Thoughts before reading:
Also never read this one before, but I'm very eager for Dawn's POV about the wedding and family merge after reading the last book. She handled everything so far with grace and good spirits, while Mary Anne was the worst spoiled, entitled brat of the series so far. Even while MA was treating Dawn like absolute crap, Dawn remained a class act about it. She was the one trying to smooth things over and apologize, when she hadn't even done anything wrong.
On the cover of the last book, Jeff looked so cute. Now on this one, he looks like a monkey. What is even going on with his facial expression? Dawn looks adorable here, exactly how I would picture her. Mary Anne is making an appropriately bitchy face, while wearing hideously unflattering jeans. Good times.
The basics:
Mary Anne catches the bouquet (cliffhanger, if you can call it that, from the last book). Richard and Sharon leave after the dinner for a 1 night honeymoon. Dawn and Mary Anne spend a last night in the Spier house together. In the morning their parents return early because it's moving day. Claudia comes over to watch, and Mary Anne cries the whole time about how she doesn't want to move because she's never lived anywhere else. Dawn, on the other hand, is really excited and tries to cheer her up, but just gets snapped at for her trouble. Some neighbors also come by to help out. Mary Anne continues to cry non-stop and bitch at Dawn, who still remains calm. Even Jeff comments that he doesn't like Mary Anne much anymore, and Dawn defends her.
Mallory gets the chicken pox, even though she's had them before. The BSC has to cover all of her jobs now, and Mary Anne and Dawn end up fighting over which one of them will take one. Mary Anne tries to play the whole "I'm the one who had to move" card, then implies that Dawn is fat? Kristy gets fed up and makes them draw straws. Mary Anne wins and immediately starts gloating. Dawn finally starts losing her temper and being snippy back.
Things at the Pike house get worse. In what the girls end up deeming the "Pike Plague", the triplets all come down with viral pneumonia, Nicky breaks three fingers, Vanessa sprains her ankle, Claire and Margo get bad colds, Mrs. Pike hurts her knee, and Mr. Pike burns his hand.
During this time, things at Dawn's house are just getting worse. The new family has conflicts about neatness, eating meat, sleeping in, and even Tigger. Mary Anne and Dawn get along at times, but keep fighting way too often. Another big argument comes when Dawn decides not to go to a dance because she doesn't have a date. She's not upset about it, and is actually looking forward to the alone time. Mary Anne won't stop bragging about Logan though, eventually wearing out her patience again. Then they fight again over doing homework in silence vs. with music on.
Dawn finally decides she doesn't want to share a room with Mary Anne anymore. She goes to Kristy for advice, since she's been through merging a step-family already. Kristy's really nice about it, and gives her some helpful advice about how hard it is to fit two families together, and the importance of emotional space. Dawn does a lot of thinking about everything, mostly what a bad idea it was to share a room. She decides to get MA to move out without either of them admitting they were wrong, and to have a little revenge at the same time. Her and Jeff cook up a plan for Dawn to scare MA using the secret passage. It works flawlessly, scaring MA out of the room permanently, and she doesn't suspect Dawn at all.
After Mary Anne has moved into her own space in the old guest room, the family sits down to talk. They decide to make some new rules about cleaning, and to cook separate meals. Everyone also agrees to try harder.
Timeline:
Immediately after the last book, and spanning several weeks. Still no clues about the time of year though.
My thoughts:
This book was really just a continuation of the last book. I enjoyed a different perspective on the situation with a new narrator, but otherwise it didn't bring anything new to the table. This was just way too long to spend on a story that mostly consisted of petty bickering. I'm overloaded on spoiled preteen angst now, and even more tired of Mary Anne. If possible, she was even worse in this book. By the end even Dawn had a long list of grievances against her that she wanted revenge for. I just can't get over how entitled MA was in these. Clearly she's never had any real struggles in her life. She seemed manipulative too, using the fact that she had to move as a weapon for sympathy, especially when combined with crying.
Dawn really had the patience of a saint during both these books. I would have been ready to kill Mary Anne long before the actual move even happened. There's no way I would have had her level of understanding at 13. By the time Dawn was scaring her in the secret passage, I was so ready for someone to retaliate against her somehow that it was the best part of the book. I love that she got away with it too. Even the author knew by this point that MA had it coming and the reader would need to enjoy such a moment...
Of course, on the other hand, it makes total sense that moving in with a best friend would change things. You would go from mainly just having fun together to doing all the mundane daily things together. You'd see each other way more, and differently. You'd learn new things about each other, good and bad. There would be big adjustments, and fighting, and the painful realization that this won't be like a permanent sleepover. I totally get all of that, and have experienced it on a smaller scale going to camp with friends growing up. The problem in these two books is that it's just so one sided. Dawn's only real mistake is trying to get Mary Anne to share a room with her, but she only did that because she was so excited.
The adults, Richard and Sharon, really were not much better either. It struck me as really shitty of Richard to cook her bacon every morning. He knows she doesn't like meat, and prefers not to even see it. While they were dating he took care to make sure she had vegetarian options, so doing this now seemed very passive aggressive. Then Sharon, who's a huge slob that can't even properly dress herself, snapped at Mary Anne because Tigger threw up on the carpet? How was she supposed to stop her poor pet from being sick? She doesn't even care about messes and can't even accomplish putting items in the obvious places (she's put shoes in the fridge before), so this was just pointlessly bitchy.
I absolutely hated the "Pike Plague" storyline, and now loathe the Pike parents even more. It was pretty selfish of them to keep hiring babysitters, like they did constantly in this book, when they had sick kids. They're exposing the sitters to getting sick, even though they wore masks. Besides that though, they should be staying home to take care of their own sick kids, like any other parent. It's not that hard to figure out. Mrs. Pike doesn't even work. On one of these jobs, Stacey is left with 5 sick kids so both adults can attend a tennis match! I can't believe Stacey's mom was even okay with this. I would have been giving the Pikes a piece of my mind. Another time, they hire 2 sitters because by this point Mr. Pike has burned his hand and Mrs. Pike has hurt her knee. Most people have to take care of their own kids, even when very sick. How pathetic is this? Then to top it off, the sitters are serving the adults breakfast in bed on trays! Apparently having a hurt hand made Mr. Pike completely bedridden. These poor sitters also do all the house chores. This really just took bad clients to a whole new level. Talk about taking advantage.
There was also a continuity error, and hilariously, it was with the last book! How hard is it to remember something that close together? Dawn says in here that she's saving to buy MA a "now we're sisters" gift, because MA surprised her with one at the wedding. That isn't true though. At the end of the last book, at the wedding, Dawn gave MA a "now we're sisters" gift, a barrette. Mary Anne was sulking at the time and the gift made her feel worse, because she felt guilty for not getting Dawn a gift. Then towards the end of this one, Dawn does give Mary Anne the gift she saved for: a cat pin. So I guess she got two gifts and Dawn doesn't get any? Typical. What a weird thing to mess up on though. It really bugged me, because it was sort of important to the plot. The whole reason Dawn even fights for the babysitting job is because she supposedly needed money for the gift.
Misc:
*Kristy freaks out over Richard and Sharon kissing at the wedding, chanting PDA over and over. Ugh, I wasted my time defending her maturity level in my last review! I now take it all back, haha. These moments are why everyone calls her immature, and rightly so...
*Mary Anne insults Dawn by saying her skirt looks too tight. This is the second fat shaming incident from her, within just a few books. (The other was SS #3.)
*When Dawn and Mary Anne are fighting at a meeting, Kristy says they're unprofessional and she won't stand for it. Pretty funny, since she's done the same thing tons of times.
*When Mary Anne is gloating over Logan before the dance, she keeps talking about how when you have a boyfriend, you want to look good for him. Gag, lame priorities. I lost even more respect for her. She should try for Stacey's attitude about looking good for yourself.
*Kristy invited Bart to the dance? I wonder how that all went down. Since Dawn didn't go, we don't learn any details.
*Dawn wonders about Mary Anne: "How could we get along so well half the time and be mad at each other the rest of the time? Was this what having a sister was all about?" (pg 77) Dawn- Yes. That literally sums it up perfectly. I have two, and I couldn't have said it better.
*Everyone wearing masks to the Pikes' struck me as funny, given our current world situation. Ironic timing.
*Mary Anne's old house sells, but we don't know to who yet.
*Here's an example of one of many bitchy things Mary Anne said to Dawn: "Just try to enjoy your evening Dawn. Don't think of yourself as someone who can't get a date, okay? It isn't healthy." (pg 72) Now, there is no way she means this to be helpful. Dawn's gone to several dances stag before. I would've smacked her right about this time. I swear she gets away with saying things like this because everyone thinks she's so shy and sensitive.
*Now that she's on the outs with Dawn, Mary Anne is suddenly really buddy buddy with Kristy again. They haven't been mentioned hanging out together in ages, but did in this book all the time.
*So far I'm noticing that my childhood favorite characters are mostly still standing, which surprised me. I figured I just liked the "cool" characters back then, and would probably think the opposite things about them now.
Books mentioned:
None.
My rating:
3 stars, this dragged but Dawn's POV was still an improvement.
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