This is the first book so far that I have the newer edition of, instead of the original version.
Thoughts before reading:
I have read this before, but I don't remember it well, so probably only once. I know it's one of the Sea City books, and that there's some drama with Alex and Toby (from #8). They're the mother's helpers Stacey and Mary Anne fall for the first time they go to Sea City with the Pikes. I know there's a book where one of them gets a crush on Mallory, but I'm not sure if this is it or not.
I like how these newer editions style the cover like a scrapbook page. It's a nice touch to show the whole club's pictures on the side, with touches in the background that show the narrator's personality. These also have pictures in the back of moments in the narrator's life, a letter from Ann. M. Martin, and some pages for kids to fill in their thoughts on the book. I know I had quite a few of these as a kid, and I loved the extra stuff in the back, especially being the kind of kid that actually filled out the question pages.
The basics:
Stacey and Mary Anne have been hired to be mother's helpers for the Pikes again, on this summer's 2 week trip to Sea City. Everyone else in the BSC is going on vacation too, apart from Kristy and Jessi. (They are all the same vacations everyone went on during the summer of books #6-10: the REAL summer before 8th grade).
Not long after arriving, Stacey and Mary Anne run into Alex and Toby at the beach. They are working as mother's helpers again also. Both girls are excited, even though Mary Anne is dating Logan, which makes her feel only slightly conflicted. The girls get into a fight because they end up making dates for the same night, and this year the Pikes want them to take different nights off. Stacey wins the argument by refusing to back down, so she goes on her date with Toby, and Mary Anne goes out with Alex the next night. They have a great time, leaving her feeling confused about things with Logan.
Towards the end of the trip, Toby breaks up with Stacey because he doesn't want to be tied down when he goes back home. Mary Anne and Alex are still seeing each other, despite some awkward dates, and she thinks she's in love with him and Logan now. On their last date before she has to return home, she finds out he has a girlfriend, and he finds out about Logan. They laugh about it together and decide to stay friends.
During the trip, Vanessa Pike has a big crush on a boy named Chris, who works at the ice cream parlor. She leaves him anonymous poems. He ends up thinking Mallory wrote the poems, and asks her out through Vanessa. The poor girl is heartbroken, but since the date is after they will have gone back home, she doesn't tell Mal. Instead Mary Anne helps her leave one last poem, saying goodbye.
Timeline:
It's summer vacation AGAIN! They get so many of these, haha. This is the second summer "after" 8th grade, but of course in the backstory they still say they are 8th graders. The time loop is just blatantly ignored.
My thoughts:
I know I talked about this in the review for #8, but the Pike parents are still just too much. Once again, they are taking all of their kids on vacation, but are not going to spend any time with them. Stacey and Mary Anne take care of the kids the whole time. There's even a scene where it's mentioned that one of them will go to the grocery store for Mrs. Pike, with some of the kids! What exactly do her and Mr. Pike do on all of these vacations? They don't take care of their own kids or do their own errands, the way anyone else has to on a trip. In this book they are even worse, now not letting the girls take the same night off, because heaven forbid they have to spend one night with their kids. There's also mention that Mallory can help out as a babysitter when either Mary Anne or Stacey is off. Yes, really. Mr. and Mrs. Pike won't do any work on vacation, but their child has to, just because she's the oldest. Everyone else will be free to relax and enjoy their time off, but Mal will go right on babysitting.
Despite the title, I was not expecting Mary Anne to cheat on Logan in this book. That totally caught me by surprise...and what she does, going on all those dates with Alex, is absolutely cheating. Logan would flip out if he knew, but I don't think he ever finds out. "Too many boys" is definitely not the problem here. The problem is that Mary Anne can't stay loyal to Logan the first time another guy shows any interest in her. It wasn't so long ago (SS #3) that she was having a meltdown thinking of Logan in Aruba with all the beautiful girls. If he did this to her, she would freak out and break up with him.
Now, not only is Mary Anne cheating on her boyfriend in here, but she's also being judgy about Stacey and Toby, like she has any room to talk. When Stacey gets all excited about going out with Toby again, Mary Anne thinks to herself that Stacey acted the same way over Scott (#8), and Pierre (SS #3), so even though Toby is at the top of the list at the moment, who knows if it will last? She's not wrong exactly, but who is she to judge? Stacey is actually SINGLE, so who cares if she dates a lot? You'd also think Mary Anne could have let Stacey go on her date that first night without fighting about it, since Mary Anne had no business going on a date in the first place. If she has a steady boyfriend at home, who is she to stand in the way of her friend dating and having some fun? This book made me like MA even less. She's been terrible in every book since #25, although before that I actually liked her the most. (As a kid I was always indifferent to her.)
Misc:
*Why did we even have another Mary Anne book already? We just had one: #30. The way they alternate the book narrators is so weird and uneven.
*Stacey can now look back on the Scott situation and laugh, a definite sign of character growth and maturity.
*Claire asks Stacey and Mary Anne where the sun goes when it goes down, and neither of them knows, so they just tell her it goes behind a cloud. Shouldn't they know the answer by the 8th grade?
*The kid working at the ice cream parlor that Vanessa likes is 12? Whatever happened to work permits? I think those are something else that doesn't exist in the BSC universe. I'm going to start a list...
*Byron's snorkeling with his brothers this summer...I guess he's not afraid of the deep water anymore?
*There's a babysitting chapter with Jessi and her siblings, centered around an incident where Squirt puts the Pike's hamster in with Becca's, and they think it's missing. How did a 1 year old get the hamster out of one cage, carry it upstairs, and put it into another? He should be barely even using the stairs. This makes no sense.
*When Stacey gets snippy with Mary Anne after her break up, she apologizes and feels bad about it afterwards, something MA never does anymore. We're constantly told how sensitive she is, but she is actually one of the worst at caring about anyone else's feelings.
*In AMM's letter in the back, she says that Kristy and Bart are just friends.
Books mentioned:
None, surprising for a vacation book.
My rating:
3 stars. Not much happens, and #8 does Sea City way better.
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