloween of 8th grade. Unfortunately this means time already makes absolutely no sense. 8th grade began (for the first time) in book 10. I could almost buy that the events of books 10-16 took place in two months, that wouldn't be terrible. Yet we were told the events of Goodbye Stacey Goodbye alone took 3 weeks, not to mention all those other books. What about the pageant, or Jessi's show rehearsals from the last book? Surely each was at least another few weeks. There's no way to really make it all fit.
My thoughts:
It was hard to enjoy this book when the plot was so painfully obvious. Makes for a pretty slow, dull read. It could have been easily improved if we had ever heard of Cokie Mason or Grace Blume before this book, but we haven't. They are introduced in chapter 1 looking at Logan, and then mentioned a few other times in here. Someone from the BSC even mentions that other classmates must be jealous that they never eat with anyone else anymore. The club is pretty much always together now. I wonder if this would really stump an 8 year old? Plus, didn't these girls learn anything from the phantom caller fiasco? (Which, by the way, is also mentioned in this book!) If you're in middle school and someone is messing with you, it's a classmate or a sibling.
The only thing that saved this book for me was that Mary Anne figured everything out in the eleventh hour. Before that, the girls were being crazy, obsessing over the bad luck curse, trying to learn witchcraft, cast spells, worrying about evil forces... it was all a bit much. How many books now have they put down the kids they sit for having similar fears as silly? They all seem too old for it. This whole thing is much more Karen Brewer fare.
Now, on the other side of this, the motives of Cokie and Grace is just as baffling. All of this was fairly elaborate, not to mention time consuming. Just to accomplish making Logan tired of the BSC? There's a million easier ways they could have tried to do that, and had much more success. They had no way to know he'd even show up at the cemetery, or even be free that night! Not to even mention if he would care or how he'd react. Or what if Mary Anne wasn't superstitious or just didn't care about the notes? It's such a needlessly complicated plan for a ridiculous reason.
Misc:
*Cokie's real name is apparently Marguerite.
*Mary Anne says that sometimes getting the mail is the highlight of her day. Really, at 13?
*This book had two babysitting chapters back to back! Now that's bad luck...
*At one point Mary Anne says the girls are all more afraid of Kristy than all the spooky stuff happening, LOL
*Claudia attends the dance with Austin Bentley, for those interested in keeping track of boyfriends.
*Also if anyone's interested, Old Hickory was a wealthy, mean recluse who supposedly haunts his grave because he's angry that he was buried with a big headstone against his wishes.
*Watson and Elizabeth don't even want to take their own little kids trick or treating?? Then please don't have another one...
*Mary Anne notes that she's read enough Stephen King books to be wary of the supernatural. Uh, what now? I can't even begin to picture her reading one! She's supposed to be a wuss, not to mention those get pretty vulgar and graphic... I think later on the girls read more adult fare, but so far she's only been mentioned to be reading kid's books.
Books mentioned:
*Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott, is one of Mary Anne's favorite books.
*Claudia mentions the Nancy Drew book The Mystery of the Ivory Charm.
*Jessi uses Georgie's Halloween to make Jamie Newton less afraid of the holiday.
My rating:
3 stars, but would have been less if the girls hadn't figured things out and turned the tables. I loved this kind of plot as a kid though...good pre-Goosebumps spookiness.
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