Previously: Mary Anne had her series defining moment: SHE GOT A CAT. Wait, no, I mean she got a boyfriend. Sorry, it was just a lot of excitement in one book.
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Sweeney: We have reached a point now, at book #11, that the formula that will carry this series through over a hundred more books and a couple dozen super specials and mysteries has made itself quite clear to us. Given that, we often develop strong feelings about these books based on the titles alone.
When the books are as vapid and devoid of substance as most of the Traumaland fare proves to be, you are fully justified in judging a book by its cover.
Lorraine: I’m going to admit that I MIGHT have shed a tear when you mentioned 100 books with the same formula. Also, once we start selling CT shirts* I’m pretty sure one of them has to have some variation of “we judge books by their covers” on it.
Sweeney: I want that shirt.
I make no secret of my feelings for one Kristy Thomas, which is why Nugs decided that I should be writing the posts for all the books that Kristy narrates (true friendship, right?) While I mostly resent this, book #11 is called “Kristy and the Snobs” and I am mildly hopeful.
Sure, in the last 10 pages everything will miraculously resolve itself, but I will happily take 100 pages of fictional characters being awful to my least favorite fictional character.
Lorraine:You’re really cute for thinking that way. I mean, I know it’s kind of evil and stuff, but it’s also really cute.
Sweeney: I’m glad my twisted loathing for fictional tweens is so adorable. I’ll be sure to include that in my future dating site profile.
Kristy begins, “If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a snob.” I am already resisting my school-mode urge to add margin notes like, “Your fake existence is an insult to the written word,” as Kristy goes on to list other things she can’t stand like cabbage and squirrels.
Who the fuck hates squirrels?
Lorraine: Fresh out of high school, I went to an Expensive Private University and on that campus they had these mutant squirrels who were no longer afraid of humans. They would charge at you. I hated those squirrels. But not even I hate all squirrels, ever. That’s like racism, no?
Sweeney: orsomethinglikethat.
Kristy takes us through the usual whining about her non-#firstworldproblems. Not because her “problems” are not ridiculously first world, but because they aren’t problems. Basically, her mom is now happily remarried to an awesome guy who happens to be rich and have a baller house and two kids that Kristy adores. Oh and he helps out around the house a lot too and gardens and cooks and rescues puppies.
Lorraine: And builds wells for clean water in third world countries! And finds out where all the socks people lost in the wash are!
Sweeney: Maybe I made the last part up.
Lorraine: Yeah. Me too.
Sweeney: But since Kristy is such an ungrateful little shit, this is all a serious problem in her life.
Kristy also has to reintroduce us to the BSC and its members, as if we hadn’t encountered this information at any point in the previous ten books. The one-two sentences each girl is reduced to is really helpful in driving home the fact that in ten books, the character development has not extended far enough to require multiple sentences to introduce any of these kids.
At the end of the first chapter, we are introduced to a group of private school girls standing across the street from Kristy while she waits for her bus to public school. Which is basically like being poor and that, as any good Traumaland citizen knows, is gross.
There’s a great bit of impossibly stupid middle school banter, culminating in Kristy’s feeling highly self-congratulatory over this brilliant comment:
“Your outfits are nice, too. You look like clones. Snob clones.”
Lorraine: Did anyone else immediately get a similar image in their head:
Sweeney: Her bus pulls up, she shouts through the window: “Good-bye, snobs,” gets a “‘Bye, jerk-face,” and signs off by sticking her tongue out as the bus pulls away.
I miss middle school kids. My year of substitute teaching didn’t really negate the idea that this is about the caliber of argument for this age bracket, but about a thousand times more crass. Although, as an aside, the fact that a girl who in a later chapter will brag about knowing how to use and spell “ostentatious” (which, all right, fine, she’s 13 – I’ll give her points for that) can’t do better than this Snob/Jerk exchange, is a little ridiculous.
Lorraine: I’m pretty sure, though, it would’ve made my life if someone would’ve said, “YOU WANNA GO?” That’s something your middle school kids taught me, that I will never, ever forget.
Sweeney: I’m glad the first fight I had to break up was so educational for you. Obviously I was doing my job. Not educating kids or anything, but sharing wisdom with the internets.
Kristy takes us through our first meeting of the book, complete with additional caricature details of the other girls, a run-through of every single phone call they receive, and although she spares us the usual reminder that the BSC was ALL HER IDEA (butweallhelped), she does assert, in an independent paragraph, “I am the president.”
Lor: Snob.
Sweeney: On an unrelated note, Louie, Kristy’s dog, is feeling really poorly and they have to take him to the vet and the prognosis is pretty much, “Your dog is getting old and he’s probably going to die soon.” AND THEN I ACTUALLY HAD TO FEEL BAD FOR KRISTY. It was rough, but I know how that goes and ALL RIGHT FINE, KRISTY, ENDLESS PITY.
She has another run in with one of the girls from before, Shannon, who makes fun of Kristy’s dog and then they have a Snob/Jerk-off and part ways. Gripping stuff.
Lorraine: She made fun of her dying dog?! What a little twat.
Sweeney: It’s beyond even Kristy’s standards for cunty behavior.
Kristy has her first baby-sitting job in her neighborhood for two kids who are awesome but give Kristy the gossip about all the kids in the neighborhood who suck. Namely the Delaneys who are awful because they are…bossy. Ahem. Kristy would know nothing about such things.
I’m torn between marveling at the mind-numbing stupidity of these problems and the fact that I am now emotionally invested enough to take issue with Kristy finding anyone to be bossy.
While Kristy is baby-sitting, Shannon calls and tells her the house is on fire, which turns out to be bullshit. This begins a prank war of sorts. Kristy’s rebuttal was to have a diaper service deliver to Shannon. I feel like this is somehow very benign in the real-problem-free world of Stoneybrook, but I now feel like I know where Regina George got the inspiration for ruining that girl’s life with the Planned Parenthood fakeout call to her mother. This should solidify my Kristy hate, but it actually makes me respect her a little. FOR SHAME, I KNOW.
Sweeney: I would be afraid, but this girl’s propensity for annoying me is nothing short of remarkable.
Kristy eventually has to sit for the Delaneys and they are every bit as wretched as the other kids said they would be. I hadn’t realized that more obnoxious children existed in Stoneybrook than Kristy and Mini Coulter Karen, but these two are terrible. Fortunately, the next time the club gets a call for them, Stacey volunteers because she knows psychology – her words, not mine, via her BSC Notebook entry, in which she also offers to re-write Shakespeare’s (Taming of the Shrew). I’ll just let all of that sink in for a moment.
Lorraine:
Sweeney: Basically, Stacey unloads a bit of reverse psychology and also teaches the kids a variation on hopscotch called snail, which my 8 year old self was impressed with enough to include a note on the inside cover of my book “87-88 HOW TO PLAY SNAIL.” I wish I had my scanner with me in Paris so I could show you, chicken scratch writing and all.
Lorraine: AHAHAHAHAHA. Yeah. That’s me laughing at your 8 year old self. Sorry?
Sweeney: I did too.
Kristy follows suit when she sits for them again and her prank war with Shannon escalates to scandalous new heights when Shannon orders a pizza for Kristy at the Delaneys. I still can’t figure out how this functions as a prank.
Lorraine: I guess it’s really dumb if you don’t have any money. I mean, you can just be like, “Nah. That pizza ain’t mine” and then you don’t have a problem. Personally, though, if pizza showed up on my doorstep and some dude was like, “I want $12 for this pizza,” I’d be all, “YES.”
Sweeney: That sounds about right to me.
Kristy sends the pizza to Shannon’s, who marches over demanding money, more stupidity ensues, and Kristy threatens to throw a slice of pizza at Shannon’s dog and so they all start laughing and then they become friends.
I am not even making this up. This is actually what happens.
Lorraine: Can I use this henceforth as a sort of apology non-apology? “Hey, girl. C’mon. I didn’t mean it that way. I’m gonna throw pizza on your dog, alright?”
Done, son.
Sweeney: Yes. We’ll have a t-shirt for that too.
In addition to this impossibly stupid fuckery, some actual problems are happening. Or actual problems for middle class 8th graders. Dawn’s got divorced parent drama, and her little brother is acting up and wants to move back to California with his dad. Then there’s Kristy’s dog who gets sicker as the book progresses, and it’s ridiculously depressing.
Losing a pet is really rough, so I can’t really say much besides the fact that I maybe sort of teared up during the family meeting they had about putting Louie down. The whole thing was uncomfortably familiar and depressing. So thanks for that, Ann M. Martin Ghost Writing Collective.
Lorraine: When you think about it, what did Ann M Martin teach us, other than that you will have a billionty things go wrong for you over the course of a year. And your dog will die. Thanks AMMGWC!
Sweeney: That’s pretty much the basic message. Oh and also that middle school will be terminally long.
They decide to hold a little dog funeral of sorts for Louie. Karen invites Shannon & Co. to the funeral and at first Kristy is upset because they aren’t really friends, even though the Pizza-On-Your-Dog diplomacy had seemed to go so well, but apparently the Pizza phase is merely a waving of white flags, while a Sorry-Your-Dog-Died follow-up is required to secure lasting friendship.
Kristy then sits for the Delaneys again and they have all sorts of questions about Louie and the whole thing is ridiculously morbid with the kids planning their hypothetical pet funerals. Shannon shows up with a puppy from her purebred dog as a final peace offering – a treaty signing, if you will.
We have a big touching scene where David Michael – Kristy’s younger brother with three first names (David Michael Thomas) who was by far the most attached to Louie – is persuaded that OMGSUPERCUTEPUPPY nobuthesnotLouie BUTSOCUTEALLRIGHTFINEIWANTHER…that ends with them deciding to name her Shannon, demonstrating a questionable understanding on Kristy’s part of how this friendship thing works. I’m not sure naming a dog after someone is really the right idea, but it was a rare moment in which Kristy’s heart was actually in the right place, and I’m still numbed into complacency by the sob-card, so we’ll let it pass.
Kristy and Shannon are now super close, and the other girls, specifically Claudia, are all, “YO, KRISTY, remember when you said this girl was a total bitch? Well she’s been super nice and she’s giving you a dog, so maybe you’re an idiot.” Which then results in Shannon being offered membership in the club, blah blah blah, she’s super busy, so she becomes an associate member like Logan. Books 1-20 seem to have new members of different forms added at the end of every other book.
One last reference to the dead dog and I curl up into a ball and sob myself to sleep before I remember that I’m in grad school and have other things to read besides BSC books, which I must now stash under my bed in order to reclaim some pretense of dignity. LOLJK, I have neither dignity nor any pretense of it.
Lorraine: I guess I’ll get back to working! LOL. JAYKAY. I don’t really do any of that until after lunch. I do have the next Sweet Valley in my purse though. Hooray, productivity.
Here. Have a final squirrel picture, but only because I collected a hundred of them during the course of this post:
*We don’t really have any plans for making t-shirts. Unless someone were willing to pay a thousandty dollars for our shirts and/or wants to “prank” send pizzas to all of our doors. Anyways, the point is, Lorraine just likes to say that she’s gonna put things on shirts.
Next time on The Baby-sitters Club: A new girl brings drama of the tragically dull variety to which Stoneybrook is accustomed because new and highly disposable characters are the best form of contrivance. What’s the drama all about? Find out in #12 – Claudia and the New Girl.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
