Karen + Ricky = Love
At first, Karen and Ricky were enemies. But now they like each other. They are even going to get married.
Only now Karen and Ricky are in a big fight! First Karen puts gum in Ricky's desk. Then Ricky calls Karen Four-eyes.
Will Karen and Ricky make up... or break up?
Karen gets home from school one day, and is excited to see that she got mail. Opening it, she's dismayed to see that it's a birthday invitation to Pamela Harding's birthday party. Pamela is her enemy! Karen calls up Nancy and Hannie, and discovers that they too received invitations. They decide that since they're going to be forced by their parents to the party, they would just get her really yucky gifts that she won't like, or baby things. When they get to school, they find out that Pamela was forced by her parents to invite the entire class. Ricky decides that he'll give Pamela a snake (rubber or alive).
However, come the day of the party, Karen is disappointed to see that everyone got dressed up and got Pamela nice presents. Even worse, Ricky got Pamela something really cool: purple suspenders. Plus he's nice to her at the party. Karen feels bad because Pamela gives out really awesome goody-bags that even include an actual 1$ bill, while the bracelets she gave Pamela are worth only about that. Overall, the party is a failure.
The next day, Karen is still mad at Ricky, and decides to stop talking to him. Since she's ignoring him, Ricky decides to be partners with Pamela that day. This prompts Karen to write Ricky a mean note, which he then turns into a spitball to throw at Karen. This goes on for awhile. Ricky and Karen keep doing stuff to each other, and soon the whole class is taking sides (girls with Karen, boys with Ricky, with Pamela and her friends siding with Ricky). This upsets Karen because up until now, she and Ricky had been planning on getting pretend-married, and obviously now they won't.
So all in all, Karen's having a miserable week. She wants to stop fighting with Ricky, but can't figure out how. Soon, it's Valentine's Day. Karen's made Ricky a super-big elaborate Valentine's Day card. She can't wait to see if he gave her something, but unfortunately, she has to go through the entire day first. Her mom and Seth have a special red and pink Valentine's Day breakfast. Upon arriving at school, Karen's the first one in the classroom, and quickly delivers Ricky's special card before anyone else arrives. Then she's on pins and needles til the afternoon.
When she opens up all of her Valentines, she's sad to see that there isn't one from Ricky. She's just about to fall into a pit of despair, when she looks over and sees that Ricky's opening the card from her. He gets a funny expression on his face, but then reaches into his desk and pulls out a big card for Karen. It reinstates the fact that he wants to pretend-marry her, and that they're no longer mad and fighting. Karen decides that they should get married at school on Monday, and goes around to tell everyone. Her friends are all happy for her, except for Natalie Springer, who is sad about having received so few Valentines.
Karen spends the weekend at the big house, planning her wedding with Hannie. Upon discussing a few things with Ricky on the phone, Karen finally figures out something nice to do for Natalie: she asks Natalie to play the music for the wedding. Natalie's been taking violin lessons, and can only play "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", but that's okay. Everyone agrees to get all dressed up and the wedding is a go.
Come Monday, Pamela and her friends tease Karen a bit, but for the most part everything goes well. Everyone shows up wearing their nice clothes, Natalie plays for the wedding and Audrey officiates. When it comes time to exchange rings, Ricky's embarrassed to admit that he doesn't have one. He does, but he forgot it at home. Karen says it's okay and bails him out with her plastic spider ring. Everyone chants for Ricky to kiss Karen, but they get all embarrassed. Bobby, Ricky's best friend, deflects from the situation and kisses Pamela on the cheek. Pamela freaks out, and with everyone's attention diverted, Ricky kisses Karen on the cheek and she deems it love.
When they get back inside, Ricky realizes that the ring was inside his desk the whole time. It's gold with a blue stone. He puts it on her finger, and Karen considers them to be officially married. She briefly contemplates changing her name, but decides that she's Karen Brewer forever.
Random Thoughts:
- This book takes place simultaneously with BSC #41. This book has 20 chapters. The first 10 take place before Kristy baby-sits in #41 (Karen references these events in that book), but then the last 10 chapters take place after.
- It was really irresponsible of Karen's mom to let Karen buy a birthday present for little more than a dollar. If Karen had thought things through, she would've gotten a more reasonably priced present, but something so out of style for Pamela, like a lame baby doll, or a toy truck (she could tell her mom that Pamela was a tomboy).
- Karen's dumb (but only 7 years old) to get mad at her friends. Obviously their parents would make them attend the party and bring decent presents.
- Pamela is obviously a rich bitch, but I'd be interested in seeing her from someone else's perspective. After all, Karen's rich too. In fact, aren't a lot of her classmates well-off? Stoneybrook Academy is a private school. But yeah, I can totally see Karen having a huge elaborate themed birthday party with hired entertainment, just like Pamela did.
- I don't remember why Ricky and Karen were enemies, and what changed between them. Is it bad that I'm kinda curious and wish I had some of the other Little Sister books?? >_< haha
- I totes don't remember Hannie getting pretend-married before Karen. In fact, I don't remember her being pretend-married at all, but that's probably because her pretend-husband goes to a different school. Her pretend-husband? Scott Hsu, who has been mentioned a couple of times in passing Kristy books, since he lives in the neighbourhood. I believe his brother is Timmy. I want to know more about these Hsu boys (are they Asian? I totes think they're Asian!)
Hannie got married in Karen's Haircut which I think is #8...Hannie kicked Karen out of the wedding party because the haircut is so bad.
ReplyDeleteI think Karen and Ricky become better friends when they both get glasses and have to sit in the front row. And maybe after Hannie gets married, Karen starts liking the idea of boys more? I didn't read these books as much because they came out after I started the BSC so I felt too old.
I read most of the Little Sister series when I was in grades 2-4. I started reading the BSC from grades 3-7. I was actually part of a Little Sister book order club, so every month (or was it every 2 months??) I would get 4 books in the mail. Plus I was now buying them as they were being published, so I pretty much read every Little Sister book until 100.
DeleteI can remember all the main plots of the books (especially when you name them), but I definitely don't remember all the subplots and things haha
Karen's Haircut was always a favourite of mine, because I read it in like, 1998, so Karen's haircut from Gloriana's House of Horror was not remotely in style at all, not even for teens. I'm always terrified of getting my haircut way too short, even as a child, so that was a true horror novel for me haha
I had the same thoughts about Karen's Haircut (I barely remember any of the other Karen books). She had a mullet! The only way to fix that is a pixie cut, only if the top hair isn't too short. And pixies don't look good on everyone (like me), and they hit an awkward stage as they grow out.
DeleteI actually knew a few girls who had that haircut! It looked terrible but they really liked it...so good for those edgy 10 year olds! I had a Barbie doll with hair like Gloriana's and she was my least favorite. She was always the bad girl or evil step mom. Oh the good old days.
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