Books 10, 11, 12

So I settled down for the weekend and knocked off another three books (much helped by the fact that I swung into a deep pit of self-pity and possibly hormone-ridden dispair, and spent most of the time either reading or staring at the wall and trying to keep my mind blank). Not great literature, but still.

Book 10 was The House on the Gulf, by Margaret Peterson Haddix. I quite liked some of her books from the time when I was about twelve to fifteen years old. I'd read this one a few years ago and felt it deserved about 8/10 back then. When I re-read it on Friday it didn't seem so great; I'd give it a 6/10 this time around. It was just... meh.

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Book 11 was Donna Parker Takes A Giant Step, by Marcia Martin (which Wikipedia says is a pen name, thank god). I read this one out of curiosity, because it's old (published in 1964) and sounded dorky. It met my expectations perfectly.

Donna is this girl starting high school. She says "Golly!" a lot. The teenagers in her town throw parties every two minutes, but the students from the neighbouring town crash them and spoil all the awesome fun by starting water fights with garden hoses and the like. And get this: Donna's classmates don't like that the parties have been getting too wild. WHAT?? Nobody was even drinking or anything! Pardon me, but if there was none of that cheap tequila that everyone says makes you go blind, then it was no party*.

But I've gotten sidetracked here. The kids decide that what they need is a community center dedicated to the town's teenagers so that their parties can have proper adult supervision. Yes, really. So all their parents bust their hides and in, like, a week, the kids have a fixed-up house where they can throw their boring chastity club meetings and eat crackers with cheese while sipping apple juice (or whatever it is they do at their "parties").

Oh, yeah, the "giant step" that Donna takes is realizing that people are multifaceted or something.

It was like 300 pages long (although with relatively large print and the occasional picture that makes the kids look 35 years old) but it was worth it to plough though. Mostly because then I could compare it to the next book...

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Book 12 was Hangin' out With Cici, by Francine Pascal. This is from 1977 and I really liked it.

Victoria is 13, is about to be expelled from school, hates her mother, is extremely cruel towards her little sister (which made me stop liking her for about 30 pages, seeing as I was the victim of much bullying, flying objects with pointy edges, injustice, twisted arms, insults, etc. back in the day. It sucks), and gets caught smoking weed. Basically, she's the anti-Donna Parker, and two years younger.

Then she whacks her head and travels back in time to 1944, where she meets and befriends her mother when she was Victoria's age. Turns out her mother smoked, shoplifted, tried to steal a test, etc., but eventually –with Victoria's help– learns to take responsibility for her actions (only after she got caught, I might add). Victoria smacks her head again, travels back to the 70s where she belongs, follows her young mom's example, and gets along better with her real-time mom.

I liked it because it was pretty funny AND it proves that Donna Parker and her "parties" are absolute bull. Also I thought it was weird how Victoria thinks. Like, she smokes weed but wouldn't let anyone feel her up. Huh?

* Have I mentioned that I don't like parties? I don't drink, see. I'll make an exception for eggnog (if it ever crosses my path, which it hasn't for about a decade) and maybe the very occasional mojito. Oh, and flavored beer in Belgium. I mean, chocolate beer. Chocolate!