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sammah's review against another edition
3.0
I rescued my copy of this from a library book sale. It's one of those ridiculously huge hardback library copies we all checked out back in 1991. Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. You know.
YOU KNOW.
Anyway, this was some shit right here. First of all, Mary Anne can be hella catty for no real reason. She has a few little minor hissy fits in this book, and there's so much foreshadowing of what comes in book 31 it's insane. Richard and Sharon let Dawn and Mary Anne know that they are going to get married. The girls try to plan a lavish wedding, which is shot down.
Amidst all this the pair of girls keep having little tense moments (that book 31 foreshadowing, ya'll). Mary Anne has a blow up when Dawn spills the beans that the Spiers will be moving into their house on Burnt Hill Road (what a name) and Dawn ends up crying. Sensitive Mary Anne made someone cry, ha!
The B-Plot is about the Arnold twins doing what all siblings do, and fight. Wah. It wasn't interesting.
Mary Anne's primary concern is also that Sharon doesn't like cats. I mean she doesn't have to cuddle with Tigger, just tolerate him. Everyone needs to chill out, but of course the real fun is in book 31. DUNDUNDUNNNN!
YOU KNOW.
Anyway, this was some shit right here. First of all, Mary Anne can be hella catty for no real reason. She has a few little minor hissy fits in this book, and there's so much foreshadowing of what comes in book 31 it's insane. Richard and Sharon let Dawn and Mary Anne know that they are going to get married. The girls try to plan a lavish wedding, which is shot down.
Amidst all this the pair of girls keep having little tense moments (that book 31 foreshadowing, ya'll). Mary Anne has a blow up when Dawn spills the beans that the Spiers will be moving into their house on Burnt Hill Road (what a name) and Dawn ends up crying. Sensitive Mary Anne made someone cry, ha!
The B-Plot is about the Arnold twins doing what all siblings do, and fight. Wah. It wasn't interesting.
Mary Anne's primary concern is also that Sharon doesn't like cats. I mean she doesn't have to cuddle with Tigger, just tolerate him. Everyone needs to chill out, but of course the real fun is in book 31. DUNDUNDUNNNN!
xtinamorse's review against another edition
Read my recap at A Year with the BSC via Stoneybrook Forever: https://www.livethemovies.com/bsc-blog/mary-anne-and-the-great-romance
pixieauthoress's review against another edition
4.0
Read just before I got married! Think this is probably a 3.5*.
ssshira's review against another edition
3.0
this is my first time reading this book
also, this is the first book that came out in the 1990s!
the main plot is that sharon schafer and richard spier decide to get married. they want to have a small wedding, and the spiers will be moving into the schafer's house, which upsets mary anne. the subplot is that the arnold twins who we thought were getting along after the resolution in [b:Mallory and the Trouble With Twins|233787|Mallory and the Trouble With Twins (The Baby-Sitters Club, #21)|Ann M. Martin|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1172965739s/233787.jpg|2162292] are fighting nonstop. mary anne suggests that they stop sharing a bedroom, and that solves all their problems. still, mary anne decides that sharing dawn's bedroom will be a good idea because she is a moron. the book ends in a cliffhanger: after the wedding, sharon throws the bouquet, and mary anne and dawn both try to catch it (WHO WILL CATCH IT OMG).
highlights:
-marilyn arnold's imaginary friend gozzie kunka, who is very worldly and speaks with a foreign accent.
-marilyn and carolyn do the masking tape room divider thing that you always see in media about siblings sharing rooms and fighting about it. there's nothing I love more in bsc books than an overdone trope. (not sarcastic).
-sharon on the new store at the mall, zingy's: "no way, young lady. this place is pure punk." I like picturing dawn and mary anne wearing 77 punk fashion to a wedding. as though these laura ashley fans would have wanted dresses from that store in the first place! haha
-a cliffhanger! this is notable, because there has never been a cliffhanger before in this series (and I don't think there ever will be again, but I could be wrong).
lowlights:
-ann is out-of-touch alert: mary anne and dawn try to find dresses to wear to the wedding at talbots. I'm sorry, are mary anne and dawn 70-year-old women who like shapeless clothing? because those are the only people who try to find dresses at talbots.
-in the dear reader (letter to the reader that ann put in the mid-90s rereleases of the books) ann talks about writing stories that work and don't work. she says she considered sending mallory to boarding school but that wouldn't work because she's a popular character, so everyone would miss her. BUT THEN SHE DOES SEND MALLORY TO BOARDING SCHOOL! ([b:The All-New Mallory Pike|371089|The All-New Mallory Pike (The Baby-Sitters Club, #126)|Ann M. Martin|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388450781s/371089.jpg|361056]).
-richard is bummed that sharon won't try his veal at their post-wedding dinner. of course she doesn't want to eat veal, you creep! she barely eats meat as it is, and even a ton of people who eat meat think veal is inhumane.
claudia outfit:
-"At our last meeting she was wearing layers--a shocking-pink tunic over a white shirt with pink and yellow umbrellas printed on it. Over the tunic was a wide, low-slung yellow belt with a pink plastic buckle. The shirt, but not the tunic, was tucked into a pair of black knickers, and below the knickers were yellow stockings. Then there's her hair...she had divided it into five braids and had woven pink and yellow ribbons into the braids."
mary anne's kid kit:
-puzzle
-crayons and paper
-kaleidoscope
-modeling clay
-mary anne's game of school
stacey's kid kit:
-mrs. piggle wiggle books
-paper and stickers
-pastels
snacks in claudia's room:
-m&ms in a box labeled WODCUT SUPPLISE under her bed
-crackers under her desk
also, this is the first book that came out in the 1990s!
the main plot is that sharon schafer and richard spier decide to get married. they want to have a small wedding, and the spiers will be moving into the schafer's house, which upsets mary anne. the subplot is that the arnold twins who we thought were getting along after the resolution in [b:Mallory and the Trouble With Twins|233787|Mallory and the Trouble With Twins (The Baby-Sitters Club, #21)|Ann M. Martin|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1172965739s/233787.jpg|2162292] are fighting nonstop. mary anne suggests that they stop sharing a bedroom, and that solves all their problems. still, mary anne decides that sharing dawn's bedroom will be a good idea because she is a moron. the book ends in a cliffhanger: after the wedding, sharon throws the bouquet, and mary anne and dawn both try to catch it (WHO WILL CATCH IT OMG).
highlights:
-marilyn arnold's imaginary friend gozzie kunka, who is very worldly and speaks with a foreign accent.
-marilyn and carolyn do the masking tape room divider thing that you always see in media about siblings sharing rooms and fighting about it. there's nothing I love more in bsc books than an overdone trope. (not sarcastic).
-sharon on the new store at the mall, zingy's: "no way, young lady. this place is pure punk." I like picturing dawn and mary anne wearing 77 punk fashion to a wedding. as though these laura ashley fans would have wanted dresses from that store in the first place! haha
-a cliffhanger! this is notable, because there has never been a cliffhanger before in this series (and I don't think there ever will be again, but I could be wrong).
lowlights:
-ann is out-of-touch alert: mary anne and dawn try to find dresses to wear to the wedding at talbots. I'm sorry, are mary anne and dawn 70-year-old women who like shapeless clothing? because those are the only people who try to find dresses at talbots.
-in the dear reader (letter to the reader that ann put in the mid-90s rereleases of the books) ann talks about writing stories that work and don't work. she says she considered sending mallory to boarding school but that wouldn't work because she's a popular character, so everyone would miss her. BUT THEN SHE DOES SEND MALLORY TO BOARDING SCHOOL! ([b:The All-New Mallory Pike|371089|The All-New Mallory Pike (The Baby-Sitters Club, #126)|Ann M. Martin|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388450781s/371089.jpg|361056]).
-richard is bummed that sharon won't try his veal at their post-wedding dinner. of course she doesn't want to eat veal, you creep! she barely eats meat as it is, and even a ton of people who eat meat think veal is inhumane.
claudia outfit:
-"At our last meeting she was wearing layers--a shocking-pink tunic over a white shirt with pink and yellow umbrellas printed on it. Over the tunic was a wide, low-slung yellow belt with a pink plastic buckle. The shirt, but not the tunic, was tucked into a pair of black knickers, and below the knickers were yellow stockings. Then there's her hair...she had divided it into five braids and had woven pink and yellow ribbons into the braids."
mary anne's kid kit:
-puzzle
-crayons and paper
-kaleidoscope
-modeling clay
-mary anne's game of school
stacey's kid kit:
-mrs. piggle wiggle books
-paper and stickers
-pastels
snacks in claudia's room:
-m&ms in a box labeled WODCUT SUPPLISE under her bed
-crackers under her desk
liannakiwi's review against another edition
3.0
(LL)
This book does a decent job tackling: merging families and sibling fights.
The main issue with the book that I had to take a star off for was the fact the Arnold twins shared a room when there were TWO empty rooms in their house?? Come on, there is no way a parent would have their kids share a room and have two rooms be empty. I know the mother was obsessed with matching, but two matching rooms would have made more sense in that context, so either way it is so silly. A four bedroom house but only two bedrooms are occupied? I call bullshit, sorry.
This book does a decent job tackling: merging families and sibling fights.
The main issue with the book that I had to take a star off for was the fact the Arnold twins shared a room when there were TWO empty rooms in their house?? Come on, there is no way a parent would have their kids share a room and have two rooms be empty. I know the mother was obsessed with matching, but two matching rooms would have made more sense in that context, so either way it is so silly. A four bedroom house but only two bedrooms are occupied? I call bullshit, sorry.
seejennread's review against another edition
2.0
When MA and Dawn are surprised by their parents' engagement, they immediately go overboard with wedding plans and become the Super StepSisters in training. They're pretty disappointed when the adults squash their big fat Stoneybrook wedding, but are happy again when they can invite the other BSCers. (Which adds up to more than all the other guests combined.) Everything is super-de-duper awesomesauce...or is it?full review here!
small_giant_plans's review
3.0
After reading this I have come to the conclusion that I am, in fact, the kind of person Mary Anne would grow up to be. Including missing my cat whenever she’s not around, which is a thing Mary Anne admits to feeling in this book. I don’t think I read this one as a kid, and so I came at it with fresh eyes. It was still pretty good. I don’t think I appreciated as a kid the different kinds of families that the BSC had, and the emotional nuances of all of their situations feel very real. Good job, AMM and her Army of Ghostwriters.
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