Thoughts before reading:
I never read any of the super mysteries when I was a kid... no particular reason, I guess I just didn't encounter them. Back then, I probably would have liked them, because I always liked the crazy, super dramatic books. I remember devouring Sweet Valley Twins Super Chillers, which were basically this same type of thing. Now, I'm curious about these since they are all going to be brand new, but since I don't like the regular mysteries, I'm not expecting much.
The basics:
Bear with me on this one as I attempt to muddle through explaining it... things got pretty convoluted.
BSC business has been extra busy lately, so much so that the girls are struggling to find time to celebrate school being out. They are imagining with longing what they'd do with some free time, too. In the midst of this craziness, the club gets a phone call from Lisa, Karen and Andrew's mom. She needs a sitter for 2 weeks, because her husband Seth's assistant has broken her wrist, and Lisa's going to be filling in.
Claudia takes on the job. She's only a few days in when Lisa calls the BSC again, explaining that her and Seth's friends, the Menderses, have inherited a mansion in Reese, Maine. They aren't sure if they want to live in it or not, because they have full lives in Boston, their current home. To decide, they're going to spend the summer there, and they've invited Seth and Lisa to join them for ten days. Lisa wants to see if Claudia and another sitter would also come, to help with the kids. (The Menderses have 4 kids.) That way the adults will have time to explore the area.
Once Claudia explains the situation to the rest of the club, the girls all want to go, aside from Shannon. Some mild bickering ensues. Kristy ends up telling Lisa that her, Mary Anne, and Dawn all got permission. Lisa says (generously) that they can all come: no pay, but they'll get a free trip. Logan, Shannon, Mal, and Jessi agree to cover the BSC work. (I guess the plot has already forgotten they were too busy with a full staff...)
After a long drive to Maine, the vacation goers arrive at the massive Randolph estate after dark. There they meet the Menderses: Jason, 9, Lionel, 14, Jill, 10, and Martha, 7. Lionel is a moody, unhappy kid who wants to be an actor. Martha's really shy, and Jill's infatuated with Dawn.
The first night, Mary Anne keeps seeing a flickering light inside the house, and is too scared to sleep. Claudia, Kristy, and Dawn see it too, and start to worry that the mansion is haunted. It's a pretty long, restless night for them. In the morning, they decide to take the kids down to the beach. On the way there, they run into the summer gardener, Georgio. Something about him gives Dawn the creeps, and he warns them not to go on the 4th floor. (He also flirts with Claudia.)
While out for the day, the girls also look at the town bulletin boards for ideas of things to do with kids. They see a notice for a Founder's Day parade and a carnival, as well as a Dracula play. The girls decide to take part in everything they can.
One evening, while outside taking the kids frog hunting, Kristy sees a light going on and off in the attic. She asks the caretakers, Elton and Margaret, about it. Elton tells her it's impossible, because it was closed off years ago. This gets the girls seriously spooked, until Kristy catches the "hallway ghost" that same night. It's Lionel, apparently practicing his acting.
Georgio asks Claudia for help with his rose bush color scheme in the garden one day, then offers to help her with the float she's making for the parade. She likes him, but is still spooked by everything, so she cuts their talking short to go to the library and research the Randolph mansion. In doing so, she learns that Reginald Randolph, the original owner, was a wealthy fisherman who was lost at sea with a crew of 13. His wife, Mary, mourned him all the remaining 20 years of her life. She would stand out on the widow's walk every night, and one night during a fierce storm she was hurled to her death by the winds.(A little gruesome for the BSC...) Later, they also learn from Elton that Reginald and Mary's granddaughter, Lydia, was in love with the gardeners son, George. Her parents found out and forbid them to see each other. George was fired, along with his father. He was able to return in secret, but her parents caught them together again. They locked her in a bedroom on the 4th floor for FIVE YEARS. During those same years, George made a name and fortune for himself, then returned, hoping to win their approval. Instead they refused to even see him. He heard about Lydia's fate and found his own way to the 4th floor, where he discovered an old white haired woman: Lydia.
At night, the girls continue to hear footsteps, cries, and creaking.
One rainy day, they decide to explore the attic. The Menderses give their permission, but they don't have a key to access it. Georgio ends up having one though. He unlocks it for them, with another warning not to go up there. Of course this doesn't deter them, and the girls get busy searching. They find old toys, dresses, and photo albums, mostly... a dead end. The girls make a new plan to split up and look for spooky activity. Kristy and Mary Anne see the attic lights again, then a ghostly figure up on the widow's walk.
Mary Anne also visits the historical society, where she learns that Mary Randolph didn't die in a storm at all, but in her sleep. She also acquires some maps of the house and learns about a dumbwaiter that goes through Dawn's room.
Claudia meets Georgio's parents, who were caretakers for the recently deceased Mr. Randolph. They tell her that towards the end, he kept talking about his "treasure from the attic".
After learning that a woman with an accent asked about the mansion at the historical society right before they did, the girls start searching for who this woman could be. They also check out the dumbwaiter, where they find a tape recorder hidden. Dawn also overhears that Margaret, who they had been told was mute, can actually talk. She even spoke with an accent...
When they aren't ghost hunting or sleuthing, the girls help the Menderses kids make friends and adjust to the new place, get the girls onto the swim team, and get the brothers to spend time together. When their parents hear they're all doing so well, Mr. M admits that if they don't end up living in the mansion full time, the inheritance will turn over to his cousin, Charles, from Europe. He never mentioned this before because he didn't want the kids to feel pressured.
The girls put the pieces together and realize Elton and Margaret must be the cousin and his wife. Of course, right as they draw this conclusion, all the parents leave for a day trip to Boston. Then a big storm kicks up, delaying them there. The kids are spooked by the storm, and Elton keeps telling them more made-up family stories to freak them out. Some of the girls snoop around and find more evidence against the couple, as well.
After a rough night, the parents finally return the following morning. Kristy explains all the evidence against Elton and Margaret to them: the fake family stories, the list she found of ways to make the Menderses miserable in the mansion, a photo of a Randolph ancestor that looks just like Elton, and the speaking/accent. When they go to confront them, however, they are long gone. All that's left is a note saying the house and all it's ghosts are theirs.
The last few days in Reese are (finally) nice and relaxing.
Back in Stoneybrook, Mal and Jessi are running the BSC mostly by themselves, and having fun taking turns being president (lol...). They are struggling to fill jobs with only 4 members though. When things start to get desperate, they turn down some jobs and even get Janine to take one. They also schedule Logan for a job, then forget to tell him about it until an hour before it starts.
Timeline:
It's summer vacation, but the very beginning. as in starting on the last day of school... so there's no continuity with the last book. I don't know how Camp BSC fits into all this.
Misc. thoughts:
*Claudia has to write a composition for English class over the summer in order to pass. She starts off writing about her ordinary 2 week gig with Karen and Andrew, and ends up writing about the whole fiasco in Reese. Her paper gets an A.
*If you can't get any time off work when you're only 13, when will you?? This is the time these girls should be having fun and being kids!
*Is Lisa usually a stay at home mom? I can't remember from the Little Sister books, I guess because I wouldn't have cared when I was a kid.
*Kristy says she's not in the mood for a BSC meeting! I think this is a series first!
*Lisa and Seth must both be insanely easy-going and generous... especially since Kristy is the daughter of her ex-husband's new wife. Needing a sitter or two on vacation is one thing, but giving all four girls a free vacation is another. I also wonder how Elizabeth felt about this trip? What about the other three's parents?
*Andrew is getting more outgoing.
*Lycra bike shorts! I remember this terrible trend, and I wore these proudly as a kid.
*Seth's a carpenter.
*Seth also seemed like an insanely nice guy in here. When Mary Anne was going crazy with the guidebook, as always, he indulged her kindly by asking her where they should stop for a picnic.
*So, super mysteries are literally just mysteries written in the super special format, switching narrators.
*There weren't even 6 kids for the 4 sitters to watch, since Lionel was older than they were!
*Dawn describes someone as "one of those brooding teenage rebel loners", LOL.
*Lionel might be one of the most annoying BSC-verse characters of all time. He keeps doing dumb actor voices, scaring the girls, being nosy, and wants to leave the beach right after arriving because there are no "hip actor types" there. He also ignores his little brother, who's desperate for his attention. AND he's sexist, muttering to himself at one point about "hysterical females".
*Dawn's been missing California more and more. We all know how this always ends...
*At the beginning of this book, the BSC is swamped with 8 members. Then half of them leave, and it's not even for a sitting job. This whole set-up just makes no sense, because Kristy is so obsessed with her club and it's reputation, she would never have done this.
*The reason given for why Margaret is mute is damage from laryngitis? Is that a real thing that can happen?
*Georgio's in college, and just assumed Claudia is 16. She doesn't correct him, and only admits the truth after she's gone back home.
*A widow's walk is a balcony on the roof where women could look to the sea and watch for their husband's ships.
*Karen keeps trying to force poor Martha to make new friends, which was both sad and annoying.
*These family stories about the Randolphs, made up or not, were really dark stuff, and pretty creepy to boot. Especially the one about Lydia. It was like reading a V. C. Andrews story hidden inside a BSC book.
*Mary Anne can embroider, smock, and make quilts.
*Mrs. Pike gets mad at Mallory because there's no sitters available! When Mal (rightly) explains that it's not her fault they all left town, her mom says they should have planned better! While this is true, it isn't Mal's fault, and the BSC members are KIDS. This woman is unbelievable! She chose to have 8 effing kids, not Mal. Watch them yourself, you lazy bitch!
*Jessi and Mal get so stressed, thinking they've ruined the BSC, but this plot just doesn't make sense either. What did the club do during all those past super special trips? Or family summer vacations? Do these clients just suddenly not understand that their sitters are kids? They can't work 24/7, and they will have family trips and other obligations.
*Andrew's currently obsessed with boats and frogs.
*No one has any personality in this book. Everyone's narration and activities are so identical, I kept forgetting whose POV I was on.
*Apparently Stoneybrook has a big summer celebration every year called Celebrate America! Mal and Jessi are also left to deal with coordinating something for it alone. They come up with a "BSC on Wheels" theme, and it's a success.
*Once everyone got to the mansion in Reese, Lisa and Seth were never mentioned again until the end.
*Andrew has a POV chapter! It's so cute too, definitely my favorite part of this damn book.
*It's really an example of great parenting to leave your kids with some people you barely know and go out of town (all the adults going to Boston together). Plus, the BSC girls just let the adults leave without telling them their suspicions, because they thought they didn't have enough evidence! Uhm, this is a risk worth taking to protect yourselves and some little kids from some psychopaths. Even if no one believed them, I would hope one of the parents would have stayed behind.
*I was disappointed that all this disturbing family lore was made up. It was one of the best parts of this bizarre book.
*Ghostwritten by Jeanne Betancourt.
Books mentioned:
*Dracula, by Bram Stoker
*The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
*Frog and Toad Together, by Arnold Lobel
My rating:
2 stars. For such a wacky story, this was surprisingly boring. It felt like it took me forever to read it and that wasn't helped by the fact that I have so many good books coming up in the regular series that I want to get to.
This was really just a mess, too: convoluted plot, most of it went nowhere, repetitive, dull, full of characters we'll never hear about again, and built on a bizarre premise. Felt like the BSC meets V. C. Andrews meets Fear Street... with the results just as terrible as that sounds.
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