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chicafrom3's review
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Dawn's dad takes Dawn and Jeff cross-country on an RV trip for the summer. Not to be undone, Watson decides he has to take his family on a crosscountry RV trip as well, and invites the rest of the BSC. Suspend your disbelief, we have to get the club on a trip across the greater United States. It's a mixed bag; the lows are very low (Jessi drags everyone in Watson's RV to the plantation where her ancestors were slaves, which could've been a moving moment but instead starts with Jessi not realizing that a touristy southern plantation tour isn't going to provide her with detailed information on her ancestors and ends in a weird Magical Negro moment where she meets an older African-American woman who infodumps a bunch of stuff on her and then wanders off humming a spiritual into a cotton field) and the highs are at least solidly sweet BSC moments (Abby makes some progress reconciling her feelings about her dad's death at the Grand Canyon and uses that to bond with the Thomas-Brewer clan). The subplot with Claudia and Stacey's journal is irritating and goes nowhere, but Claudia ending up with a Georgia O'Keefe sketch is first-class BSC nonsense. The thing with Kristy's dad goes nowhere. Jack Schafer gets called out for being a dick. This book is impossible to rate.
bibliotequeish's review
As a kid my best friends sister had the whole BSC series on a book shelf in her room. I thought she was so grown up. And I envied this bookshelf. And would often poke my head into that room just to look at it.
And when I read BSC, I felt like such a grown up.
And while I might have still been a little too young to understand some of the issues dealt with in these books, I do appreciated that Ann M. Martin tackled age appropriate issues, some being deeper than others, but still important.
And when I read BSC, I felt like such a grown up.
And while I might have still been a little too young to understand some of the issues dealt with in these books, I do appreciated that Ann M. Martin tackled age appropriate issues, some being deeper than others, but still important.
leedigesu's review
4.0
While I always enjoy a good BCS Super Special, this one was especially good.
One of my dreams was to visit all 50 states, a goal I accomplished in 2013. Reading about the BSC visiting quite a few of those same places reminded me of my own trips there, my traveling companions and just conjured up good memories in general.
I especially liked that Kristy ran into her dad at the game. :)
One of my dreams was to visit all 50 states, a goal I accomplished in 2013. Reading about the BSC visiting quite a few of those same places reminded me of my own trips there, my traveling companions and just conjured up good memories in general.
I especially liked that Kristy ran into her dad at the game. :)
ariatari's review
3.0
This one was alright. BSC had never really been one of my favorite things in the world, but this one changed it all for me. It was a great book to be sure, and made me just a lil jealous that I couldn't go with... lol. But the only thing that made me dislike it just a lil bit was how unrealistic it was. Yes you can have a crush on someone you just met at a mall all the way across country, but to kiss after LITERALLY JUST MEETING??? at least go on a date first!!! Lol...
finesilkflower's review
2.0
Let’s see if I can accurately describe the set-up for this one. Mr. Schafer has agreed to drive his friend’s RV from the East Coast to the West, and has decided to turn it into a family bonding trip, using the opportunity to pick up Dawn and Jeff from their summer vacation in Stoneybrook and drive them back to Palo City. For some reason, he allows Dawn to bring a bunch of friends (even though they’ll then have to fly back), and for some further reason, Watson decides this is great idea and rents his own RV to simultaneously drive to California with another bunch of family and friends*. Everyone picks a location they want to go to, and people reorganize which RV they’re in based on whether their location is in the north or south, so basically the whole family bonding thing is moot.
* Friends = BSC members. BSC members are always the only ones allowed to bring friends on family trips, never their siblings, and they’re always allowed to bring an infinite number. Amusingly, Kristy doesn’t even end up in her own family’s RV, so it’s Watson, Elizabeth, David Michael and Karen, and three of Kristy’s friends, but not Kristy. I told you that Super Specials strain credulity, right?
There’s a lot of stuff in this book, while still managing not to add up to a plot really, so I’ll go through each person who has at least one chapter in the story.
Dawn RV: Schafer. Goal: to visit a real ghost town with ghosts. Her first chapter is mostly set-up and also has a kind of amusing scene where Mr. Schafer is awkwardly having breakfast with Sharon and Richard. Her second is the first of a multi-chapter multi-narrator arc where the Schafer RV gets stuck in the badlands without gas. Only the third is specifically Dawn-related, in which Dawn finally finds a ghost town, only to be disappointed that it’s a cheesy tourist trap instead of a bunch of creepy abandoned buildings. The others enjoy it, though.
Kristy RV: Schafer. Goal: to visit as many major league baseball stadiums as possible. She has a purely administrative first chapter where she reorganizes who is in what RV, then a second chapter late in the book where she runs into her dad at a San Francisco Giants game. They sort of make awkward small talk and exchange addresses, then Kristy goes back to her group because “This time, I wanted to be the first to leave.”
Jessi RV: Brewer. Goal: to visit the museum of the plantation where her ancestors were slaves. She actually has the most interesting chapter early on, when her RV stops by her grandparents’ house in Oakley, New Jersey. Mallory seems uncomfortable, and Jessi remembers something her grandmother once said to her about racism being an insidious virus that can unexpectedly strike even those who you thought had been innoculated. She starts to hate Mallory’s racism. Then Mallory relaxes, and in the present day, Jessi’s grandmother remarks that Mallory was probably worried about making a good impression on Jessi’s family. Jessi realizes it is she who has just almost been poisoned by racism, not Mallory.
Her chapter at the plantation is fine--mostly just descriptive of the exhibits she sees there. She then has two more chapters unrelated to her as a narrator of her arc; in one, David Michael wants to go a rodeo until he sees animal cruelty there, and in another, her group runs into an annoying girl at the SF Zoo.
Stacey RV: Schafer. Goal: to meet up with Ethan, the boy she met in NYC in #99, who’s visiting relatives in Seattle. When she gets there, there is some confusion about their meeting place and a lot of running around. She ends up finding him, though. There is also an arc in the middle where Stacey is mad at Claudia because she thinks she read her journal. Yawn.
Mallory RV: Brewer. Goal: to see the wild ponies at Chincoteague. She does! Later, her group stumbles upon the Zuni reservation from #44, so they stop there to look at the new school their contributions helped build.
Claudia RV: Schafer. Goal: Art Institute of Chicago. Most of Claudia’s chapters involve the fight with Stacey. She also gets to go to her museum. Finally, there is a dumb mini-arc where she scores an original Georgia O’Keeffe sketch at a midwestern antique shop for $1.
Abby RV: Brewer. Goal: Graceland. Abby spends the Graceland trip trying to convince everyone that Elvis is still alive. (Watson and Elizabeth decline to see the Elvis house, instead claiming they are going to see a “WWII bomber,” although they suspiciously refuse to bring David Michael when he asks.) In the award for most late-starting character arc, the Grand Canyon trip near the end (Elizabeth Brewer’s goal) triggers memories of her dad, who always wanted to take her to the Grand Canyon. She is upset and doesn’t even want to get out of the RV, but ends up going and finds the scenery so awe-inspiring that she finds peace.
Mary Anne RV: Schafer. Goal: to visit her grandparents in Maynard, Iowa. She doesn’t end up getting there, because her grandma suggests meeting at the MALL OF AMERICA instead!!! HOW FUN FOR YOU CHILDREN WHO GET TO READ ABOUT THIS. There’s not that much Mall of America description, though. Mary Anne spends most of the book being low-level pissed at Mr. Schafer because she finds his teasing sense of humor hurtful and worries that he blames her for causing Sharon to remarry. She finally has an extremely awkward and painful confrontation with him toward the end. He takes constructive criticism well enough, though. For a better version of this arc, see Ramona and Uncle Hobart in Beverley Cleary’s Ramona Forever. Further observation: Jeff is going to be exactly like his dad when he grows up.
Karen RV: Brewer. Goal: Four Corners. She gets only one chapter and it’s short. She goes to Four Corners.
Jeff RV: Schafer. Goal: Rock climbing at Yellowstone. He gets only one chapter, too, and again, it’s mostly descriptive. They see a bear at Yellowstone, and then Jeff gets rock-climbing lesson. Rappelling is what he wants to do most, but at first he’s scared. Then he does it!
Super Specials are always too full of varied events, shifting viewpoints, and contrived set-up for any kind of meaningful story or character arc, and the more hyped-up and crazy they are, the worse. This one has a silver cover decorated with holographic stars, so you know it’s going to be terrible off the bat. The set-up is so complicated that it’s impossible to follow, and it still raises more questions than it answers (wait, why are we all going across the country in RVs? Who thinks this is a good idea?) And here, not only are we constantly shifting viewpoints, but we’re constantly shifting locations. At least in, say, Super Special #1 you got a pretty good sense of what it was like to be on a cruise ship, as each person’s narration contributed to the same place description and facts established by one character could be used in later chapters by another. Here, not only do we waste time in each chapter reminding ourselves who we’re talking to and who else is in their RV, but within that entire approximately 1,500-word chapter, we also have to do all the work of describing the current locale. So not only does each person only get up to three chapters, but much of their narration is spent moving along the the journey instead of their own character arc.
Jeff Watch: It’s always a pleasure to get a Jeff chapter, although this one isn’t as sparklingly funny and entertaining as his chapters in Here Come the Bridesmaids. We learn a couple of trivia facts about him in other chapters, though. He enjoys peanut-butter-and-tunafish sandwiches. Claudia calls him a “gossip-in-training” when he “[keeps] asking” to hear what Claudia read in Stacey’s diary. He thinks “girls are boring.”
Timing: End of the summer (it shortens Dawn and Jeff’s summer in Stoneybrook by two weeks, to Sharon’s dismay).
Revised Timeline: August after senior year of college. I guess now is as good a time as any for “we’ll never get to take a vacation as a family again” monster trip.
* Friends = BSC members. BSC members are always the only ones allowed to bring friends on family trips, never their siblings, and they’re always allowed to bring an infinite number. Amusingly, Kristy doesn’t even end up in her own family’s RV, so it’s Watson, Elizabeth, David Michael and Karen, and three of Kristy’s friends, but not Kristy. I told you that Super Specials strain credulity, right?
There’s a lot of stuff in this book, while still managing not to add up to a plot really, so I’ll go through each person who has at least one chapter in the story.
Dawn RV: Schafer. Goal: to visit a real ghost town with ghosts. Her first chapter is mostly set-up and also has a kind of amusing scene where Mr. Schafer is awkwardly having breakfast with Sharon and Richard. Her second is the first of a multi-chapter multi-narrator arc where the Schafer RV gets stuck in the badlands without gas. Only the third is specifically Dawn-related, in which Dawn finally finds a ghost town, only to be disappointed that it’s a cheesy tourist trap instead of a bunch of creepy abandoned buildings. The others enjoy it, though.
Kristy RV: Schafer. Goal: to visit as many major league baseball stadiums as possible. She has a purely administrative first chapter where she reorganizes who is in what RV, then a second chapter late in the book where she runs into her dad at a San Francisco Giants game. They sort of make awkward small talk and exchange addresses, then Kristy goes back to her group because “This time, I wanted to be the first to leave.”
Jessi RV: Brewer. Goal: to visit the museum of the plantation where her ancestors were slaves. She actually has the most interesting chapter early on, when her RV stops by her grandparents’ house in Oakley, New Jersey. Mallory seems uncomfortable, and Jessi remembers something her grandmother once said to her about racism being an insidious virus that can unexpectedly strike even those who you thought had been innoculated. She starts to hate Mallory’s racism. Then Mallory relaxes, and in the present day, Jessi’s grandmother remarks that Mallory was probably worried about making a good impression on Jessi’s family. Jessi realizes it is she who has just almost been poisoned by racism, not Mallory.
Her chapter at the plantation is fine--mostly just descriptive of the exhibits she sees there. She then has two more chapters unrelated to her as a narrator of her arc; in one, David Michael wants to go a rodeo until he sees animal cruelty there, and in another, her group runs into an annoying girl at the SF Zoo.
Stacey RV: Schafer. Goal: to meet up with Ethan, the boy she met in NYC in #99, who’s visiting relatives in Seattle. When she gets there, there is some confusion about their meeting place and a lot of running around. She ends up finding him, though. There is also an arc in the middle where Stacey is mad at Claudia because she thinks she read her journal. Yawn.
Mallory RV: Brewer. Goal: to see the wild ponies at Chincoteague. She does! Later, her group stumbles upon the Zuni reservation from #44, so they stop there to look at the new school their contributions helped build.
Claudia RV: Schafer. Goal: Art Institute of Chicago. Most of Claudia’s chapters involve the fight with Stacey. She also gets to go to her museum. Finally, there is a dumb mini-arc where she scores an original Georgia O’Keeffe sketch at a midwestern antique shop for $1.
Abby RV: Brewer. Goal: Graceland. Abby spends the Graceland trip trying to convince everyone that Elvis is still alive. (Watson and Elizabeth decline to see the Elvis house, instead claiming they are going to see a “WWII bomber,” although they suspiciously refuse to bring David Michael when he asks.) In the award for most late-starting character arc, the Grand Canyon trip near the end (Elizabeth Brewer’s goal) triggers memories of her dad, who always wanted to take her to the Grand Canyon. She is upset and doesn’t even want to get out of the RV, but ends up going and finds the scenery so awe-inspiring that she finds peace.
Mary Anne RV: Schafer. Goal: to visit her grandparents in Maynard, Iowa. She doesn’t end up getting there, because her grandma suggests meeting at the MALL OF AMERICA instead!!! HOW FUN FOR YOU CHILDREN WHO GET TO READ ABOUT THIS. There’s not that much Mall of America description, though. Mary Anne spends most of the book being low-level pissed at Mr. Schafer because she finds his teasing sense of humor hurtful and worries that he blames her for causing Sharon to remarry. She finally has an extremely awkward and painful confrontation with him toward the end. He takes constructive criticism well enough, though. For a better version of this arc, see Ramona and Uncle Hobart in Beverley Cleary’s Ramona Forever. Further observation: Jeff is going to be exactly like his dad when he grows up.
Karen RV: Brewer. Goal: Four Corners. She gets only one chapter and it’s short. She goes to Four Corners.
Jeff RV: Schafer. Goal: Rock climbing at Yellowstone. He gets only one chapter, too, and again, it’s mostly descriptive. They see a bear at Yellowstone, and then Jeff gets rock-climbing lesson. Rappelling is what he wants to do most, but at first he’s scared. Then he does it!
Super Specials are always too full of varied events, shifting viewpoints, and contrived set-up for any kind of meaningful story or character arc, and the more hyped-up and crazy they are, the worse. This one has a silver cover decorated with holographic stars, so you know it’s going to be terrible off the bat. The set-up is so complicated that it’s impossible to follow, and it still raises more questions than it answers (wait, why are we all going across the country in RVs? Who thinks this is a good idea?) And here, not only are we constantly shifting viewpoints, but we’re constantly shifting locations. At least in, say, Super Special #1 you got a pretty good sense of what it was like to be on a cruise ship, as each person’s narration contributed to the same place description and facts established by one character could be used in later chapters by another. Here, not only do we waste time in each chapter reminding ourselves who we’re talking to and who else is in their RV, but within that entire approximately 1,500-word chapter, we also have to do all the work of describing the current locale. So not only does each person only get up to three chapters, but much of their narration is spent moving along the the journey instead of their own character arc.
Jeff Watch: It’s always a pleasure to get a Jeff chapter, although this one isn’t as sparklingly funny and entertaining as his chapters in Here Come the Bridesmaids. We learn a couple of trivia facts about him in other chapters, though. He enjoys peanut-butter-and-tunafish sandwiches. Claudia calls him a “gossip-in-training” when he “[keeps] asking” to hear what Claudia read in Stacey’s diary. He thinks “girls are boring.”
Timing: End of the summer (it shortens Dawn and Jeff’s summer in Stoneybrook by two weeks, to Sharon’s dismay).
Revised Timeline: August after senior year of college. I guess now is as good a time as any for “we’ll never get to take a vacation as a family again” monster trip.
sammah's review
3.0
Remember back in the day when the BSC used to vacation separately? Oh how I long for those days!
This was a book I really loved as a kid. As an adult it's honestly kind of laughable. Also a little bit depressing. Especially Jessi's storyline which is, as usual, both a little boring and a little traumatic.
I can't even.
This was a book I really loved as a kid. As an adult it's honestly kind of laughable. Also a little bit depressing. Especially Jessi's storyline which is, as usual, both a little boring and a little traumatic.
I can't even.
xtinamorse's review
Read my recap at A Year with the BSC via Stoneybrook Forever: www.livethemovies.com/bsc-blog/bsc-in-the-usa
pixieauthoress's review
5.0
This book was a lot deeper than I expected from the BSC. Abby dealt with her father's death, Jessi discovered her slave-roots and Kristy made a mature decision when she ran into her dad who she'd not seen in years. Very enjoyable and tugged at the heart-strings in a few places. BSC ghostwriters, I am impressed! Even if the plot device of the RV trip was a bit unbelievable.