California Diaries #1: Dawn
We have arrived at the California Diaries series and these are NOT your mama’s Baby-sitters Club books. We have also arrived in the era of Tolerable Dawn, which is nice. Unfortunately we have also arrived in the era of Reading an Entire Book in Handwriting Font. But, alas, it’s the price we pay for ~mature themes~.
Before I get into actual plot, I must state that I find it hilarious that Dawn’s school district requires journal-writing. Like… how? And, throughout this entire book, Dawn keeps referring to the fact that she’s writing in her journal and keeps explaining how writing in her journal helps her. Like… just write in it? At one point she even writes something like, “oops, the phone is ringing. I gotta go.” Like… JUST ANSWER THE PHONE?! By the time you’re done writing that, the person (probs sobby Mary Anne) would have hung up. Okay, deep breaths.
Dawn is freaking out because her middle school at Vista is overcrowded and now the eighth-graders have to move up and join the ninth-through-twelfth-graders in the high school building. She’s already having some growing pains with her friends (Maggie has become an obsessive perfectionist, Sunny is being kind of weird and reckless, and Jill still seems like a sixth-grader), plus she finds out that Carol is pregnant (!) but she has to keep it a secret. The sprouts in Dawn’s belly are just churning from stress. Hey, no one ever said being thirteen was easy.
But also, no one ever said that at thirteen you have to SNEAK OUT OF JILL’S SLEEPOVER TO GO TO A HIGH SCHOOL PARTY THAT IS OBVIOUSLY A SET-UP TO MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE A DUMB EIGHTH-GRADER. Dawn, Maggie, and Sunny ditch poor Jill and hike through the woods to a house party where everyone is drinking and smoking. Sunny gets wasted (“sloshed,” they kept saying) and at some point the upperclassmen throw all the eighth-graders in the pool, then call the cops and ditch the party. Wow, rude.
Dawn, Maggie, and Drunny (Drunk Sunny) make it home alive with an assist from Amalia Vargas and Christopher “Ducky” from Dawn’s study hall. Drunny is a barfy mess and she realizes she left her wallet at the party. Ducky offers to take her back to the party house in the morning to get it. When he, Dawn, and Drunny are there they realize the party house belonged to one of their teachers, Ms. Krueger, who’d been away on vacation. Her yard is trashed to the tune of $2,000 but — on the bright side — she does have Drunny’s wallet.
At school, the principal calls a school-wide assembly and rips the shit out of everyone. He’s basically like, “you goddamned idiots" and his speech amounts to “this is why we can’t have nice things,” and then he drops the bomb that Ms. Krueger’s damages are going to be paid out of each class’s funds, and that this means the 9th and 11th grades won’t be able to afford their class trips. Yikes!
Jill is, understandably, annoyed that she and a bunch of other people who didn’t go to the party are being punished for the actions of those who threw it and got busted at it, and Dawn is basically like, “you’re a baby and we’re not friends anymore.” That was way harsh, Tai.
I feel like I’m forgetting stuff, too… Dawn and her pals make enemies of a high-schooler named Mandy who might have a crush on this guy Justin Randall, who ogled Maggie in a wet t-shirt at the party? (See what I mean about this not being your mama’s Baby-sitters Club?) Also, Ducky lives with his brother because his parents are professors in Africa? And he’s sixteen but he’s becoming friends with Dawn and these other thirteen-year-olds for… what reason? Plus… what the fuck is up with Carol’s weird pregnancy? I guess I’m going to have to wade through some more handwriting to find out…
