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: Three hearts break harder than one. (LIES)From the Back of the Book: The fall term looks promising with a new guy on campus. Dana, Faith and Shelley find that they have yet another thing in common - they all have a crush on the new guy. (LIES) What's worse, Michael isn't from the prep school down the road, he's Canby Hall's new guidance counselor and he's too old for anyone at school. Or is he? Dana can tell someone has captured Michael's interest but she's sure she can win him over. Then she realizes that Michael's romance is with one of the best friends Dana's ever had.
TRIGGER WARNING: There is some discussion about eating disorders/weight in here. There's also some creepy interactions between a male guidance counselor and female students. Take care of yourselves and skip if needed.
What is up with that tag line and book blurb? Faith and Shelley never had a crush on Michael at all. They thought he was cute but that was the extent of it. Sheesh.
This book was published in 1984 and
I've never read this one. The ghostie for this book is Judith Sachs
which is a new name to me. I did a Goodreads search and the only
Judith Sachs I found writes mostly self-help books so I'm not sure
it's the same person. Who knows? I always like it when we get a new
author because I go into it with no expectations and a clear slate.
We'll see how that works out for me.
The cover on this one is super awful.
Faith looks like the same model but I'm not sure I've ever seen this
version of Dana and Shelley before. I'd also like to point out that
it looks like Gale left Shelley and landed firmly on Dana in
this pic.
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 now, Dana is dating the magically
delicious Randy, Faith is seeing wannabe-cop Johnny and
Shelley is dating Tom from Greenleaf High while on a break
from her one-true-love Paul.
In the last book, another school term began at Canby Hall. The
girls arrived back in room 407 to find that their room has been
painted a hideous color so they decided to paint it black instead.
New girl Pamela arrived and when Shelley found out that
Pamela's mom was a famous actress, she was completely star-struck.
Despite Pamela's nastiness, Shelley gave her chance after chance,
nursing fantasies of meeting the rich and famous, until Pamela hit on
Tom. Pamela began to date Bret-the-two-timer and he predictably
two-timed on her. She played pranks on the 407 girls to get them all
fighting once again but they eventually figured it out and put Plan
DPC (drive Pamela crazy) into effect. The book ended with her vowing
revenge. The B-plot featured a younger mystery man tied into PA (head bitch in charge). It turned out to be her brother.
Missing, Presumed Dead: Gale
Risen From the Tulip Bed: No one was
buried in the last book. Everyone seemed accounted for which was
pretty surprising.
We begin with Dana. She sees a flier
tacked up outside of Alison's room advertising the services of
a new guidance counselor Michael Frank. She's been feeling
blue lately so she writes the information down. She tells us that
she's sad for no real reason, having trouble focusing, isn't enjoying
the things she normally enjoys and hasn't been hanging out with the
people she usually hangs out with. It sounds like classic symptoms
of depression to me but what do I know?
Dana decides to call Michael first
thing Monday morning and she feels tons better after making the
decision. On Sunday, it snows for the first time and Shelley
suggests skipping the dining hall and going into town for pizza.
Dana agrees but when she gets downstairs she sees Pamela also getting
ready to go out. This changes her mind instantly but Sachs doesn't
bother to tell us why. Dana tells her roommates to go without her
and heads back to the safety of 407. She runs into Alison on the way
and the housemother notices immediately that something is wrong
because she's just extraordinary like that. She asks Dana to come up
to her room but Dana refuses and goes off alone.
Dana calls to set up the appointment
and can't tell much from Michael's voice. He sounds very
non-descript and she isn't expecting much from him. He tells her
that she'll have to come to his apartment in the faculty housing area
because his office isn't set up yet. If this was any other book
series, I would be throwing up one of these.....
But this is Canby and I know for a fact
that Michael isn't that kind of guy so.....
Dana goes to her classes in a fog and
then it's time to meet with Michael. When she gets to his apartment,
she's stunned to find he isn't the old, fat, bald guy she's been
picturing. He's in his early 30's and looks like the Marlboro man –
“rugged and devastatingly handsome” - with dark, curly hair worn
a little too long.
Just for reference............
Michael invites her into the kitchen,
telling her not to trip over the multitude of boxes. He's still
unpacking. He gets her a can of Coke and some corn chips and Dana is
pretty smitten right away. #Randywho? They make small talk that she
doesn't realize is disguised as a way for him to tell how she's
feeling and thinking about things. He asks about school, friends,
family and boys. She tells him that school and friends are fine,
she's still bummed about her dad remarrying and moving off to Hawaii
for a year but not really that sad about it and there isn't really
anything to talk about on the boy front. She has a “friend who
is a boy” but he's nothing special.
Pardon me a minte.
Randy is 💫MAGICAL💫 you miserable bitch.
They chat a bit and then he tells her
that it's going to take more than one session to get to the bottom of
things. She's thrilled. She thinks they've made a “real
connection” and they are on their way to being friends and
maybe more. #delusional
We hop into Shelley's head. She, Faith
and Casey are eating supper at the dining hall, anxious to
talk to Dana about the new counselor. No one has seen her since her
appointment. Shelley selects cottage cheese, a green salad with no
dressing and a very small portion of roast. She tells us that Gale
is gone now and she has no intention of letting that 15 pounds of
extra baby fat latch onto her again. I think this is our B plot folks.
When Dana finally joins them, she
doesn't want to indulge their curiosity about Michael. She thinks
her session with him was “very personal, very precious”.
Shelley asks questions about what the process is like because she's
thinking of going herself but Dana doesn't want to answer them. She
doesn't want anyone else to go see him. She wants to be his only
client.
#superhealthy
Pamela, Mary Beth and Ellie
join them. I have no idea if we've met these people before or not
and I don't care enough to check. We're told that the three of them
have been hanging out together a lot lately even though Mary Beth and
Ellie don't seem to like Pamela much. This series can't possibly
allow that anyone who doesn't like our 407 girls could have actual
friends of her own. Pamela has seen Michael around campus and she
goes on and on about how cute he is and how a lot of her friends back
home dated men his age.
#superillegal
Dana gets pissed that they're all
discussing Michael based solely on his looks. He's so much more than
that. So much deeper. She doesn't want to share him with anyone and
she abruptly excuses herself and leaves the cafeteria.
We skip back to Shelley's head and I'm
pretty sure it's a new day. She's headed to Michael's apartment for
a session of her own but she feels funny about it. Back home, you
didn't go to a shrink if you came from a “nice, solid” home.
Because only people from bad homes need any kind of guidance or help,
dontcha know? But Shelley is worried that she might be developing an
eating disorder because she's so obsessed with keeping Gale off her
that she's starving herself sometimes.
They talk and he tells her he doesn't
think she has an eating disorder because she still thinks she looks good
when she looks in a mirror. She tells him she panics sometimes when
someone offers her food and his advice is to weigh herself every
single day and then she'll stop panicking about being fat.
This is..........this is REALLY bad
advice. Wow. Michael knows nothing about eating disorders.
Shelley goes back to 407 gushing about
Michael and Dana instantly feels jealous. She knows she shouldn't
feel that way but she does. She gets a phone call so she goes down
to the lobby to take it. It's her dad. He and Eve (the stepmother) are flying back
to share a big surprise in a couple of weeks and he wants her to save
the date. Dana feels trepidation about the surprise and all she can
think is that she wants to see Michael.
On Sunday she and Faith go down to do
laundry in the laundry room. They forget their quarters but Alison
is down there too and offers to pay. You're telling me this
expensive private boarding school makes them pay to do their laundry?
I can see making them do their own and making them provide their own
detergent but why should they have to pay to use the machines? Their
parents pay a lot of money for them to go there. There was no real
point to that scene. No idea why it was in there.
The next day, Dana has her weekly
session with Michael. Since they both jog, he suggests they do that
instead of staying cooped up in his apartment. She's thrilled
because it makes it feel more like a date than an appointment.
Michael really is a dumbass. Michael's secretary Jane makes a lame
joke about jogging and Michael tells her that all the “flabby
people” make that joke. Wow. Kinda hate Michael right now.
#dumbass
Dana doesn't want to get better because
that would mean she would have to stop seeing him so she considers
getting worse instead. She wants to have more reason to see him than
anyone else on campus. Again........#superhealthy. They talk as
they jog, mostly about her parents' divorce, and then they pass Baker
House. Randy is sitting on the front steps and Dana is annoyed.
Randy calls out to her and Michael smiles and says he'll see her for
her appointment next week. Dana tries to tell him that she'd rather
go back to his apartment with him but he swerves that off and leaves.
Randy is hoping to spend some time with
Dana but she tells him she's too busy. He asks her out for the
weekend but she tells him she's too busy. He asks her to the
mid-winter dance and she unenthusiastically accepts. He asks if they
can get together before then and she says maybe but in her head she's
thinking that she'll be too busy every time he calls. He's “not a
priority” for her right now. Which is fine but if that's how she
feels, she needs to just tell him that so he can move on to someone
who isn't a fucking bitch. #poorRandy #Istillthinkyou'remagical
She goes back into the dorm and sees a
bunch of girls gathered in the lounge. She feels so much more mature
than them now because she's in love with a real man. #eyeroll
We land in Faith's head for the first
time all book. She and Casey are at the library checking out some
book Faith needs for History class. Michael's office is actually
being set up in the library conference room and they run into him
there. They make small talk for a bit and then Alison comes along.
It's pretty clear that the two of them have been engaging in some
pretty heavy flirting. Alison seems super flustered and Michael is
“self-satisfied” and “smug” which are horrible descriptions,
Sachs. Aren't we supposed to like this guy? You're making him super
unlikable.
When Faith and Casey get back to 407
they indulge in a little gossip sesh with Dana and Shelley about the
two adults. Dana is instantly furious and jealous and upset. She
demands that they all stop spreading rumors and talking about Michael
that way and then she gets teary eyed and runs from the room. The
other girls realize Dana has a huge crush on Michael and they wonder
what they can do to keep Dana from getting her heart broken.
Pamela finds Dana in the bathroom and
begs for her help. Pamela says her grades are awful and she's in
real danger of getting kicked out of school. She's supposed to meet
with Michael the next day because, for some reason, he's the one who
determines whether she is capable of changing her ways. Pamela has
noticed how “tight” Michael and Dana are (#he'sadumbass)
and she wants Dana to put a good word in for her. Dana isn't sure
why she should even entertain this idea since Pamela was so awful to
her and has supposedly vowed revenge, but Pamela says that she can
tell that Michael and Dana have a “special relationship”
which just makes Dana very pleased with herself. She agrees to help.
Two weeks go by. Dana tells us she's
spending a lot of time with Michael. #he'sadumbass She's finding
extra excuses to go talk to him and “accidentally” running
into him places. She lies in wait for him to start his daily jog and
then happens to cross his path so she can join him. It's all very
awful and it pretty much just makes her a stalker. Randy keeps calling her but she shuts him down. Michael is
“the most important person in her life now”.
On Saturday the girls run into Alison.
She's had her hair cut and styled and she's suddenly wearing
contacts. Shelley and Faith rave over her a bit but Dana turns her
back like a churlish child.
Meanwhile, Shelley is still obsessing
over every single thing she eats and her the number on the scale during the daily weigh-in Michael recommended. She's determined now to starve
three more pounds off herself before the dance.
#yeahgoodadvicedumbass
Dana is determined to speak to Michael
right away about the whole Alison situation. After chapel the next day, she goes to his house. He's
shocked to see her there because now that his office is all set up,
he's stopped seeing students at his house. He never should have to
begin with and I'm a little surprised PA allowed it. Anyway, Dana
insists that she needs to come in and talk to him so he agrees
although he seems a little hesitant. She notices right away that his
kitchen is full of health food and and has a sinking feeling because
Alison is the biggest health food nut ever. Faced with him, she loses the nerve to ask him about his relationship with her housemother. Instead, she asks him if he's
going to the dance and he's completely clueless as he tells her that
he's going with Alison. She's hurt and stung but then he asks her to
save him a dance (#dumbass) and she's happy again.
Now it's Saturday. None of Shelley's
clothes fit so she borrows something from Faith. She's gone without
two dinners and a lunch at this point in order to lose that three
pounds. Tom arrives first and Shelley dashes away. Randy and Johnny
come next. Faith greets Johnny with a hug and a kiss but Dana barely
says hello to Randy. He looks puzzled and a little hurt by her
greeting.
On their walk to the dance, Dana is
fantasizing about her dance with Michael and how he's going to fall
madly in love with her and swear his undying devotion. She knows
after he dances with her once, he'll never want to dance with anyone
else again. As the evening goes on, Dana increasingly ignores Randy
as she searches in vain for any glimpse of Michael. When Randy tries
to talk to her and asks her point blank if she's thinking of breaking
up with him, she ducks the question and asks for something to drink.
Meanwhile Shelley is lightheaded and
keeps stumbling everywhere. She doesn't connect it to the fact she
hasn't eaten in two days. She just thinks it's because of the “disco
lights”.
Dana eventually spots Michael dancing
with Alison and she's super butthurt about it. To make it worse,
when that dance ends, he dances with Casey. What kind of school is
this that allows male faculty members to slow dance with female
students???? Dana watches Michael dance with student after student
before he finally comes over to claim her. As they dance together,
Dana is moved to tears knowing this is the most significant thing to
ever happen to her.
Just as Michael dips Dana (#dumbass),
Shelley passes out cold and has to be taken to the infirmary.
Michael meets her there when she wakes up and says he knows it's not
an issue with eating because his expert diagnoses was that she didn't
have an eating disorder (#dumbass) so it must be a problem with boys
or school. Shelley denies both of those and says she just wanted to
lose some more weight. Michael is stunned that he might be wrong so
his grand plan is for her, Dana and Faith to come to his house every
night for a week to eat dinner so he can teach Shelley a healthy
relationship with food.
Sigh.
Dumbass.
The B Plot pretty much just wraps up there. Shelley is instantly "cured" and goes on to eat like a normal person again.
A day or so later, Dana runs into
Pamela in the hall. Pamela informs her that she's going to have
Michael fired because he discussed her with Dana. Dana reminds
Pamela that she asked Dana to have that conversation but Pamela just
smiles. It was still wrong and she intends to have Michael gone.
Dana panics. She goes running toward PA's house, anxious to tell her
the whole story. She runs into Faith along the way who listens to
the whole mess. She advises Dana to let someone else handle it
because her VERY obvious crush will only do Michael more harm than
good with PA. Dana refuses to let it go, though, so the two of them
go together to PA's. PA says she has a procedure to go through and
Dana will have to come back the next day at 4:00 to give an official
statement.
Dana decides it's time to break up with
Randy so she arranges for him to meet her at Pizza Pete's. They sit
down and order pizza and then Randy asks Dana what's going on. Dana
give him the big “it's not you, it's me” speech and he's hurt.
He takes off before the pizza gets there. Dana feels bad but the bad
gets worse when she sees Michael and Alison there on a date.
The meeting with PA goes fine. Pamela
is exposed as a liar and the dumbass gets to keep his job. It was all very anticlimactic.
Also, I think PA needs to have a serious conversation with him about his relationships with his female students. It's creepy.
We skip to Shelley's first dinner with
Michael. Dana's super excited to go until she realizes Alison is
there cooking in Michael's apartment. Dana is depressed at how
comfortable Alison seems in the home. She knows where everything is
and it's clear that she's been there a lot. Dana is down all during
dinner and the others spend a lot of time nervous-chatting around
her.
We've reached the weekend Dana's dad is
in town now. She takes a train into the city and he and Eve
meet her there. They try to talk to her but she's
preoccupied wondering what Michael is doing right now and if he
thinks of her as often as she thinks of him. I feel like the answers
to these questions are 1) Alison and 2) not a chance.
It turns out her dad's big news is that
Eve is pregnant. Dana is crushed but tries to hide it. She goes
home to spend the night with her mother and sister because someone
has to #keeponeeyeonMaggieatALLtimes. Maggie seems excited about the
new baby and Dana's mother is at least pretending not to care but
Dana is still reeling from the news and the concrete proof that she,
Maggie, her mom and her dad will never be a true family again.
On Monday during her appointment with
Michael, Dana confesses her feelings for him and tells him she's in
love with him. He doesn't react at all and, embarrassed, she runs
from his office.
Days pass and Dana feels a little
better. She's still pretty mortified about telling Michael she loves
him but at least it's out in the open now. She feels like she can
move on from her crush and her first step toward that is to go to
poor Randy and tell him she's changed her mind about their break-up.
This time Randy is the #dumbass because he takes her back without
even making her work too hard. He tells her he missed her and he's
glad to have her back. They kiss and spend the afternoon together on
his farm before he takes her back to Baker House.
When she gets back, Alison asks her to
come up to the penthouse. They have a discussion about different
kinds of love and how people can care about each other without it
being romantic. It's all very stupid but Dana feels better after it
and asks Alison how things are going with Michael. Alison says it's
nice and they're having fun but she doesn't know if it's forever.
#prophetic
Three weeks pass. Dana is feeling much
better these days but she's still avoiding Michael. She hasn't seen
him at all since their last humiliating encounter. When she finally
does see him, he tells her that he cares about her and he wants to be
her friend. She agrees that it would be best. And that's pretty
much it. She decides it's okay that he loves Alison and it's okay
that her dad is going to have a baby and it's okay that a magical boy
loves her more than she loves him.
The Least Annoying Person in Greenleaf
Award: Oddly enough this goes to Faith. She was very supportive
through the whole book. Maybe because she wasn't really in it much.
I think Sachs kept forgetting about her.
The Bitch of Baker House Award: Has to
go to Dana. Michael was a #dumbass but Dana was a major bitch.
Coming up next: Shelley starts to date
Randy behind Dana's back.
No comments:
Post a Comment