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A review by finesilkflower
Stacey's Problem by Ann M. Martin
1.0
Stacey notices that Maureen (her mother) is becoming misty and nostalgic about her past with Ed (Stacey’s father), and becomes concerned. On a trip to New York, Ed announces that he and his girlfriend Samantha are getting married. Stacey breaks the news to her mother, who gives Ed a very classy congratulations phone call and then breaks down in tears. The BSC decides to hook Maureen up with someone from a video dating service, but thankfully that plotline stalls on the runway when they can’t find a video guy they deem worthy of Maureen. Then Maureen announces she has a date with Gabriel, a buyer from another store she met at a fall fashion preview. (Coughnerdcough.) She becomes overly nervous, leading Stacey to conclude that the date will be disaster. On another weekend in NY jam-packed with bonding activities with Samantha, Stacey frets about the date which is happening back home, wishing she could help her mother get ready. Finally Samantha, super-understanding, just drives her back to Stoneybrook. The date was a flop, but Maureen isn’t discouraged by her lack of success on the dating front. Changes are ahead--she’s going back to her original last name, Spencer, and she hopes to open her own small clothing store in Stoneybrook.
Meanwhile, Mallory has come home for the summer. Because she’s done for the year so much earlier than the public school kids, she has nothing to do but sit around and mope. Nobody seems to have any time for her; the world has gone on very nicely without her. Vanessa, still hurt at her abandonment, comes out and tells her nobody needs her anymore, and Claire has determined that Byron is the oldest now. This is particularly hard to deal with for Mallory coming from Riverbend where she was super-popular and had her own Internet Club. (Coughgaycough.) This isn’t really resolved.
There’s also a sequence--just one scene, really--in Stacey’s second trip to New York in which Laine resurfaces and tries to act all buddy-buddy with Stacey, which Stacey finds disconcerting. She no longer feels close to Laine, who seems to have changed, becoming more, I don’t know, club kid? She wears a lot of eyeliner, but she also seems more bubbly and friendly than we’ve seen her before. Stacey dislikes this because she opposes human joy. This sequence serves basically as an overt parable about Maureen and Ed: just because the loving feelings are dead, it doesn’t mean you’re not kind of sad to see the person has moved on.
This is pretty much a nothing of a book with no plot or character development. Mallory’s Riverbend plotline has potential, and could have provided a really interesting Mallory book had the series not committed to sticking with the four leads, none of whom have anything interesting going on in their lives. Stacey’s love life got blasted apart and sewn up again, and she really has nothing to do in this book, where she basically just observes her mother living her own life. She’s more emotionally invested in her mother’s love life than any kid has a right to be, but that’s just the incidental vehicle of the story, not, in and of itself, a lesson, which perhaps it should be.
Lingering Questions: What is Stacey’s problem? I’m serious. What is “Stacey’s Problem”??
Meanwhile, Mallory has come home for the summer. Because she’s done for the year so much earlier than the public school kids, she has nothing to do but sit around and mope. Nobody seems to have any time for her; the world has gone on very nicely without her. Vanessa, still hurt at her abandonment, comes out and tells her nobody needs her anymore, and Claire has determined that Byron is the oldest now. This is particularly hard to deal with for Mallory coming from Riverbend where she was super-popular and had her own Internet Club. (Coughgaycough.) This isn’t really resolved.
There’s also a sequence--just one scene, really--in Stacey’s second trip to New York in which Laine resurfaces and tries to act all buddy-buddy with Stacey, which Stacey finds disconcerting. She no longer feels close to Laine, who seems to have changed, becoming more, I don’t know, club kid? She wears a lot of eyeliner, but she also seems more bubbly and friendly than we’ve seen her before. Stacey dislikes this because she opposes human joy. This sequence serves basically as an overt parable about Maureen and Ed: just because the loving feelings are dead, it doesn’t mean you’re not kind of sad to see the person has moved on.
This is pretty much a nothing of a book with no plot or character development. Mallory’s Riverbend plotline has potential, and could have provided a really interesting Mallory book had the series not committed to sticking with the four leads, none of whom have anything interesting going on in their lives. Stacey’s love life got blasted apart and sewn up again, and she really has nothing to do in this book, where she basically just observes her mother living her own life. She’s more emotionally invested in her mother’s love life than any kid has a right to be, but that’s just the incidental vehicle of the story, not, in and of itself, a lesson, which perhaps it should be.
Lingering Questions: What is Stacey’s problem? I’m serious. What is “Stacey’s Problem”??