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leighannsherwin's review
5.0
One good thing about rereading old childhood favourites is I discover new spin offs from beloved originals some are weird and don't feel right like California Diaries, and others like this are a bit better. I guess it's supposed to take place a bit further in the future from the original series, the girls are 13, they still have club meetings only not as often. Unlike Dawn's spin-off this one wasn't trying to show edgy moody teenagers, but seems to be staying fairly close to their usual form. One day at dinner a telephone call shakes up the Thomas/Brewer household. Kristy's deadbeat dad is getting remarried (could've sworn the original series had him remarried already from book one but whatever) and he wants his three older children to come to California for the wedding. This leads to a few tense moments, Charlie is furious and refuses to go, poor David Michael wonders why his dad didn't ask him (which was both heartbreaking and rage inducing. Way to be an even worse dad than you already are). Finally their mom steps in and says if Charlie won't go, none of them will. Charlie relents and it's off to California. There they discover their father is quite well off living in a big beautiful house with a waterfall in the garden. He is a chef ow, no longer a sports writer and his bride to be Zoey owns a restaurant. Despite some feelings of guilt Kristy immediately likes Zoey. Sam enjoys spending time with his dad and Charlie tries to control the rage bubbling just under the surface. They go along on some adventures from picking out wedding outfits to trying to arrange seating for Zoey's family including her much married father. But eventually the polite calm is shattered and everything blows up the day before the wedding. It was a good start to the series. It felt like a slightly grown up version of BSC only without trying hard to be edgy, we'll see what the next books are like. It appears to have been updated from the 80's at least which is sort of weird when you consider this is only about a year from the original BSC books. Princess Diana's death is mentioned as is the WNBA which wasn't around back then. I liked that it focused more on one character and we really got to know Kristy and her brothers a bit better, instead of just snippets here and there and I can't wait to see how the rest of the series plays out.
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