Thoughts before reading:
I have a distinct memory of seeing this in a bookstore shortly after I'd outgrown the series, and thinking that the books must have gotten ridiculous if this was what they were doing... after all, these were supposed to be about friendship and babysitting, and now one of the girls was off at boarding school? Yet at the same time, I was curious and a little tempted to buy it. Book money was very precious then though, since all I had to spend was my small allowance, so I moved on to what I was actually looking for. (At that point, most likely a Fear Street title.) After that I pretty much forgot about the series until a few years ago, when I became curious about revisiting it.
The basics:
After an emotional final BSC meeting with Mallory as a member, where everyone tells stories about her and she's made an honorary member again, her family and friends surprise her with a going-away party. It's her last day in Stoneybrook before leaving for Riverbend.
The next day, after a family breakfast, her parents drive her to her new school. Mary Anne and Jessi stay with the other Pike kids, who are all upset, and therefore a handful. They've also wasted no time in fighting over the bedroom arrangements now that one kid is mostly out of the house.
Once her parents have dropped her off, Mal sets about getting settled in. Her roommate, Alexis, has been there since September, and has already taken over most of the room. She hasn't arrived for the new semester yet, since the new students go in a day early, so Mal figures she just forgot shed have a roommate after the winter break. She just tries to arrange her things in the tiny spaces available for now.
The first full day mainly consists of moving in and attending orientation. Afterwards, Mal passes out, exhausted, only to be woken up by her roommate the next morning. Alexis is bossy and intimidating from the get-go, unconcerned about making any space for Mal, and opens by basically telling her how things are going to be. Luckily two other 6th graders, Sarah and Smita, stop by to invite Mal to brunch, and she makes a getaway.
Classes start on the third day, and Mal likes hers right away. The classes are tiny, the kids are eager to learn, the teachers are enthusiastic, and the subjects are taught in creative, interactive ways. (She does still hate gym though, even though they stress non-competitive activities, which doesn't sound bad to me at all.)
Mal ends her first day of classes by hanging out at the library with Sarah and Smita, both of whom she's quickly becoming friends with. When she returns to her room, Alexis is reading her journal... out in the open, not even trying to hide it. Alexis isn't apologetic at all about being caught either, just claiming that Mal left the journal lying out open. After this incident, she gets even bossier, telling Mal who to be friends with, accusing her of being sloppy, and of using her things. Alexis also starts to borrow Mal's things without asking, and even quotes her own journal to her. Sarah tells Mallory that Alexis has already been through two roommates this year. After confiding in her dorm supervisor about all these problems, Mal tries to talk things out with Alexis, but she just turns things around and becomes really hostile.
The BSC sends Mal a care package, and Alexis destroys it, eating the snacks and defacing the photos. The two girls have a meeting with the Dean following this incident, to resolve their issues. Alexis ends up storming out during it, and trashing their room instead. The Dean ends up putting Mal in with one of Alexis's old roommates, and Alexis is given a single.
With this issue resolved, Mal finally feels fully welcome, happy, and is at peace with her decision.
Timeline:
Begins on January 2nd, and school resumes on the 4th at Riverbend.
Misc. thoughts:
*Ghostwritten by Ellen Miles.
*I'm very surprised they never tried to do a spin-off series about Mal at Riverbend. I wonder if that was the intention behind this storyline, but for some reason it just never took off?
*Mal's diary entries were a nice touch in here... something different from the BSC notebook.
* I also liked the reminiscing at her last BSC meeting. Everyone talks about when Mal first wanted to join the club, the ridiculous test Kristy made for her, Mal and Jessi trying to start their own club... I'm not even done with the series yet, and I already miss those times!
*Also during that meeting, Kristy says one of Mallory's best moments as a sitter was when she figured out what was upsetting the Arnold twins (Mallory and the Trouble With Twins). That was also the moment when Kristy says she knew Mal would be a valuable member of the BSC. From there, the girls make Mal an honorary member and tell stories about her best sitting moments, which include helping Buddy Barrett learn to enjoy reading, via comic books, and helping the Delany kids figure out who their real friends were and who was just using them for their pool.
*"The last BSC meeting" gimmick worked on me, I'm not gonna lie. I started feeling pretty emotional... I wasn't expecting this book to be so sad.
*It's too bad we don't ever get a sense of how close Mal and Vanessa are until this book, where Mal is leaving and the series is almost over. They are only two years apart, and they share a room, yet Vanessa has always just been one of the kids, another sitting charge. Now, in here they are finally written like friends, the way it should have always been. In real life, there's no magic number like the BSC-verse's age 11 that makes you different. Two sisters so close in age, whether they were great friends or rivals, would have a complicated and interesting relationship, and probably do things together a lot. Yet I think this book is the first time they've even had a real conversation or scene alone.
*Every morning Mal tells Vanessa the weather before she gets up, and Vanessa makes up a short poem for her.
*Riverbend is in the Berkshires, and the school itself sounds gorgeous. All the buildings are named after famous women. For instance, Mallory's dorm is called Earhart.
*This set up would be a great start to a horror story! Clearly I've seen and read too many, because once Mal left for school I couldn't stop getting that vibe, haha.
*Fun facts about the school: Riverbend's an alternative school that focuses on drama, writing, dance, visual arts, and music. Traditional courses all have a creative twist. The kids call the teachers by their first names. The school teaches grades 5-12, girls only. Everyone's given jobs, to help keep the school community going (yardwork, library duty, etc). They also do volunteer work in the local community on weekends.
*Other dorm names include figures like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Barbara Jordan, Georgia O'Keeffe, Marie Curie, and Katharine Hepburn.
*Mal's schedule:
1- Math
2- French
3- Global Studies
4- lunch
5- Gym
6- English
7- Computer Lab
8- Creative Writing for the Stage
*Mal learns to use email in this book.
*I would have LOVED this when I was a kid, because I had a weird fascination with boarding schools and always wanted to attend one. I even had a game I played where I would pretend I was at one. (Yes, I was the biggest dork you could ever imagine. No shame.)
*This is the first BSC book to contain emails. They head a few of the babysitting chapters about the Pike kids, when the various BSC members are emailing Mal.
*This book somehow manages to be completely different from the other BSC books, while still being deathly boring.
*Mal's first community service is at the Easton Public Library, supervising kids. How convenient.
*It's really fucked up that the school put a new student in with a girl who's known to be troubled. What did they expect to happen? It's also just really unfair to put a new kid through all that when they're already adjusting to a new school and being away from home for the first time.
*Not to mention Alexis is basically rewarded by getting her own room, instead of being expelled for this psychotic behavior. If I was Mal, I'd be furious. This school seems pretty sketchy to me, based on how they handled this situation. Especially the fast that they knowingly created the problem in the first place.
*This is the last Mal book. She only had 13 books total in the whole series, the least of any original character. Jessi had only 14.
Books mentioned:
*The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
My rating:
2.5 stars. I really wanted to like this, because I've always liked Mal, this is where her story ends, and I've always been curious about this book... but I just didn't. After a solid, emotional start, this fell completely flat because it was so boring. There was no real plot, besides Alexis, who took over most of the book. That story would've been better if we'd gotten any insight into why she is the way she is, or any real resolution or justice, but we don't. Otherwise this book is really just about Riverbend itself, but who cares about that? This is the only book about it, so it's not setting anything up.
Plus Mal is an original character, and she deserved a better ending than this bummer. Now she's just randomly off at boarding school, and we never hear from her again.
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