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situationnormal's review
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.25
An interesting departure from the main BSC series. Am I excited about a series about Dawn and her California friends? No, not really. Is Dawn a bit more bearable in this book than she usually is in BSC books? Absolutely.
All of that aside, I know these are middle school kids and Dawn's book started the series because she's the tie back to the original series, but what an uncompelling start. While Dawn's friends (particularly Sunny) are actually going through some horrific things, Dawn's diary filled with her deepest thoughts is mostly concerned with...being a freshman (essentially) instead of top of the school? Maybe I'm too far removed from middle school now but I had a difficult time feeling for any of these characters, and while I'm sure they'll be fleshed out in their own books, I'm not sure I learned anything about any of them or even much about Dawn.
But, hey, it's the first book. And I liked it better than most Dawn books, so that's a win!
All of that aside, I know these are middle school kids and Dawn's book started the series because she's the tie back to the original series, but what an uncompelling start. While Dawn's friends (particularly Sunny) are actually going through some horrific things, Dawn's diary filled with her deepest thoughts is mostly concerned with...being a freshman (essentially) instead of top of the school? Maybe I'm too far removed from middle school now but I had a difficult time feeling for any of these characters, and while I'm sure they'll be fleshed out in their own books, I'm not sure I learned anything about any of them or even much about Dawn.
But, hey, it's the first book. And I liked it better than most Dawn books, so that's a win!
novelesque_life's review against another edition
3.0
3 STARS
(I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review).
"Having moved away from California, Dawn Shafer experiences a number of unsettling changes at once, including new relationships with friends, family, and her stepfamily, and she finds herself redefining her identity." (From Amazon)
California Diaries is a spin-off of The Baby-Sitters Club but lacks the friendship and fun of the original series.
(I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review).
"Having moved away from California, Dawn Shafer experiences a number of unsettling changes at once, including new relationships with friends, family, and her stepfamily, and she finds herself redefining her identity." (From Amazon)
California Diaries is a spin-off of The Baby-Sitters Club but lacks the friendship and fun of the original series.
amandadelbrocco's review
4.0
I started rereading this when I was freaking out about current affairs and it took my mind off things.
elizj____'s review against another edition
5.0
I barely remember this book, but what I remember about it is that it inspired my journaling habit that I still keep up today. Reading these characters' diaries made me want to start my own journal in middle school, and I've been writing ever since. Any personal development as a writer, of journals or otherwise, can be traced back to reading this series. I can't remember much about the books themselves, they might be good or they might not be... but I'm glad I read them!
chrissymcbooknerd's review
4.0
If you were a young reader in the 80's and early 90's, you could NOT have missed the sensation of The Baby Sitter's Club. I devoured the series as a child, even going so far as to try and create my own real life club or preteen baby sitters, which ultimately ended in nothing but disaster. But even these crazy experiences were not enough to detract from the magic and fun of this series.
Somehow, I missed this spin-off series, which starts with DAWN: DIARY ONE of the California Diaries. All avid BSC fans remember when free spirited, hippie child Dawn ended up moving back to California, where her father, brother, and old best friend Sunny lived. However, since the main series focused primarily on the club itself, there really wasn't much said about Dawn during the time that she was away.
Well, Ann M. Martin fixed that with the release of the CALIFORNIA DIARIES series, which was released back in the 90's but was apparently released by Open Media in 2014 (YAY!). This first installment describes, in diary format, Dawn's experiences with being an 8th grader in a school of high schoole students who seem so much older and more mature and sophisticated. Dawn, and best friend Sunny, try to fit in with the crowd by attending a secret party thrown by the upperclassmen, which turns out to be a nightmare that not only ends with the girls experiencing underage drinking and hazing from the older kids at school... it also breaks up a friendship that Dawn was really counting on to get her through these days in California.
While I would probably prefer to see a series focused more on Stacy or Claudia, my two favorites from the BSC, I did still feel tons of nostalgia from revisting at least one of my old, childhood friends --- and I will definitely finish this sub-series if Open Media ends up releasing them all on e-book! In fact, let's release all the old Super Specials too, while we're at it! I so miss those books!
Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to travel back to my days of childhood innocent through a copy of this novel provided for the purposes of presenting an honest review. If you, like I, adored The Baby Sitter's Club but never quite got around to the CALIFORNIA DIARIES back in your day, I definitely recommend that you pick up at least this first book, to make your middle school dreams come true for at least an hour or two of your day!
Somehow, I missed this spin-off series, which starts with DAWN: DIARY ONE of the California Diaries. All avid BSC fans remember when free spirited, hippie child Dawn ended up moving back to California, where her father, brother, and old best friend Sunny lived. However, since the main series focused primarily on the club itself, there really wasn't much said about Dawn during the time that she was away.
Well, Ann M. Martin fixed that with the release of the CALIFORNIA DIARIES series, which was released back in the 90's but was apparently released by Open Media in 2014 (YAY!). This first installment describes, in diary format, Dawn's experiences with being an 8th grader in a school of high schoole students who seem so much older and more mature and sophisticated. Dawn, and best friend Sunny, try to fit in with the crowd by attending a secret party thrown by the upperclassmen, which turns out to be a nightmare that not only ends with the girls experiencing underage drinking and hazing from the older kids at school... it also breaks up a friendship that Dawn was really counting on to get her through these days in California.
While I would probably prefer to see a series focused more on Stacy or Claudia, my two favorites from the BSC, I did still feel tons of nostalgia from revisting at least one of my old, childhood friends --- and I will definitely finish this sub-series if Open Media ends up releasing them all on e-book! In fact, let's release all the old Super Specials too, while we're at it! I so miss those books!
Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to travel back to my days of childhood innocent through a copy of this novel provided for the purposes of presenting an honest review. If you, like I, adored The Baby Sitter's Club but never quite got around to the CALIFORNIA DIARIES back in your day, I definitely recommend that you pick up at least this first book, to make your middle school dreams come true for at least an hour or two of your day!
finesilkflower's review against another edition
4.0
This isn't your big sister's goody-goody baby-sitters club. This is REAL. This is RAW. This is CALIFORNIA.
I was so confused when I learned, at age 24 or so, that California Diaries existed--confused and delighted. You mean there is a BSC spinoff series where they are in high school? And they're dealing with SERIOUS TEEN ISSUES? And there is a boy recurring narrator? And he's not not gay? It's exactly what I always wanted (except it's about Dawn)!
It is almost everything I ever hoped it would be. The series follows Dawn and her friends in Palo City, California, after she moves back for good. The idea certainly seems to have been to attract a more YA, less middle-grades audience by opening up the series to more mature topics, like drinking and running away. And teen angst. LOTS of teen angst. (The BSC girls never seem to have angst, do they? Except maybe Mallory.) In this book, for example, Dawn writes that she's glad she has a diary as an outlet because sometimes the feelings just CONSUME her. Can you imagine mainline-series Dawn being CONSUMED by feelings?
Other differences: the books are less episodic, more freeform. Things happen in each book, but they're not tied up in a neat package at the end of the story; instead, the threads continue in that narrator's next book, and maybe in the background of the other books. (The downside of this is that the books' titles--"Dawn, Diary 1," "Dawn, Diary 2", etc.--are completely useless.)
One caveat: the characters are still thirteen. I KNOW. They are interacting with older classmates (and the new characters are older), but only because Dawn's school--a K-12 private school with three buildings--decides to move the eighth grade from the smaller fifth-through-seventh building to the ninth-through-twelfth building. So now they are in high school. It's such a lame technicality.
And it's frustrating, because why not just &*#@)*$ age them? I've always wanted to see the characters age (as is evident from my "Revised Timeline" project), and it seems like that is the whole concept of this spinoff: "it's like BSC, but in high school!" It really seems like Ann M. et. al. wanted to move on, attract an older audience, and explore older-kid issues, but the executive decision was made (by her or who knows who else) to keep the California storylines simultaneous with the Connecticut ones, so most of the characters are still thirteen. It's really just ludicrous at this point.
Anyway, all that is about the spin-off as a whole. Here's the deal about this book. (Spoilers ahead.)
This volume does the bookkeeping of explaining the school class shuffle and introducing the characters. Dawn is still friends with her old We Love Kids Club pals: longtime best friend Sunny; movie mogul daughter Maggie; and sensitive Mary Anne type, Jill.
But Jill is not long for this series. Jill's interests are too babyish, the rest of the friend group is moving on without her. After Dawn finds out that stepmother Carol is pregnant, she confides in Jill. Jill accidentally lets this slip in front of Carol, Carol is upset at Dawn for revealing the secret, and Dawn yells at Jill, effectively ending the friendship.
Dawn, Sunny, and Maggie go to a high school party where there is drinking! And smoking! And making out! And people getting thrown in the pool! It's all very shocking. Sunny, who has hitherto been shown to be somewhat bland but sweet kid, is making a play to become the series' Rayanne Graff, and gets insta-drunk. Dawn, more reticent/nerdy (but still fundamentally unable to empathize with Jill), hangs back, and bonds with Amalia, another girl who seems out of place. Later, they get a ride home from 16-year-old Ducky, who, he explains, earned his nickname by being just like Ducky from Pretty in Pink. So I guess just literally picture a character from a different fictional work right here in this series, unless you, like every reader who was a minor when it was released in 1997, have never seen this film and have no idea what that means. I actually still have never seen the movie, but from context, I guess Ducky is a character from Western canon who is a wisecracking teen boy of ambiguous sexuality with parental-neglect issues and a vaguely John Waters aesthetic, who has nothing better to do than drive around thirteen-year-old girls at all hours of the day and night.
This book does a good job of setting the tone for the spin-off. Dawn, as usual, is a hard-to-sympathetize with, barely tolerable narrator. So, in character.
Dawn is a Horrible Person: Dawn's honest first reaction when she finds out all of her friends have been invited to the party: Wait, if it's for cool kids, why was Jill invited? THEY ARE OSTENSIBLY FRIENDS AT THIS POINT.
Author Gratefully Acknowledges: Like all BSC-universe books, the California Diaries are attributed to Ann M. Martin, but this one, like most of them, gratefully acknowledges (the ghostwriting of) Peter Lerangis. Lerganis is a good choice for this series; he seemed to gravitate toward juicier, more YA-type BSC storylines, like romance, parental insubordination, and car accidents. He can be completely off the wall when it comes to plotting, but that doesn't matter so much here. This series makes use of his best skills, which are enjoyable line-by-line writing packed with melodrama and, occasionally, legitimately funny sardonic humor.
Timing: Handily, the diary entries are dated, so we know this takes place from September 23 to October 9. Of... sigh... eighth grade.
Revised Timeline: With an August 1997 release date, this coincides with the release of #110 [b:Abby the Bad Sport|48939|Abby the Bad Sport (The Baby-Sitters Club, #110)|Ann M. Martin|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1387668727s/48939.jpg|47877], which I placed in the summer after college graduation. However, Dawn actually moved back to California permanently in #88 [b:Farewell, Dawn|371083|Farewell, Dawn (The Baby-Sitters Club, #88)|Ann M. Martin|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1199060168s/371083.jpg|2060487], which was actually released two years earlier. Arguably, this could have taken place then. So our options are September of junior year of college (right after she transfers to Vista U), senior year of college (because why not), or first academic year postgrad (coinciding with the release date).
My inclination is to keep the series close to the release date to avoid unintentional continuity errors. In particular, Carol's pregnancy is something that would progress at a certain rate, and I'm sure we'd know about it if Dawn had a two-year-old sibling when we hear from her late in the series. The only time Ducky is mentioned in the mainline series is #110 [b:The Secret Life of Mary Anne Spier|304859|The Secret Life of Mary Anne Spier (The Baby-Sitters Club, #114)|Ann M. Martin|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1173565323s/304859.jpg|295875], and at the point Dawn and Ducky are close enough that Dawn is getting him a Christmas present, but not close enough that it's particularly meaningful (she gets him a picture of some ducks. Because of the name. Get it?)
This means we have to place it after college graduation, which on reflection, is not as much of a problem as I initially thought. Although the storyline is school-y in its details, I'd argue that it's mainly about transition, about suddenly and unceremoniously going from "rulers of the school" to the bottom of the heap, and mixing with people much older and more experienced. That's what happens when you graduate and enter the "real world." Let's say that Dawn is starting a new job in a no-rules, party-all-the-time atmosphere, maybe a Silicon Valley startup of some sort (hey, it is SoCal in 1997). Underage drinking as a plot point is problematic since Dawn is easily 21 by now, but then, let's face it, it's also somewhat problematic as a plot point for 13-year-olds (it's like the book just expects you to see 13 and read 15-17). But surely we can imagine adult-world equivalents of parties with shocking levels of illegal and/or decadent behavior. Ecstasy? Was ecstasy big then?
I was so confused when I learned, at age 24 or so, that California Diaries existed--confused and delighted. You mean there is a BSC spinoff series where they are in high school? And they're dealing with SERIOUS TEEN ISSUES? And there is a boy recurring narrator? And he's not not gay? It's exactly what I always wanted (except it's about Dawn)!
It is almost everything I ever hoped it would be. The series follows Dawn and her friends in Palo City, California, after she moves back for good. The idea certainly seems to have been to attract a more YA, less middle-grades audience by opening up the series to more mature topics, like drinking and running away. And teen angst. LOTS of teen angst. (The BSC girls never seem to have angst, do they? Except maybe Mallory.) In this book, for example, Dawn writes that she's glad she has a diary as an outlet because sometimes the feelings just CONSUME her. Can you imagine mainline-series Dawn being CONSUMED by feelings?
Other differences: the books are less episodic, more freeform. Things happen in each book, but they're not tied up in a neat package at the end of the story; instead, the threads continue in that narrator's next book, and maybe in the background of the other books. (The downside of this is that the books' titles--"Dawn, Diary 1," "Dawn, Diary 2", etc.--are completely useless.)
One caveat: the characters are still thirteen. I KNOW. They are interacting with older classmates (and the new characters are older), but only because Dawn's school--a K-12 private school with three buildings--decides to move the eighth grade from the smaller fifth-through-seventh building to the ninth-through-twelfth building. So now they are in high school. It's such a lame technicality.
And it's frustrating, because why not just &*#@)*$ age them? I've always wanted to see the characters age (as is evident from my "Revised Timeline" project), and it seems like that is the whole concept of this spinoff: "it's like BSC, but in high school!" It really seems like Ann M. et. al. wanted to move on, attract an older audience, and explore older-kid issues, but the executive decision was made (by her or who knows who else) to keep the California storylines simultaneous with the Connecticut ones, so most of the characters are still thirteen. It's really just ludicrous at this point.
Anyway, all that is about the spin-off as a whole. Here's the deal about this book. (Spoilers ahead.)
This volume does the bookkeeping of explaining the school class shuffle and introducing the characters. Dawn is still friends with her old We Love Kids Club pals: longtime best friend Sunny; movie mogul daughter Maggie; and sensitive Mary Anne type, Jill.
But Jill is not long for this series. Jill's interests are too babyish, the rest of the friend group is moving on without her. After Dawn finds out that stepmother Carol is pregnant, she confides in Jill. Jill accidentally lets this slip in front of Carol, Carol is upset at Dawn for revealing the secret, and Dawn yells at Jill, effectively ending the friendship.
Dawn, Sunny, and Maggie go to a high school party where there is drinking! And smoking! And making out! And people getting thrown in the pool! It's all very shocking. Sunny, who has hitherto been shown to be somewhat bland but sweet kid, is making a play to become the series' Rayanne Graff, and gets insta-drunk. Dawn, more reticent/nerdy (but still fundamentally unable to empathize with Jill), hangs back, and bonds with Amalia, another girl who seems out of place. Later, they get a ride home from 16-year-old Ducky, who, he explains, earned his nickname by being just like Ducky from Pretty in Pink. So I guess just literally picture a character from a different fictional work right here in this series, unless you, like every reader who was a minor when it was released in 1997, have never seen this film and have no idea what that means. I actually still have never seen the movie, but from context, I guess Ducky is a character from Western canon who is a wisecracking teen boy of ambiguous sexuality with parental-neglect issues and a vaguely John Waters aesthetic, who has nothing better to do than drive around thirteen-year-old girls at all hours of the day and night.
This book does a good job of setting the tone for the spin-off. Dawn, as usual, is a hard-to-sympathetize with, barely tolerable narrator. So, in character.
Dawn is a Horrible Person: Dawn's honest first reaction when she finds out all of her friends have been invited to the party: Wait, if it's for cool kids, why was Jill invited? THEY ARE OSTENSIBLY FRIENDS AT THIS POINT.
Author Gratefully Acknowledges: Like all BSC-universe books, the California Diaries are attributed to Ann M. Martin, but this one, like most of them, gratefully acknowledges (the ghostwriting of) Peter Lerangis. Lerganis is a good choice for this series; he seemed to gravitate toward juicier, more YA-type BSC storylines, like romance, parental insubordination, and car accidents. He can be completely off the wall when it comes to plotting, but that doesn't matter so much here. This series makes use of his best skills, which are enjoyable line-by-line writing packed with melodrama and, occasionally, legitimately funny sardonic humor.
Timing: Handily, the diary entries are dated, so we know this takes place from September 23 to October 9. Of... sigh... eighth grade.
Revised Timeline: With an August 1997 release date, this coincides with the release of #110 [b:Abby the Bad Sport|48939|Abby the Bad Sport (The Baby-Sitters Club, #110)|Ann M. Martin|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1387668727s/48939.jpg|47877], which I placed in the summer after college graduation. However, Dawn actually moved back to California permanently in #88 [b:Farewell, Dawn|371083|Farewell, Dawn (The Baby-Sitters Club, #88)|Ann M. Martin|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1199060168s/371083.jpg|2060487], which was actually released two years earlier. Arguably, this could have taken place then. So our options are September of junior year of college (right after she transfers to Vista U), senior year of college (because why not), or first academic year postgrad (coinciding with the release date).
My inclination is to keep the series close to the release date to avoid unintentional continuity errors. In particular, Carol's pregnancy is something that would progress at a certain rate, and I'm sure we'd know about it if Dawn had a two-year-old sibling when we hear from her late in the series. The only time Ducky is mentioned in the mainline series is #110 [b:The Secret Life of Mary Anne Spier|304859|The Secret Life of Mary Anne Spier (The Baby-Sitters Club, #114)|Ann M. Martin|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1173565323s/304859.jpg|295875], and at the point Dawn and Ducky are close enough that Dawn is getting him a Christmas present, but not close enough that it's particularly meaningful (she gets him a picture of some ducks. Because of the name. Get it?)
This means we have to place it after college graduation, which on reflection, is not as much of a problem as I initially thought. Although the storyline is school-y in its details, I'd argue that it's mainly about transition, about suddenly and unceremoniously going from "rulers of the school" to the bottom of the heap, and mixing with people much older and more experienced. That's what happens when you graduate and enter the "real world." Let's say that Dawn is starting a new job in a no-rules, party-all-the-time atmosphere, maybe a Silicon Valley startup of some sort (hey, it is SoCal in 1997). Underage drinking as a plot point is problematic since Dawn is easily 21 by now, but then, let's face it, it's also somewhat problematic as a plot point for 13-year-olds (it's like the book just expects you to see 13 and read 15-17). But surely we can imagine adult-world equivalents of parties with shocking levels of illegal and/or decadent behavior. Ecstasy? Was ecstasy big then?
sammah's review against another edition
4.0
I loved these books when they originally came out, and I still do. They were just so good, and so much better than the original BSC series. I think because they dealt with more "adult" type scenarios, and things that realistically a lot of us did as stupid teens. I appreciated that this book just really got into the grittier stuff, and I liked those subtle digs about not missing Mary Anne and her friends in Connecticut haha. For once, Dawn was tolerable!
coalstaindlife's review against another edition
3.0
Not as good as I remembered it, but it was age appropriate last time I read it.
silverneurotic's review against another edition
3.0
I was a huge fan of The Babysitters Club when I was a kid, and even when I should have grown out of the series, I kept tabs on what was happening in the series and it's subsequent, Friends Forever series. I have good memories of reading these books, and I'm excited that the series have been revamped for the next generation of girls.
California Diaries somehow sneaked up under my radar. I had been vaguely aware of the first book, but it wasn't until a few years ago that I realized that they had actually been a thing. Not sure how popular they were, but they existed and I let my curiosity get the better of me when it came up as a Kindle Daily Deal.
I flew through this book in about an hour or so and it was fun revisiting a character I knew so well back in my youth. However, this is not the Dawn I remember. In some cases, this was good. This series (from what I understand) was meant to appeal to an older audience...the teenage versions of the girls that grew up reading the BSC. So this book was a bit more mature (hey, there was nearly a curse word thrown in!) and dealt with teenage drinking...but like the BSC it was done in a way that was watered down and kosher. I probably would have been slightly scandalized as a young girl...but now I just wish I had had the foresight to live tweet myself reading this.
I'm actually seriously thinking that I might go and reread the BSC series, and the rest of the California Diaries.
California Diaries somehow sneaked up under my radar. I had been vaguely aware of the first book, but it wasn't until a few years ago that I realized that they had actually been a thing. Not sure how popular they were, but they existed and I let my curiosity get the better of me when it came up as a Kindle Daily Deal.
I flew through this book in about an hour or so and it was fun revisiting a character I knew so well back in my youth. However, this is not the Dawn I remember. In some cases, this was good. This series (from what I understand) was meant to appeal to an older audience...the teenage versions of the girls that grew up reading the BSC. So this book was a bit more mature (hey, there was nearly a curse word thrown in!) and dealt with teenage drinking...but like the BSC it was done in a way that was watered down and kosher. I probably would have been slightly scandalized as a young girl...but now I just wish I had had the foresight to live tweet myself reading this.
I'm actually seriously thinking that I might go and reread the BSC series, and the rest of the California Diaries.
xtinamorse's review against another edition
Read my recap at A Year with the BSC via Stoneybrook Forever: www.livethemovies.com/bsc-blog/california-diaries-1-dawn