Thoughts before reading:
Abby narrates a lot of books set in February, which I know because she always complains about how much she hates that time of year. Is this the second or third now?
Also, they really wasted no time in taking Mal off the cover...
The basics:
Valentine's Day is coming up, and Abby's already tired of everyone talking about it, along with dating, and the upcoming school dance. She's not interested in any of those things, and is surprised when Anna is not only interested, but bummed to not have a date to the dance.
A boy at school, Ross Brown, asks Abby to the dance, to her horror. She says no, rather abruptly, then makes the excuse that she's just not into it. Everyone in the BSC, plus Anna, are shocked that Abby turned him down (except for Kristy, that is...). Frustrated by feeling like no one understands her decision, Abby talks to Kristy about it. Kristy assures her she did the right thing, because you don't have to be part of a couple to be happy, and she says that when she started seeing Bart it was because he was a good friend and she felt comfortable with him... but she knew all along she'd never feel anything romantic for him. She dated him because it was easier than saying no. (AHA! I knew it!!)
Abby feels much better after their talk, until Ross shows up at her house the next day, nice and early, and bearing roses for her. She's short with him again, hoping this time he gets the message. Anna's disappointed that Abby still doesn't want to go, because she thinks Ross is a great guy. The next day, Ross leaves a poem at Abby's locker, and stares at her all during English class. Abby decides he's more Anna's type, so maybe she can fix them up, and then everyone would be happy.
Next, Ross gives Abby a book of New Yorker cartoons, something she's actually into. She finds out that Stacey gave him advice, and ends up angry with her and Claudia for not understanding how she feels. Abby asks Charlie for advice, and he tells her to be very firm and plain in telling Ross no.
Instead of taking this good advice, Abby decides to go ahead with her plan instead, because Anna really likes Ross. This is predictably a disaster: the next time he stops by their house, he mixes the two girls up, and they don't bother to correct him. It's only when their mom gets home that he realizes it. Ross leaves quickly after that, understandably hurt and angry. Anna blames Abby for the whole mess. The girls end up going to his house together to apologize, and he asks Anna out.
Ross and Anna attend the Valentine's dance together, while Abby hangs out with Kristy and enjoys pizza and a horror movie.
Side plot: The time has come for Scout, the Thomas-Brewer family's guide dog trainee to graduate and leave them. Andrew takes the news the hardest, because he thinks Scout is his dog.
Timeline:
It's February. Hilariously, this book tries to pretend this is the first Valentine's Day Abby's lived in Stoneybrook, which is just silly at this point.
Misc. thoughts:
*Ghostwritten by Nola Thacker.
*Abby doesn't like Valentine's Day, and she really doesn't want a boyfriend. She wants to wait and give the guys a chance to mature a little. Right, I'm not buying it. No teenage girl thinks that way, especially since you can't control who you like. I've told myself that same thing before, to justify to myself not having any crushes on guys.
*Abby says she doesn't see the problem with Claudia's junk food eating, as long as she doesn't "pork out"? YIKES, that's really dated, very offensive, and a terrible inclusion in a book for young girls...
*This book says Sam's 14 and Charlie's 16, yet they have been 15 and 17 for most of the series. Seems like a pretty hard thing to mess up by now.
*Boo Boo has died?!? This makes me, strangely, really sad. I had no idea that he was killed off in the series. It must have happened in a Little Sister book, probably when they got Pumpkin. Those are affecting the continuity more than I expected.
*Apparently Mary Anne's skin tans? Since when? The fact that she used to just burn and had to wear layers outside, even on the beach, used to be mentioned a lot.
*Shannon is temporarily filling in for Mal.
*Josh decorates Claudia's locker for Valentine's Day, which is pretty sweet.
*Ethan, by comparison, sends Stacey a romantic email, haha. Whatever that means.
*Andrew's back from living in Chicago, although it's not mentioned why he was there. Did their mom move away?
*To give you an idea of how boring this book is, there's an entire chapter about making bird feeders...
*Abby also says in here that she wouldn't go to the dance with anyone, even Cam Geary. This is the first time in forever that he's been mentioned.
*Abby says no to Ross and is so against all things romantic because she's not ready to date? It's totally fine to not be ready, and everyone definitely needs to do things at their own pace, but none of this explains why she gets so bothered by it. She's hostile about all things romantic and lets being asked on a date ruin her mood? This is a pretty extreme reaction. Jessi, for example, isn't ready to date, and struggled to tell Quint more than once, but she didn't get furious and distressed over him wanting to date her. There's definitely more going on here. This book is clearly the reason everyone thinks Abby is gay. There have been little moments before, but there was a lot happening between the lines in here.
*Abby's an early riser, Anna's not.
*I've done the exact same thing as Kristy many times, dating someone because I felt comfortable with them and it was easier to date them than not. That whole section was spot on!
*I felt sorry for Ross at first, but by the time he's leaving Abby that poem, he's officially become creepy.
*This book is the most Andrew has ever talked in the series, by far.
*I wonder how Abby and Anna knew where Ross lived?
*This book mentions Louie and says he died not long ago. It's so weird at this point to have something from #11 mentioned as being recent. In real time it's been over a decade.
*Everyone saying goodbye to Scout made me cry... I was not expecting that scene to be so emotional.
*When Abby tells her family her Valentine's Day plans, her mom says "very romantic", haha. I've spent a few of them that way myself!
*This is the last Abby book. She narrated 11. It's pretty unbalanced that she only had a few less than Mal and Jessi, who were original characters. For some perspective, Mallory first narrated #14, Jessi #16, and Abby #90... yet Abby only has two books less in the entire series than Mal, and three less than Jessi.
*I think Anna could do a lot better than Ross, who switched his affections from Abby to her very suddenly, like the girls were just interchangeable to him.
Books mentioned:
None
My rating:
2 stars. This was definitely the gayest BSC book, and I can finally see where people get the Kristy/Abby pairing from. Unfortunately, none of this was enough to save the book from being really boring.
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