Dear Abbie...
Dec. 16th, 2008 11:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_oraclePretenses
April 1988
Is someone coming between Cara and Steven?
Too much mystery...
Cara Walker feels that her boyfriend, Steven Wakefield, isn't paying enough attention to her. Suddenly he's acting aloof and withdrawn. Cara's good friend Jessica, Steven's sister, suggests that Cara add some mystery to the relationship.
When Cara takes Jessica's advice, it backfires. Steven starts to act even more distant, and Cara is sure he's hiding something. He used to confide in her, but now it seems he's turning to his sister Elizabeth's friend Abbie Richardson. Will Cara discover Steven's secret before she's replaced by someone new?
I don't know who wrote Pretenses. I'm not sure I want to know, although it would make me feel a whole hell of a lot better about things if it was one of those books co-written by at least two different people because there is a LOT of flip-flopping going on. No one seems to be able to make up their mind about anything at all for longer than a couple of paragraphs. With that warning in mind, as well as the warning that once again people take relationship advice from Jessica Wakefield, we begin.
Jessica's been thinking that Cara and Steven are really more than due for a break-up. Of course, she's been thinking this since approximately two hours after she first hooked them up, so this is nothing new. Cara, in a throwback to that younger, simpler time [it has been twenty books exactly, my dears] decides to throw herself a belated birthday party. You remember, she was awfully depressed over her parents' divorce and so she and Steven celebrated by him acting like an asshole in a fancy restaurant. Good, good times, right?
Yeah, not so much. So to erase that particularly pleasant memory, Cara decides to create a new one. She's throwing herself a party at the Marine House and, as it's fairly expensive, she can only afford to invite fourteen people. Remember that, okay. The book says she can only INVITE fourteen people. Problem is, she mentioned this little party to Abbie Richardson, a girl we've never met before the last book because she spent all her free time with her boyfriend from Palisades, Doug Brewster. But Cara can't think of anyone to leave off the guest list, so... she can't invite Abbie, although everyone can tell the girl expects an invite since Cara brought it up.
Jessica tells Cara not to worry about it, Abbie blew them off for the last two years, really, she can't expect to be invited to the party and it'll be okay if Cara just avoids the subject entirely. I'm paraphrasing, obviously, but Cara falls for it. I'll never understand why I keep believing the lie that she's somewhat intelligent given the way she always falls for the stupid!Jessica advice so readily, but ignores the two or three good pieces of advice the ditzy twin hands out. Oi. So... Cara avoids talking to Abbie about this entirely. Poor Abbie thinks she's getting an invite and instead gets the awkward avoidance. Fun!
The kicker for the party is that I counted, repeatedly, and there are only thirteen people, not counting Cara, at this damn thing. So, um, why couldn't Abbie come again? Cara laments the fact that she screwed poor Abbie over and Abbie still gave her a present... as well as the fact that she should have invited Abbie in Steven's place for all the fun she had with him.
Steven's home from SVU due to serious allergy/sinus problems. Because he's a guy [and I apologize to any of you out there] he's also a complete ass while he's sick. Instead of leveling with Cara at ANY point about exactly how god awful he feels, or how worried he is that his health problem happened at the worst time for him academically speaking, he just... withdraws. So she realizes something's wrong and tries to move closer and he feels smothered and trapped and tries to gnaw his own leg off to get away and she's hurt and he's hurt and no one does any talking to the right people here. Instead of confiding in someone trained in such matters [the high school relationship will live or die depending on how many people it takes to maintain it when the two people involved are too stupid to do the right thing, y'know?], Steven confides in Abbie because she's been hanging around the house lately, what with the B plot and all.
B plot would be that OHMYGOD, the sky is falling! The Oracle isn't as popular as it used to be! NOOOOOOOOOooooooooo! I swear, the pages where Penny/Liz/Jeffrey/Winston freak out are just insanely bad. So bad it's good bad. Winston tells the uptight idiots that the paper has everything except something intentionally funny, so they should run a contest to add some humor to the damn thing. They agree, offer him the job, he declines, and we gather it falls to Olivia to set things up. Olivia, I should mention, is never seen. Anyway, the contest comes down to Abbie's Jenny comic strip and Amy's mock-Miss-Manners column. I don't know about Amy, but Jenny is decidedly unfunny. I have vague memories of thinking it was hi-larious as a child, or at least mildly amusing, so maybe I'm just too old now. *coughdoubtitcough*
Anyway, Abbie has self-esteem issues and seems to be a bit obsessive about Liz, so she won't believe her stuff is any good until someone else tells her it is. To milk this for all it's worth [and then some] Abbie has been coming over to the Wakefields every afternoon to the point where no one is ever surprised to see her. Hence Steven's ability to confide in the girl.
Abbie tells Steven, repeatedly, to talk to Cara. To tell her what's going on, but Steven can't. See, there's another little problem. He's been getting these letters.I know what you did last summer! Written on Tricia Martin's old stationary. And the boy can't tell up from down, right from left, living from dead. It never occurs to him that Cara is sending the letters, although I'd think that by now we'd know whether she and Tricia used the same perfume, and Cara's been spritzing perfume on the letters in lieu of an actual signature. Steven, I guess, can't smell a damn thing, so maybe that's his excuse.
Blah blah blah, Liz and Jessica realize at different points that something is a little off about Steven and Abbie. Liz notices that Steven has been getting letters on familiar stationary, although she can't figure out where she's seen it before. Jessica has noticed that Steven and Abbie are getting awfully close to that mutual attraction stage she's so familiar with. The twins investigate a bit at the mall and find out that a girl their age, possibly a brunette, recently bought the last of the pink forget-me-not stationary and the twins leap to the conclusion that it's Abbie once the clerk says the girl had such a sweet voice. Everything about Abbie is sweet.
Two seconds after leaving the store, they run into Reformed!Crackwhore Martin and she mentions that she's only in town because Steven wanted to grill her about the whereabouts of Tricia's stuff, like say, I don't know, her stationary. Liz is shocked! Who would be so cruel as to send Steven letters written on Tricia's stationary, and also, how many times will I have to write the word stationary?
Um, duh? You guys just decided Abbie bought stationary like that, so it's a coincidence. Which is exactly what Jessica says. Nyargh?
When Ned announces that he's scored six free tickets to the Lakers vs. the Celtics game, Steven chooses to invite Abbie instead of Cara, reinforcing the theory that the two are interested in one another. Jessica tells Lila who tells Cara in a rare moment of giving a damn about someone else. Lila's attempts at making Cara stand up for herself as well as making Cara feel better are painfully awful [but classic Lila at the same time] but also vaguely sweet.
Jessica comes home to find Abbie holding a piece of pink stationary that she seems awfully nervous to be caught holding. Jessica waits for Liz to get home and then confronts her with the gossip, and Liz admits that she'd noticed how close the two had gotten. Liz is pissed to think that Abbie, whom she really liked, was just using her to get to Steven, who she probably sees as nothing more than a replacement boyfriend. Jess is just crazy, so the twins go in and bitch poor, innocent Abbie out.
Abbie is horrified that, get this, her worst nightmare has come true. People think she's an awful person! Oh no! But then she gets mad that they're blaming her for something she didn't even do. If Abbie had wanted, truly wanted Steven, and been less of a nice girl, she could have made a play for him, but didn't. She tried to keep him with Cara at EVERY turn, and hell, poor Abbie's not even sure whether she like-likes Steven or if he's like an older brother. Seriously, I got a twinge of the whiplash trying to keep up with whether our ghosty thought she liked Steven as a replacement for Doug or if she just liked him as a friendly older brotherly type.
Abbie tells them to go to hell, she's innocent, and then she leaves.
Lila, meanwhile, has gone to Cara's to convince the girl to calm down before she murders the entire Wakefield family, and then convinces Cara that even if things are as bad as they seem, she HAS to talk to Steven anyway, so she'll know for sure and get her say. God, when Lila [and this is the mostly shallow version of Lila to boot] is making the most sense in the book, you really, really have to worry. Cara arrives and asks Steven how he likes her letters because he's never said one word about them to her.
Everyone is aghast at how they've messed things up so horribly and they run off to fix things with Abbie. Abbie makes them work for it a bit and then they all kiss and makeup and Ned finagles another ticket out of one of the law partners and it's a happy ending for everyone!
And what's more, cousin Kelly is coming to visit next book! Yay! More Wakefield drama! Oh happy day!
Trivial Pursuit:
Quotes:
Gold stars of unintended hilarity:
"What you don't have"- he took a bite of ice cream- "is humor. No cartoons. No comic strip. No puzzles. Nothing funny in the whole darn paper."
"He's right," Penny said to Elizabeth. "I never even thought about that. Did you?"
Elizabeth had to admit that she hadn't. "Winston! That's a great idea. If we add a humorous feature to the paper, I bet people will like it every bit as much as they did when we first started putting the paper out!" - If you found this funny, you know why. If not, um, yeah, just imagine the stick up her butt making her speech so stilted, kay? p8
"Winston," Penny said pleadingly, "how would you like to be the new humor editor? Just come up with something truly hilarious by next week and make everyone say how much they love the paper again." - See, this wouldn't be funny if I thought she was kidding, but I doubt she is. Penny's only given a sense of humor in her own book. No pressure there, Win! p 8
Lania was Jessica's favorite soap opera character that week. - I love that we have to be told it changes weekly. hee! p20
Abbie had been noticing Elizabeth from afar for awhile now, and she secretly thought Elizabeth was one of the smartest, nicest girls at school. - I smell stalker! p23
As far as Abbie was concerned these days, Elizabeth Wakefield could do no wrong. - Um, next stop blond hair dye and aqua contacts? p 26
"It gets on my nerves when people are that nice. I'm always sure they want something." - Gotta say, I agree with Jessica on this one. mwerp? p 29
The way to make friends was to be nice to people, to listen to them, to offer to help them, not to dump your own troubles on their shoulders. - Abbie's guide for making friends. p 38
"Cara," Lila said, putting down her fork and looking at Cara with her ultrasophisticated I-know-what's-good-for-you expression. "Is something wrong with you? You look like you just lost every share of stock you own." - This, my pets, is why Lila will always be awesome. p 84
She liked Abbie Richardson! She didn't want to think Abbie had been using her to get to know Steven better! - I'm apparently twelve years old and want to know if she liked-liked Abbie. Sorry, Liz. p105
"I'm going to go over to his house and tell him what a jerk I think he is!" Her dark eyes filled with tears. "I'm going to kill them all," she muttered. "I bet Liz is behind this somehow. She's the one who started inviting Abbie over all the time. I bet she wanted this to happen all along!" - Look! Liz is getting blamed for being sneaky! Hallelujah! Poor Cara, though. p 115
"I don't believe anyone can steal anyone else. This is Steve we're talking about, not some sort of material possession." - This actually stayed with me more than any other line in the book, or most of the rest of the series, actually. Scary, but true. Cara is wise. p 128
I've gotta say, Pretenses is one of those books I think I read once or twice as a kid and then always remembered more from the diary entries based on the book than I do the actual book. For all the lead up they tried to give Abbie, she's pretty much written out of the series [I think] and it's all a fantastic waste, just to teach girls to COMMUNICATE with their boyfriends. Seriously, we have Abbie, Lila, Jessica, Liz, and then the couple themselves hammering this theory on home. It hurts! Someone stop the sledgehammer of subtlety!
I could have done without all the flip flopping like I said earlier. One minute Jess is the one talking crazy, the next it's Liz with her conspiracy theories about how someone would want to hurt Steven. No one did, you moron, it was a misunderstanding just like Jess said. Or Abbie's feelings for Steven. If they'd been portrayed as confusing to begin with, I might understand, but Abbie goes from comfortable with Steven to thinking she likes him and then BAM, he's like her older brother for a paragraph or two and then she likes him again. So. Painful.
I think Abbie sounds like a sweetheart, but she isn't funny. She's just... not. She's sincere and sweet and pretty enough that she didn't really have to work on developing a sense of humor, and really, reading her punchlines, it shows. The only person less funny than she is this whole book is Liz.
I want to like Cara, I really do, but mostly I think she's a bit of a moron lately. She keeps letting Jessica talk her into stupid things and then marveling when things go just as badly as we would have predicted. Imagine that. When Jess likes her to Elizabeth, she's referring to their relationship status, but I think it's more their raging blind spot for Jessica's true motives.
Side note: This is probably your last update of any interest until next year. Holidays in retail don't leave much time for anything else, sadly enough. See you next year with the harrowing story of poor, poor deluded cousin Kelly.
April 1988
Is someone coming between Cara and Steven?
Too much mystery...
Cara Walker feels that her boyfriend, Steven Wakefield, isn't paying enough attention to her. Suddenly he's acting aloof and withdrawn. Cara's good friend Jessica, Steven's sister, suggests that Cara add some mystery to the relationship.
When Cara takes Jessica's advice, it backfires. Steven starts to act even more distant, and Cara is sure he's hiding something. He used to confide in her, but now it seems he's turning to his sister Elizabeth's friend Abbie Richardson. Will Cara discover Steven's secret before she's replaced by someone new?
I don't know who wrote Pretenses. I'm not sure I want to know, although it would make me feel a whole hell of a lot better about things if it was one of those books co-written by at least two different people because there is a LOT of flip-flopping going on. No one seems to be able to make up their mind about anything at all for longer than a couple of paragraphs. With that warning in mind, as well as the warning that once again people take relationship advice from Jessica Wakefield, we begin.
Jessica's been thinking that Cara and Steven are really more than due for a break-up. Of course, she's been thinking this since approximately two hours after she first hooked them up, so this is nothing new. Cara, in a throwback to that younger, simpler time [it has been twenty books exactly, my dears] decides to throw herself a belated birthday party. You remember, she was awfully depressed over her parents' divorce and so she and Steven celebrated by him acting like an asshole in a fancy restaurant. Good, good times, right?
Yeah, not so much. So to erase that particularly pleasant memory, Cara decides to create a new one. She's throwing herself a party at the Marine House and, as it's fairly expensive, she can only afford to invite fourteen people. Remember that, okay. The book says she can only INVITE fourteen people. Problem is, she mentioned this little party to Abbie Richardson, a girl we've never met before the last book because she spent all her free time with her boyfriend from Palisades, Doug Brewster. But Cara can't think of anyone to leave off the guest list, so... she can't invite Abbie, although everyone can tell the girl expects an invite since Cara brought it up.
Jessica tells Cara not to worry about it, Abbie blew them off for the last two years, really, she can't expect to be invited to the party and it'll be okay if Cara just avoids the subject entirely. I'm paraphrasing, obviously, but Cara falls for it. I'll never understand why I keep believing the lie that she's somewhat intelligent given the way she always falls for the stupid!Jessica advice so readily, but ignores the two or three good pieces of advice the ditzy twin hands out. Oi. So... Cara avoids talking to Abbie about this entirely. Poor Abbie thinks she's getting an invite and instead gets the awkward avoidance. Fun!
The kicker for the party is that I counted, repeatedly, and there are only thirteen people, not counting Cara, at this damn thing. So, um, why couldn't Abbie come again? Cara laments the fact that she screwed poor Abbie over and Abbie still gave her a present... as well as the fact that she should have invited Abbie in Steven's place for all the fun she had with him.
Steven's home from SVU due to serious allergy/sinus problems. Because he's a guy [and I apologize to any of you out there] he's also a complete ass while he's sick. Instead of leveling with Cara at ANY point about exactly how god awful he feels, or how worried he is that his health problem happened at the worst time for him academically speaking, he just... withdraws. So she realizes something's wrong and tries to move closer and he feels smothered and trapped and tries to gnaw his own leg off to get away and she's hurt and he's hurt and no one does any talking to the right people here. Instead of confiding in someone trained in such matters [the high school relationship will live or die depending on how many people it takes to maintain it when the two people involved are too stupid to do the right thing, y'know?], Steven confides in Abbie because she's been hanging around the house lately, what with the B plot and all.
B plot would be that OHMYGOD, the sky is falling! The Oracle isn't as popular as it used to be! NOOOOOOOOOooooooooo! I swear, the pages where Penny/Liz/Jeffrey/Winston freak out are just insanely bad. So bad it's good bad. Winston tells the uptight idiots that the paper has everything except something intentionally funny, so they should run a contest to add some humor to the damn thing. They agree, offer him the job, he declines, and we gather it falls to Olivia to set things up. Olivia, I should mention, is never seen. Anyway, the contest comes down to Abbie's Jenny comic strip and Amy's mock-Miss-Manners column. I don't know about Amy, but Jenny is decidedly unfunny. I have vague memories of thinking it was hi-larious as a child, or at least mildly amusing, so maybe I'm just too old now. *coughdoubtitcough*
Anyway, Abbie has self-esteem issues and seems to be a bit obsessive about Liz, so she won't believe her stuff is any good until someone else tells her it is. To milk this for all it's worth [and then some] Abbie has been coming over to the Wakefields every afternoon to the point where no one is ever surprised to see her. Hence Steven's ability to confide in the girl.
Abbie tells Steven, repeatedly, to talk to Cara. To tell her what's going on, but Steven can't. See, there's another little problem. He's been getting these letters.
Blah blah blah, Liz and Jessica realize at different points that something is a little off about Steven and Abbie. Liz notices that Steven has been getting letters on familiar stationary, although she can't figure out where she's seen it before. Jessica has noticed that Steven and Abbie are getting awfully close to that mutual attraction stage she's so familiar with. The twins investigate a bit at the mall and find out that a girl their age, possibly a brunette, recently bought the last of the pink forget-me-not stationary and the twins leap to the conclusion that it's Abbie once the clerk says the girl had such a sweet voice. Everything about Abbie is sweet.
Two seconds after leaving the store, they run into Reformed!Crackwhore Martin and she mentions that she's only in town because Steven wanted to grill her about the whereabouts of Tricia's stuff, like say, I don't know, her stationary. Liz is shocked! Who would be so cruel as to send Steven letters written on Tricia's stationary, and also, how many times will I have to write the word stationary?
Um, duh? You guys just decided Abbie bought stationary like that, so it's a coincidence. Which is exactly what Jessica says. Nyargh?
When Ned announces that he's scored six free tickets to the Lakers vs. the Celtics game, Steven chooses to invite Abbie instead of Cara, reinforcing the theory that the two are interested in one another. Jessica tells Lila who tells Cara in a rare moment of giving a damn about someone else. Lila's attempts at making Cara stand up for herself as well as making Cara feel better are painfully awful [but classic Lila at the same time] but also vaguely sweet.
Jessica comes home to find Abbie holding a piece of pink stationary that she seems awfully nervous to be caught holding. Jessica waits for Liz to get home and then confronts her with the gossip, and Liz admits that she'd noticed how close the two had gotten. Liz is pissed to think that Abbie, whom she really liked, was just using her to get to Steven, who she probably sees as nothing more than a replacement boyfriend. Jess is just crazy, so the twins go in and bitch poor, innocent Abbie out.
Abbie is horrified that, get this, her worst nightmare has come true. People think she's an awful person! Oh no! But then she gets mad that they're blaming her for something she didn't even do. If Abbie had wanted, truly wanted Steven, and been less of a nice girl, she could have made a play for him, but didn't. She tried to keep him with Cara at EVERY turn, and hell, poor Abbie's not even sure whether she like-likes Steven or if he's like an older brother. Seriously, I got a twinge of the whiplash trying to keep up with whether our ghosty thought she liked Steven as a replacement for Doug or if she just liked him as a friendly older brotherly type.
Abbie tells them to go to hell, she's innocent, and then she leaves.
Lila, meanwhile, has gone to Cara's to convince the girl to calm down before she murders the entire Wakefield family, and then convinces Cara that even if things are as bad as they seem, she HAS to talk to Steven anyway, so she'll know for sure and get her say. God, when Lila [and this is the mostly shallow version of Lila to boot] is making the most sense in the book, you really, really have to worry. Cara arrives and asks Steven how he likes her letters because he's never said one word about them to her.
Everyone is aghast at how they've messed things up so horribly and they run off to fix things with Abbie. Abbie makes them work for it a bit and then they all kiss and makeup and Ned finagles another ticket out of one of the law partners and it's a happy ending for everyone!
And what's more, cousin Kelly is coming to visit next book! Yay! More Wakefield drama! Oh happy day!
Trivial Pursuit:
- Jess and Cara have to take the bus to school because Liz has a doctor's appointment. Jess, to no one's surprise, hates the bus.
- Cara's throwing herself a belated birthday party to erase the memory of her awful time with Steven. Too bad she replaced it with another bad Steven memory when he snaps at her for asking about his mysterious letter, huh?
- Cara's party is being held at the Marine House, which sits right on the water and is expensive. Cara says she can only invite fourteen people and these make the cut: Jessica, Elizabeth, Lila, Jeffrey, Steven, Sandra, Manuel, Jeannie, Tom, Winston, Maria, Amy, and Bruce. Um, where's the 14th person making it impossible for Cara to invite Abbie? Also, why the hell is Liz invited to Cara's birthday party?
- Despite assuring us all series that the Oracle is awesome, now we learn no one likes it as much as they used to. I feel so lied to. Where's truth in journalism, damn it? Letter to the editor time!
- Abbie's infamous boyfriend was Doug Brewster, a year older than Abbie, baseball player, and a bit of jerk. His mother is a painter and he'd belittle Abbie's cartoons because he felt they weren't true art.
- Abbie herself is described as having dark brown hair that's "as fine as satin", light blue eyes, ivory skin that's prone to blushing, and she's delicate and sweet.
- Winston and Abbie had art together last year.
- This year Abbie and Jessica have art together.
- When Abbie offers to take Penny's lunch tray, Jeffrey comments that Abbie seems like a nice girl. Jeffrey from ten books or so ago would have wondered what the heck was driving her to be such a doormat. When did Jeffrey get a lobotomy?
- Steven's doctor sends him home because Steve's got some serious allergy or sinus problems. Turns out that he's allergic to a lot of things, namely mold, grass, and dust.
- Abbie is allergic to cats.
- Jessica's favorite soap character that week was Lania Louise.
- Abbie's mother is a psychologist who happens to over analyze her daughter's life. Oops.
- Abby names her comic strip Jenny, and it stars normal 16 year old Jenny Bain. Bain is Abbie's middle name, as it's an old family name. Nice.
- Jenny's boyfriend's name is Mel.
- Amy wants to do a mock-Miss Manners column, but we never see it, even though Abbie helps her with it.
- Abbie thinks that Cara avoids talking about her party at lunch one day because someone at the table isn't invited. She thinks it might be Sandra or Jeannie. Um... right, sure, of course.
- Abbie buys Cara a silver ring for her birthday.
- Abbie's mother thinks she prefers giving to receiving because it means Abbie gets to retain more control that way.
- Steven's arms turned red due to the allergy tests.
- The stationary Tricia and Cara used was pink with forget-me-nots. There's a blue option as well.
- "Everyone" knows the story of Tricia Martin and how she and Steve were together for ages before her illness. Sure, right. Forever.
- Liz has to ask Jessica for the French word for when you feel like you've done something before and Jessica knows it's deja vu. Freaky?
- Jess and Liz head to the Midnight Madness sale at the mall. Anyone else remember those? Do they still do them? I'm old. I'll shut up.
- Cara bought her stationary at the Pen and Paper shop in the mall. Liz likes to buy journals for her writing there. I'd mock, but dude, I'd probably be too busy drooling over the journals and pens to say anything.
- Our ghosty brings us the word portentously. The writing on this one is just on a completely different level.
- Abbie sees Dr. Griffin.
- Bob Young, a partner at Ned's law firm, gives the family six free tickets to the Lakers versus the Celtics playoff game. Then, just to cover up Steven's stupidity, Ned asks for, and is given, a seventh ticket. Funny, my father would have told one of us that it sucked to be us cuz we ruined our shot at going. Ah, tough love.
- Doug Brewster started dating some girl named Mariel before he and Abbie had officially broken up, which is a big reason why Abbie would never go after Steven BEFORE he broke up with Cara. That and Abbie is all things sweet and good.
- Abbie's never been to a professional basketball game before.
- The twins' Aunt Laura, on Alice's side, lives in Tucson, Arizona and is about to be remarried to a widowed doctor with two sons.
- Kelly, their cousin, is not happy about her father, their uncle Greg, being replaced.
- Laura and Greg divorced when Kelly was eight or nine.
Quotes:
"What you don't have"- he took a bite of ice cream- "is humor. No cartoons. No comic strip. No puzzles. Nothing funny in the whole darn paper."
"He's right," Penny said to Elizabeth. "I never even thought about that. Did you?"
Elizabeth had to admit that she hadn't. "Winston! That's a great idea. If we add a humorous feature to the paper, I bet people will like it every bit as much as they did when we first started putting the paper out!" - If you found this funny, you know why. If not, um, yeah, just imagine the stick up her butt making her speech so stilted, kay? p8
"Winston," Penny said pleadingly, "how would you like to be the new humor editor? Just come up with something truly hilarious by next week and make everyone say how much they love the paper again." - See, this wouldn't be funny if I thought she was kidding, but I doubt she is. Penny's only given a sense of humor in her own book. No pressure there, Win! p 8
Lania was Jessica's favorite soap opera character that week. - I love that we have to be told it changes weekly. hee! p20
Abbie had been noticing Elizabeth from afar for awhile now, and she secretly thought Elizabeth was one of the smartest, nicest girls at school. - I smell stalker! p23
As far as Abbie was concerned these days, Elizabeth Wakefield could do no wrong. - Um, next stop blond hair dye and aqua contacts? p 26
"It gets on my nerves when people are that nice. I'm always sure they want something." - Gotta say, I agree with Jessica on this one. mwerp? p 29
The way to make friends was to be nice to people, to listen to them, to offer to help them, not to dump your own troubles on their shoulders. - Abbie's guide for making friends. p 38
"Cara," Lila said, putting down her fork and looking at Cara with her ultrasophisticated I-know-what's-good-for-you expression. "Is something wrong with you? You look like you just lost every share of stock you own." - This, my pets, is why Lila will always be awesome. p 84
She liked Abbie Richardson! She didn't want to think Abbie had been using her to get to know Steven better! - I'm apparently twelve years old and want to know if she liked-liked Abbie. Sorry, Liz. p105
"I'm going to go over to his house and tell him what a jerk I think he is!" Her dark eyes filled with tears. "I'm going to kill them all," she muttered. "I bet Liz is behind this somehow. She's the one who started inviting Abbie over all the time. I bet she wanted this to happen all along!" - Look! Liz is getting blamed for being sneaky! Hallelujah! Poor Cara, though. p 115
"I don't believe anyone can steal anyone else. This is Steve we're talking about, not some sort of material possession." - This actually stayed with me more than any other line in the book, or most of the rest of the series, actually. Scary, but true. Cara is wise. p 128
I've gotta say, Pretenses is one of those books I think I read once or twice as a kid and then always remembered more from the diary entries based on the book than I do the actual book. For all the lead up they tried to give Abbie, she's pretty much written out of the series [I think] and it's all a fantastic waste, just to teach girls to COMMUNICATE with their boyfriends. Seriously, we have Abbie, Lila, Jessica, Liz, and then the couple themselves hammering this theory on home. It hurts! Someone stop the sledgehammer of subtlety!
I could have done without all the flip flopping like I said earlier. One minute Jess is the one talking crazy, the next it's Liz with her conspiracy theories about how someone would want to hurt Steven. No one did, you moron, it was a misunderstanding just like Jess said. Or Abbie's feelings for Steven. If they'd been portrayed as confusing to begin with, I might understand, but Abbie goes from comfortable with Steven to thinking she likes him and then BAM, he's like her older brother for a paragraph or two and then she likes him again. So. Painful.
I think Abbie sounds like a sweetheart, but she isn't funny. She's just... not. She's sincere and sweet and pretty enough that she didn't really have to work on developing a sense of humor, and really, reading her punchlines, it shows. The only person less funny than she is this whole book is Liz.
I want to like Cara, I really do, but mostly I think she's a bit of a moron lately. She keeps letting Jessica talk her into stupid things and then marveling when things go just as badly as we would have predicted. Imagine that. When Jess likes her to Elizabeth, she's referring to their relationship status, but I think it's more their raging blind spot for Jessica's true motives.
Side note: This is probably your last update of any interest until next year. Holidays in retail don't leave much time for anything else, sadly enough. See you next year with the harrowing story of poor, poor deluded cousin Kelly.
