Saturday, January 5, 2019

Summer Blues (Book 5) by "Emily Chase"

**This blog contains adult language.**

Warning: Spoilers Ahead!!!  This is a recap blog which means I read the book and tell you everything that happens so you don't have to read it yourself.  Do NOT continue to read unless you want to know which girl acted like a total bitch in this book.  Because you know at least one of them did.

Tag Line: Friends can't always help.

From the Back of the Book: School's out!  So why are the girls of Canby Hall still hanging around?  Dana, Faith and Shelley are signed up for a month of summer school.  For Dana, this means class with her favorite poet by day and romantic moonlit walks with Bret by night.  But Bret has other plans for his summer vacation and they don't include Dana.  The summer blues hit hard.  Shelley has her own problems when her hometown sweetheart meets up with her Greenleaf boyfriend, but she and Faith try to nurse Dana's broken heart.  Yet is is Randy who brings a smile to Dana's lips and a new confidence to her walk!  Can a boy from the backwoods and a New York City sophisticate find romance?

That blurb is so very, very awful.  But..............

OMG!! OMG!! OMG!! We finally get RANDY!!!!! 


This book was published in 1984 and I thought I had read it before but I didn't recognize one single thing about it so I guess I must have missed this one way back when. The ghostie for this book is Carol White again. She gave us Something Old, Something New from the new girls series and book one from this series. I'm not expecting good things here.

This cover is hilarious. Why is Faith creepily holding up a sandwich to Dana like that? “Here, sad little city girl, have some PBJ.” It's bizarre. The cover models have changed. AGAIN. At least Shelley looks age-approriate this time. But where the hell is Gale? Shelley looks the same size as her roommates here. If Gale gets mentioned in this book, I'm calling a huge foul. Also, why is there a tennis racquet there? It doesn't look like there's a tennis court anywhere near that wooded place.

Canby Hall Catch-Up: So you know the drill. We have three protagonists: Dana (sophisticated fashionista), Faith (urban photographer) and Shelley (small-town farm girl). For the time being, Dana is dating Bret-the-two-timer from Oakley Prep and Shelley is hopelessly torn between her hometown sweetheart Paul and new crush Tom. Faith briefly dated Ray in book 3 but he seems to have ended up under the tulips and now Johnny is the man of her fickle dreams. In the last book I recapped (book 3), Dana's dad decided to get remarried and he invited Dana to spend a year in Hawaii with him and his new wife. Shelley got a part in the school play and discovered her new purpose in life.....and a new boy. Dana and Shelley had a huge falling out over the fact that they were both being self-absorbed bitches (although Shelley was definitely the worst ever with all her over-the-top dramatics). Being so wrapped up in the play and Tom almost made Shelley flunk out of school and she nearly decided to cheat on a test but luckily everything worked out just fine with all that. Somehow. Oh, and Faith dated Ray who she was extremely judgmental about. As per usual.

So, you all know the saga of me trying to find book 4 for nearly a year. I finally had to abandon hope and I just read a recap from another blogger. Yes, another one exists. It's probably way better than mine so don't go read it, okay? Anyway, based on her recap, here is the gist of book 4.

A Very Special Canby Hall Catch-Up: Book four was called Keeping Secrets and ghostied by someone named Patricia Aks who wrote a lot of generic teen fiction in the 80's. The A plot centered around a rush of thefts being committed in Baker House. Everyone suspects some chick named Mary Beth because she is aloof and hasn't tried to make friends with the rest of them but it's an effing Justin situation because some rando chick named Millie starts showing up every other page and inserting herself into everything. Mary Beth is the B plot and she eventually confides in Dana-the-life-ruiner that her dad is in prison for embezzlement. The girls from 407 “rescue” Mary Beth and make her an overnight sensation. Just when things look peachy, the school newspaper inexplicably publishes an article about her dad being in prison because that's exactly what a boarding school newspaper would report on. The 407 heroes dash around school to explain that Mary Beth's dad only took the money to better her life and all is forgiven. Meanwhile, Faith provides us with a C plot out of fucking nowhere. She starts dating Johnny who wants to be a police officer when he grows up. This is an issue for Faith because her dad was killed in the line of duty years before. She isn't sure she wants to be a cop's wife. But then the Tutti Frutti is held up in an apparently hilarious and poorly written way and teenage Johnny saves the day so Faith is suddenly okay with his career choice. In the last few pages the ghostie apparently remembered she had an A plot and the thief is revealed to be Millie to nobody's actual surprise. The Baker House girls feel responsible for not being better friends to her and Millie is ordered to undergo counseling much like Casey was back in book one. All's well that ends well I guess.

Missing, Presumed Dead: Millie and Mary Beth.  After being a central focus of book 4, they aren't mentioned a single time in book 5.

Risen From the Tulip Bed: Casey has been taking a dirt nap since book 2 but she finally re-emerges.  ((I can't actually confirm that she was still 6 feet under in book 4 but the other recapper didn't mention her at all so I'm going to assume she was.))  

This book picks up in June, two weeks before the end of the school year. Shelley is reflective, thinking about the chubby girl who had arrived at Canby Hall with Gale strapped firmly to her midsection. Now she is ten pounds slimmer, has not one, but TWO boyfriends and sports a “hot new haircut”. Is she talking about that mullet on the front cover. Did she seriously just describe a mullet as a “hot new haircut”??? 

#deluded

Faith comes crashing into the room on roller skates and Shelley laughs at her. She says she thought “black people were supposed to be more coordinated” and Faith laughs. Not to be outdone, Faith sees Dana down on the lawn sunbathing and remarks that she should “add tanning to my list of amazing things white folks do for fun.” I'll just leave those there without comment.

#gottalovethe80's

All three girls are staying for an extra month to take part in something called “summer intensives” that Canby Hall shares with Oakley Prep. They're specialized classes taught by noted instructors. Dana will be taking a poetry intensive taught by a famous poet. Shelley is naturally taking a drama intensive and Faith will participate in a photography one. They run until the end of July and they're all happy to spend an extra month with each other and their boys. Johnny and Tom both go to Greenleaf High and live in town and Bret will also be staying for the extra term. Shelley thinks this is the perfect solution to her little problem. She'll be spending half the summer with her one-true-love Tom and then the rest with her one-true-love Paul. Perfect.


Dana ends up falling asleep and getting a sunburn which I really hope isn't the A plot here.   Alison (housemother extraordinaire) comically overreacts and plops Dana into the infirmary for 24 + hours. Dana has a lot of time to think in there and naturally she spent most of it thinking about Bret. Bret was a pretty notorious two-timer when she started dating him but he's since reformed. She thinks. He really helped her get through #thehuladilemma a couple of books ago but lately he's seemed a little distant. The main reason she decided to stay for the intensive was to spend an extra month with him. Next year he'll be a senior and she's looking forward to being a senior's girlfriend and getting to go to all the upperclassman parties. She's not giving that up for anything.

Dana decides not to worry about a few days of missed phone calls because clearly she and Bret are fated. In her head, she plans the rest of their lives together. She'll go to college either where he does or somewhere nearby that has an architecture department because that's what she wants to be when she grows up (I'm having horrible A Deadly Game of Magic flashbacks here, people). After graduation they'll get married. Faith and Shelley will be her bridesmaids and Maggie will be her maid of honor so she can #keeponeeyeonMaggieatALLtimes from the altar. Then they'll have two kids – a boy and a girl. She hasn't discussed any of this with Bret but she's sure it will all happen just like she planned.

Dana sleeps for awhile and wakes up when she feels Casey dropping dirt clods on her. After expressing some alarm at the fact that a zombie is casually standing in the infirmary, Dana asks her what she's doing there. Casey tells her she was tired of eating worms so she escaped her tulip-y grave and came to eat Dana's non-existent brain instead.

We'll just call this little scenario 'Things I Wish Happened'.

Actually, Casey has skipped class right before finals to come visit the poor sunburn victim. But she's not there on a mission of mercy. She hems and haws a bit and finally admits that she has something awful to tell Dana. A couple of days ago, Bret asked her out on a date. Not only that but Casey has seen him with other girls several times lately and just hasn't told Dana until now.  (#amazingfriend)  Dana immediately wants to put all those other girls “under arrest.”

Seriously?

Was that the best you could think of?

Such stellar and relatable writing in these books.

Casey tells her not to take it out on the rando girls. For all the other girls know, she and Bret are in an open relationship and he has permission to date around. She has a point here. It's on Bret to remain faithful not the other girls. Women always get mad at the wrong person in these scenarios.

I really hope they're not going to put on gorilla suits again because that was hella dumb. 

#planbooga-booga

Dana knows she has to talk to Bret but she isn't worried. She thinks he'll have a reasonable explanation that will have them “laughing and hugging within ten minutes”. 

Dana calls Bret that night and arranges to meet him the next night (Friday). She feels much better after talking to him because he's clearly happy to hear from her and see her. When he comes to pick her up, he's a little alarmed at her appearance. He calls her “honey” and tells her that they should have kept her in the infirmary. He keeps up a steady chatter about finals and his sloppy roommate as they walk out to the falls. By the way, I've read a bazillion of these books and this is the first damn time a waterfall has been mentioned.

#fuckcontinuity

When they're sitting comfortably on a rock, Dana brings up the Casey thing but she phrases it really idiotically. “You'll never guess what Casey thought the other day when you wanted her to come with us tonight.” She actually honestly believes that Bret asked Casey to join in on their date (which they didn't even have until yesterday). She's so dumb, y'all. Bret doesn't bother to play along, though. He flat out tells her that it's not possible because they didn't even have the date 24 hours ago. Casey didn't misunderstand anything.

Bret's response? “I guess I'm just not any good at this, honey.” Apparently he hates breaking up with girls so he just cheats on them and waits for them to find out so he doesn't have to actually tell them it's over. I can't believe I gave this asshole The Least Annoying Person in Greenfield Award more than once. (#sonotawardworthy)  He purposely picked Casey because he knew Casey would tell Dana and his little problem would be solved.

Dana is still stubbornly holding on to hope that this can still work. She asks him if he just wants to date other people once in awhile but stay together. Why would she even offer this when it's not what she wants at all? Bret tells her it's the other way around. He wants to date other people predominantly but see Dana once in awhile on the side. Sounds like he's setting up a booty call to me. He reminds her that he's just 17 and not ready to settle down and be serious with one girl which is completely reasonable and even healthy but YOU HAVE TO TELL YOUR GIRLFRIEND THAT AND NOT BE A PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE ASSHOLE.

They walk back to Baker House and Dana is the chatterbox now. She's keeping to “safe subjects” like school and the summer intensive program. Apparently Bret is taking one in dance to rattle his business-minded father a little. When they get back to the front steps, Bret kisses her cheek very grandfather like and Dana suddenly can't stand it. She throws her arms around him and begs him to give their relationship another chance. They're supposed to be forever. Bret peels her off him and tells her that things change. Then he literally RUNS away from her like he's being chased by a chupacabra.


Three days pass and now we're in Faith's head. She's worried about Dana who has only gotten out of bed a couple of times since her breakup with Bret. She's even skipping some of her finals. Casey is sure she knows how to get Dana out of her funk. She's going to bury her under the tulips.

Like we could get that lucky.

Actually Casey is going to take Dana to an amusement park at Crystal Lake (Which is name of the camp in Friday the 13th. I wish Jason would stick an ax in Dana's head.). This amusement park is yet another place we've never heard about before and will probably never hear about again. You can't bury an entire amusement park in the tulip bed, White. The roller coaster will stick out and reveal all of Canby's dirty little secrets. Like poor Laura Lee. #amomentofsilenceforLauraLee

Dana refuses to go but then Casey points out that Bret has probably heard about her being flat on her face for three days and does Dana really want to give him that satisfaction? Dana decides to go. They end up having fun and Dana starts to feel better.

Dana goes home for a week between the end of the regular term and the beginning of the summer intensive. Her mom encourages her to be okay being alone and to never depend on another person for her happiness. It's actual good advice for young women to be reading.

Suddenly it's a week later and Dana is in her poetry intensive course. I'm going to save you the really boring details but her instructor is pretentious and thinks poetry is life. It's all very nauseating. Dana loves it though and finds herself “immersed in poetry”. 

A few days later, Dana runs into Bret with a foreign exchange student that I've already forgotten the name of. She's french and White tries to write in dialect by making her say “zee” a lot. It's pretty appalling. Dana is crushed that Bret's moved on so soon. I guess she's forgotten that he moved on before they actually broke up. To cure her heartache, she goes for a run. She remembers her poetry teacher encouraging them to stop somewhere in nature to write what they feel, so she does that under some trees. She produces a notebook and pencil because apparently White has already forgotten that Dana is out for a jog and not carrying a backpack (#fuckcontinuity).

And then it happens.

OMG I've been waiting for this for five fucking books.



Just like that, a man appears on a horse. Dana describes him as “beautiful” with longish, blonde curls and gray eyes. He stops his horse in front of her and asks what she's doing. She tells him she's working on a poem for class and he lets her know she's on private land but he doesn't really care about that and tells her she can stay as long as she doesn't bother the bears. He introduces himself as Randy and Dana recognizes his last name as one belonging to one of the biggest land-owners in the state. She can't get over how handsome he is. He's not a big talker but she starts giving him the third degree and he finally coughs up the information that he's 17 (for now) and a recent graduate from Greenleaf High.

Randy tells her that he has to get back to work but she can stay as long as she wants. If one of his brothers tries to run her off, she's supposed to say she has his permission to be there. Before he rides away, he asks if he can call her sometime and she's practically peeing in her pants with excitement. #Bretwho?

The next day is the hottest June in Massachusetts history apparently which translates to upper 90's. But this is the 80's when classrooms weren't often air conditioned, so the intensives are canceled due to the extreme heat. The 407 girls plus Casey and Johnny decide to go down to the “swimming hole” to beat the heat. Poor Tom has to work. Dana watches for Randy as they pass his land but he's nowhere in sight. The swimming hole is already packed but they manage to have fun and keep cool for the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon.

At four they head back so Shelley can get to her date with Tom at Pizza Pete's. As they're approaching Baker House, she sees someone who looks vaguely familiar in the distance. As they get closer, she realizes it's Paul. Uh oh. I think her cheater fever is about to be exposed.

Paul is thrilled to see her. He picks her up and twirls her around in pure joy which just makes my heart ache. Poor Paul. Why it it always the guys named Paul who get thrown over? He tells Shelley that he's doing college visits in the area and he wanted to stop by and surprise her. She's definitely surprised. She thinks he looks older and “sharp” in his black jeans and black polo shirt. She's proud of him and glad to show him off to her friends.

A few minutes later she remembers she has a date and panics. She's just going to have to come up with a plan. And she finally does. She's going to have Casey and Paul come with her to Pizza Pete's. Casey's is going to pretend she's Tom's date for Paul's sake and then she and Shelley are going to pass Paul off as a childhood friend.


It all goes awry pretty quickly. Paul asks Tom where he's going to college and Tom lovingly says it depends on Shelley. They try to cover that with some lame story about Shelley sending off for a college guide that Tom wanted to look at before deciding but it was pretty weak. Then Paul calls Shelley “sweetheart” and Casey whispers to Tom that Shelley was once elected “Pine Bluff Corn Sweetheart” and now the entire town calls her sweetheart.


Shelley and Casey think they're just the greatest actresses of all time and they head to the bathroom at one point to congratulate each other on a job well done. When they come back to the table, the boys are gone and there's a note on a napkin. “To two girls who aren't as smart as they think. See you around. (signed) Two guys who aren't as dumb as you think.”


#teamTom #teamPaul

Those guys fucking rock!

Shelley decides she's unlucky in love and should just remove herself from society.  If only we could get that lucky.  Then we get this......

She saw herself in a white doctor's coat, her hair bleached out by the pulsing equatorial sun. With one hand she was putting a cold compress on the forehead of a feverish native patient; with the other she was scratching behind the ears of her pet lioness cub.”


Shelley goes back to Baker House to sulk. And become a missionary?? I don't know. Eventually Paul shows up to talk things out. Shelley explains that they've just drifted apart because of the distance between them and admits she was wrong for not telling him about Tom. Paul confesses that he's kind of interested in a girl back home named Amanda and Shelley goes into a dramatic tailspin about his betrayal. Girl, get a grip. He isn't even dating Amanda and you are very much dating Tom. You don't have a leg to stand on here. Paul points out that she wants to have her cake and eat it too and she doesn't want him to have any cake at all.

I kinda love Paul.

In the end, they decide to try dating other people for awhile. Now all she has to do is patch things up with Tom. Is anyone else having a Neal/Jane/Cary flashback here? She's sure everything will be fine but when she calls Tom's house his mom tells her that he doesn't want to talk to her. She's humiliated because his mom obviously knows what she did.

We land in Dana's head now. She's heading out to go to town to pick up conditioner and batteries when she runs into Randy coming up the front walk. She's surprised to see him. He tells her that he has to go mend fences for the afternoon but he'd love some company and she agrees to go with him. She has trouble adjusting to how quiet he is after dating slick-mouthed Bret. He doesn't make a joke out of everything or fill the silences with meaningless chatter. He asks her to tell him the story of her life while he's working and she lays down on the grass and starts at the beginning. She doesn't get far before she bores herself so completely that she falls asleep.

I'm really struggling here, y'all. I love Randy big and you all know that. You also know that Dana is the girl who broke his heart so badly he barely recovered. So the specter of that is hanging over my head here. I'm so damn glad to see him because he remains the only character worth rooting for in this entire fucking series but I'm also sad he's here because I know he's going to get trampled.

#torn

When Dana wakes up, a sudden storm is approaching. Randy is packing up his tools and he tells her to get in the truck. She runs but not fast enough and she ends up soaked and shivering. When he joins her in the truck she admits to him that she's terrified of storms and he slides across the seat to wrap an arm around her. He gently tells her that there's nothing to be worried about and she compares him to Bret once again thinking that Bret would be trying to joke her out of being scared. She tries to decide which is better.

Randy is worried about her being wet and cold. He tells her there's a little cabin not far away. There's a wood stove in it and he can build a fire so she can warm up. The rain is coming down in torrents now but he reaches it okay and they both dash for the door. Randy starts building a fire and he talks to Dana to distract her as he does. A hermit named Eagan used to live in the cabin. He was there when Randy's dad bought the land and Mr C didn't feel like it would be right to make him move, so he let him stay. I can see where Randy gets his heart now. Randy spent some time with the hermit as a kid and the guy taught him about living off the land (what you can eat and what animals want you dead and how to listen to nature). City girl Dana is pretty fascinated.

When the rain stops, Randy puts out the fire and tells Dana they can head home. She goes in for a kiss but he turns his head so it lands on his cheek. He tells her that he moves a little slower than that and gives her a hug instead. She's furious. In her mind she calls him a “hick” and a “total goon”. #fuckyouDana

Dana goes running out of the cabin and immediately faceplants in a huge mud puddle.



There is justice in this world after all.

A week passes and Tom still hasn't called Shelley. She asks everyone for advice and I'm not exaggerating. She even asks the housekeeper and her drama intensive instructor. He advises her to give Tom a rose. A ballerina did that for him once and he's never forgotten it. She thinks it's a smashing idea and goes right to the florist to buy a single red rose in a shiny black box. On the card she doesn't write an elaborate apology. She doesn't write an apology at all. She simply draws a blue tear drop on it.


Shelley takes the box to Tom's house and leaves it on his porch. As she walks away, she realizes she didn't put his name on the card and his mom might think the rose is for her. So she runs back to his house. She doesn't have any paper and I guess she forgot she put a fucking tear drop card on the thing because she goes into the neighbors yard to get a leaf and writes 'Tom' on it with the lipstick she just happens to be carrying in her pocket and then puts the leaf on the box.

Just when I think things can't get any more idiotic, they do.

She hears someone coming and she dashes across the street to hide behind a tree. Unfortunately for her, the person who owns the yard and the tree finds her behavior very suspicious and he calls the police on her.

Wow. Even more idiotic. I didn't think it was possible.

The cops think she might be the “Greenleaf Cat Burglar” which is so super ridiculous. They almost put her in handcuffs but Paul races up to vouch for her. It's a damn shame.

Time passes. I don't know how much. The poetry instructor is holding a reading and Dana is super excited about it but her friends don't care. She calls and invites Randy, hoping he'll find her terribly sophisticated. He accepts her invitation, saying he really wants to spend more time with her. She's expecting a huge turnout and a buzz of excitement when they get there but it's not very well attended and people don't seem very into it.

Dana is deeply affected by the poetry and she expects Randy to be too but he makes a joke at the end of it and it infuriates her. She screams at him that he's just like all the rest and she runs out of the auditorium, leaving him sitting there. She walks through the woods thinking that this stupid hick town and all its stupid hick people could never live up to the wonders of Manhattan.

She's so insufferable in this book. She hasn't been too bad so far but this is just a whole new level of stuck-up brat.

The next night, an envelope is delivered to room 407. The girl who drops it off gives a description of Randy so Dana knows who it's from before she opens it. She expected “a dumb letter – some kind of clumsy apology or a note telling her she was cute as a spotted hound dog” (#fuckyouDana) but it turns out to be a poem.

I talk a good game,
Tell you about listening to the forest
Then I turn around and tromp
right over your feelings
Eagan would cry.

Would you give me a chance
To make it up to him
And to you?”

She realizes she was wrong to assume he was a dumb hick just because he was quiet and didn't smarm at her. She feels ashamed of how shallow and judgmental she's been. Especially since shallow is Shelley's job and judgmental is Faith's. #stayinyourlaneDanaandjustruinhislife

She heads out to the parking lot and Randy is there leaning on his truck. He apologizes and she apologizes and then she inexplicably starts tickling him. I swear to the highest reaches of Heaven that White has no idea what she's doing in this book. 

Now it's a random Sunday afternoon and the 407 girls are eating PBJ's under a tree. Faith is also crocheting a sweater as 15 year olds do. They talk about Randy. Faith teases Dana about him being such a country boy and Dana actually defends him saying he's smart and well-read. He doesn't always say much but when he does it actually means something and he's very sensitive to her. He always seems to care how she's feeling. Faith admits that she thinks he's pretty “adorable” and, of course, Shelley approves of farm boys so Dana gets their stamp of approval.

That night, Randy invites Dana to the Tutti Frutti. They're sitting on the same side of the booth sharing an enormous sundae when Bret appears. He introduces himself to Randy who has just taken a huge bite of bananas or something. Randy tries to politely stand up and shake Bret's hand but he bonks his head on the hanging fern above the table and Dana dies inwardly of embarrassment. She can tell Bret thinks Randy is hopelessly uncouth and this matters to her for some fucking reason. Poor Randy.

Bret asks to join them and then pretty much takes every opportunity to try to make Randy seem stupid. Dana doesn't try to stop this – in fact, she laughs along with Bret and is generally bitchy. She flirts with Bret and he teases her back. The problem is that Randy isn't aware that the two of them had that kind of relationship and he thinks Bret is insulting Dana. He rushes to defend her honor which just makes Bret laugh at him for being a fool. By the end of this I really hate Bret and I feel so sorry for Randy.

After Bret leaves, Randy asks Dana if the two of them used to date. She tells him they did and he says she needs to figure out exactly what she wants because she was flirting with Bret pretty hardcore. He ends up leaving her there which isn't very gallant but is pretty understandable.

The next day, Bret seeks her out and says he wants to get back together. He knows she can't possibly have anything to talk about with the “super hick” (#fuckyouBret) and he wants the two of them to give it another try. Dana tells him she needs to think about it and he throws a little fit and tells her to make it snappy because he's not going to wait around. Oh, yeah, he seems like prime boyfriend material to me. 

In the end, Dana picks Randy. Bret is fun and he makes her laugh and makes all these grand romantic gestures but he's also a cheater and a lying liar who lies. Randy is “honest, gentle, kind, loving, sensitive” and those are Dana's words, not mine. But I do agree with her. #itkilledmetosaythat #I'llbeunderthetulips #don'tfertilizeme


The summer term ends and the girls sadly say goodbye to each other. They just don't think they can survive a month and a half without seeing each other so Shelley invites them to come stay with her for a little bit. They just completely recycled all these story lines for the new girls didn't they? This is just like when the girls went to stay with Toby. I wonder if anyone will get lost on the range?

The Least Annoying Person in Greenleaf Award:  Obviously Randy but I'd give it to him every time if I could.  So I'm going to surprise the hell out of everyone here and hand this one to Faith.  She wasn't too bad this book.

The Bitch of Baker House Award:  Clearly Dana.  She was awful.  So awful.

Coming up Next:  I don't know.  They go visit Shelley I assume.



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