Thoughts before reading:
At least this is the last one of these! They must not have been very popular, which actually does surprise me. As much as I've hated all of them so far, I think they'd be fun for 8 year old's. These ridiculous, implausible, soapy plots would have delighted me at that age. It certainly worked out for the Sweet Valley series.
Mary Anne looks like she's wearing Richard's clothes on this cover... or is it just me?
The basics:
There's three main plots in here, so bear with me!
Christmas vacation has just started, and a lot of the BSC members have special plans: Logan will be going back to Kentucky, Shannon's going skiing with her family, Stacey and Claudia are going to NYC, Mal and Jessi are working on a church Christmas pageant, and Abby's family is having a Hanukkah party.
Right after vacation starts, the Hsus (who live in Kristy's neighborhood) are robbed. She heads over right after finding out, to offer her babysitting services (but really to be nosy). While there, Kristy notes that the whole house is ransacked, but nothing seems to be missing. The intruder also took the time to spray paint the word "naughty" on a mirror inside the house.
The Papadakises' house is broken into next, in the same neighborhood. The BSC goes over to help (and nose around). It looks like the same MO as the last break in, right down to the word "naughty" painted on a wall.
It's discovered that some electronics are missing from both houses, but no jewelry or other valuables. Kristy has the idea to set up a neighborhood watch (which you'd think the adults would have already done when this began, but not in Stoneybrook!).
Kristy then finds a note in her mailbox that says "nice" in magazine cut-out letters. Despite everything going on, and the clear connection to the "naughty" messages, she assumes it's from a secret admirer. (Some detective, haha.)
Next, someone tries to break into Abby's house while the whole family is home and asleep, but the alarm system scares them away. They did manage to break a window though, and nearby a note that says "nice" is found.
During a BSC sleepover (with those still in Stoneybrook), someone tries to break into Mrs. Porter's house while she's also home.
Following this incident, Kristy's family decides to set a trap for the burglar by pretending to go on a trip, then slipping into Abby's house for a stakeout. The police are in on it, and hiding nearby. (Finally, adults are involved in one of these mysteries involving real criminals!) Prior to this, the girls do some sleuthing and Dawn figures out, based on a rake Mr. Korman found in his yard, that the neighborhood gardening service could be to blame. The magazine letters in all the notes came from gardening magazines too, and both the Hsus and the Papadakises had recently fired their old gardener, Mr. Dixon, and started using a new service.
Right before the big stakeout, Watson calls Mr. Dixon and rudely fires him as bait. Sure enough, it's not long before Mr. D shows up and starts trying to break into the Brewer house. He's promptly arrested.
The mystery woman comes to be known as Mary Doe in Stoneybrook. The police believe she must have been mugged, because she has no ID on her at all, and she also turns out to have a concussion. She comes to stay with the Pikes for Christmas, and ends up going into labor at their house, during a blizzard, with the phones down, on December 23rd. (BSC: the soap opera!) Mary Anne gets her dad, and he comes over to drive Mary to the hospital.
While this is going on, Mal tracks down Mary's true identity by calling the maternity store she saw named on the tag of her sweater, then asking about jewelers in the area, then calling those to ask about the unique ring Mary wears. She gets a call back from a woman named Elena, who says the ring was designed by her nephew for his wife, Lisa Papademetriou. Her husband left on a business trip to Australia, and Lisa set out for DC to visit a friend, which was when she must have been mugged.
Lisa gives birth to a baby boy, who she names Nicholas.
Newly arrived in NYC, Stacey and Claudia meet up with Ethan (who's now being referred to as Stacey's boyfriend). Ethan has bleached his hair white, and is acting nervous and jumpy. He won't let the girls see his room, and he keeps staring at Stacey in a pretty obvious way, which she hates.
It's not long before Stacey and Claudia start to feel like someone's watching them. They then find a note outside Stacey's apartment that says "your time is up". There's also red paint splashed inside the elevator... but of course, the doorman didn't see anything unusual. (Great security!) Then someone leaves a box outside her door, containing a jack-in-the-box with a photo of Stacey pasted over its face.
Stacey immediately tells Ethan, but he doesn't take her seriously. He's also still acting weird... more of the same, staring at Stacey in a creepy way, and not letting the girls go inside his apartment.
Someone then takes the lightbulbs from the hall lights in Stacey's building, and jams the elevator buttons with gum. (This building seriously has the worst security ever, or all of this is Ethan.) Stacey gets pushed on the subway, but doesn't see who did it in the crowd. Her and Claudia get stuck in an elevator after, and when they get out, Stacey finds a note from Ethan, telling her to meet him in the basement tomorrow at 5.
Ethan finally tells Stacey that his weird behavior is all because he used to date a girl in Stacey's building, and that girl, Cybil, was rather unstable. He's also not the author of the note, so it must have been her. (Would have been nice if he mentioned this before, for Stacey's safety...) The rest of his weird behavior is because he's making a sculpture of Stacey.
Stacey, Claudia, and Ethan decide to show up in the basement at 5 to find out for sure what's been going on. Of course, the power goes out, and they end up literally bumping into Cybil. Ethan convinces her to leave with him, and he takes her back to her parents to get some help.
Timeline:
Another weird, overlapping timeline that doesn't mention events from the book before it that should have been happening at the same time. In here, Christmas vacation is just starting again, and they get out two days early because the boiler at SMS breaks. Also, this time around a lot of the BSC members are gone on vacations. None of this is mentioned in #114. The only thing that's the same is that Dawn is visiting.
Misc. thoughts:
*Stacey now wants to be a tax attorney.
*Kristy tries to tell the police how to do their job... which doesn't really surprise me at all.
*I remember when all the guys had bleached hair. Welcome to the late 90s! Also, it looked terrible...
*There's lots of Hanukkah history in here, which felt like filler. This book even explains how to play the dreidel game.
*At the Papadakis robbery, the BSC finds some footprints that the police missed? Gee, that's realistic. Worst police force ever...
*Claudia really likes Ethan, because they have art in common to talk about.
*Ben Hobart is in the Christmas pageant, and is still being treated like one of the kids, even around Mal. What happened here?
*Ethan's a creep in here, whatever the reason, and Stacey goes WAY too long without asking him about it. Is she really that eager to have a boyfriend? It's not like she has any trouble finding them.
*Stacey's dad promised to buy her a pair of earrings from Tiffany's when she graduates from high school? I bet her mom just loves that.
*Dawn says she wouldn't mind being like Mrs. Porter, except that she would want pets? Since when does she even like pets, or animals? Remember mystery #7??
*I loved how Mrs. Porter mocked the BSC for playing detective in here. At least someone finds it absurd.
*Wisdom from Stacey: "One lunatic could ruin your whole day." Well Stacey, that is very true indeed, haha.
*All those robberies and weird notes were the work of... a gardening service? What a lame solution. They really were desperate at this point... What kid is going to find that a thrilling and satisfying ending??
*Is Cybil's name a joke for adult readers? Cybil = Sybil?
*Ghostwritten by Nola Thacker.
*If Abby's family fell into the "nice" category, than why did Mr. Dixon break their window instead of just leaving a note outside or in the mailbox? Pretty harsh way to treat a family that didn't fire you...
*Ethan knew about Cybil all along, yet didn't take any of Stacey's concerns seriously at first? Did he think she was making it up, or it was some sort of coincidence? If I was her, I'd be seriously done with him after this.
*This book had so many elements I associate with soap operas... perfectly timed black outs, blizzards, going into labor in the worst time and place, psycho ex stalkers, amnesia, mugging... but like I said before, at least those shows are fun.
Books mentioned:
*Harriet the Spy (book and movie)
My rating:
1 star. I'm so happy to be done with the super mysteries that I almost gave this 2 stars, but this could have been the worst one of all. It was so dull, so ridiculous, and not even any fun to read. If you're going to write things this outlandish, they should at least be a blast to read, but this couldn't even accomplish that. YAWN.
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