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Making Out #22
Always Loving Zoey
Lucas tries to hold on to Zoey's love, but forces at work attempt to pull them apart.
192 pages, Paperback
First published August 22, 1997
About the author
Katherine Applegate
277 books6,389 followers#1 New York Times bestselling author Katherine Applegate has written many books for young readers, including THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN, winner of the 2013 Newbery Medal.
Katherine’s picture books include THE BUFFALO STORM, illustrated by Jan Ormerod (Clarion Books); THE REMARKABLE TRUE STORY OF IVAN, THE SHOPPING MALL GORILLA, illustrated by G. Brian Karas (Clarion Books); SOMETIMES YOU FLY, illustrated by Jennifer Black Reinhardt (Clarion Books); and ODDER: AN OTTER’S STORY, illustrated by Charles Santoso (Feiwel & Friends).
She’s written or co-written three early chapter series for young readers: ROSCOE RILEY RULES, a seven-book series illustrated by Brian Biggs (HarperCollins); DOGGO AND PUPPER, a three-book series illustrated by Charlie Alder (Feiwel & Friends). With Gennifer Choldenko, she co-authored DOGTOWN and MOUSE AND HIS DOG, illustrated by Wallace West (Feiwel & Friends).
Books for middle-grade readers include HOME OF THE BRAVE (Feiwel & Friends); THE ONE AND ONLY series, illustrated by Patricia Castelao, including THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN, THE ONE AND ONLY BOB, THE ONE AND ONLY RUBY, and THE ONE AND ONLY FAMILY (HarperCollins); the ENDLING trilogy (HarperCollins); CRENSHAW (Feiwel & Friends); WISHTREE (Feiwel & Friends); WILLODEEN (Feiwel & Friends); ODDER (Feiwel & Friends); and the forthcoming POCKET BEAR (Feiwel & Friends).
With her husband, Michael Grant, Katherine co-wrote ANIMORPHS, a long-running series that has sold over 35 million books worldwide. They also wrote two other series, REMNANTS and EVERWORLD, and a young adult novel, EVE AND ADAM (Feiwel & Friends.)
Katherine’s work has been translated into dozens of languages, and her books have won accolades including the Christopher Medal, the Golden Kite Award, the Bank Street Josette Frank Award, the California Book Award Gold Medal, the Crystal Kite Award, the Green Earth Book Honor Award, the Charlotte Zolotow Honor Award, and the E.B. White Read Aloud Award. Many of her works have appeared on state master lists, Best of the Year lists, and Publishers Weekly, USA Today, and New York Times bestseller lists.
Katherine lives in Nevada with her husband and assorted pets. She is represented by Elena Giovinazzo at Heirloom Literary and Mary Pender at WME.
Katherine’s picture books include THE BUFFALO STORM, illustrated by Jan Ormerod (Clarion Books); THE REMARKABLE TRUE STORY OF IVAN, THE SHOPPING MALL GORILLA, illustrated by G. Brian Karas (Clarion Books); SOMETIMES YOU FLY, illustrated by Jennifer Black Reinhardt (Clarion Books); and ODDER: AN OTTER’S STORY, illustrated by Charles Santoso (Feiwel & Friends).
She’s written or co-written three early chapter series for young readers: ROSCOE RILEY RULES, a seven-book series illustrated by Brian Biggs (HarperCollins); DOGGO AND PUPPER, a three-book series illustrated by Charlie Alder (Feiwel & Friends). With Gennifer Choldenko, she co-authored DOGTOWN and MOUSE AND HIS DOG, illustrated by Wallace West (Feiwel & Friends).
Books for middle-grade readers include HOME OF THE BRAVE (Feiwel & Friends); THE ONE AND ONLY series, illustrated by Patricia Castelao, including THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN, THE ONE AND ONLY BOB, THE ONE AND ONLY RUBY, and THE ONE AND ONLY FAMILY (HarperCollins); the ENDLING trilogy (HarperCollins); CRENSHAW (Feiwel & Friends); WISHTREE (Feiwel & Friends); WILLODEEN (Feiwel & Friends); ODDER (Feiwel & Friends); and the forthcoming POCKET BEAR (Feiwel & Friends).
With her husband, Michael Grant, Katherine co-wrote ANIMORPHS, a long-running series that has sold over 35 million books worldwide. They also wrote two other series, REMNANTS and EVERWORLD, and a young adult novel, EVE AND ADAM (Feiwel & Friends.)
Katherine’s work has been translated into dozens of languages, and her books have won accolades including the Christopher Medal, the Golden Kite Award, the Bank Street Josette Frank Award, the California Book Award Gold Medal, the Crystal Kite Award, the Green Earth Book Honor Award, the Charlotte Zolotow Honor Award, and the E.B. White Read Aloud Award. Many of her works have appeared on state master lists, Best of the Year lists, and Publishers Weekly, USA Today, and New York Times bestseller lists.
Katherine lives in Nevada with her husband and assorted pets. She is represented by Elena Giovinazzo at Heirloom Literary and Mary Pender at WME.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
September 20, 2015
I'm super-sad I'm nearing the end of my Making Out re-read. This is book 22 in the series and a Zoey book. From here on out every other book is a Zoey book. This is a very Zoey-centric instalment. She spends the book wending her way back to Chatham Island by train and the book ends with a welcome-back-Zoey party in her honour. I didn't want her to come home. Partly because I hate her and partly because her presence will ruin Lucas and Nina's burgeoning romance. They kiss and one night they both get out of bed, go outside and are drawn to each other from across the island. It's very beautiful. I'll back basically anything my girl Nina decides to do but stealing Zoey's boyfriend is too perfect.
ZOEY THROUGHOUT THIS BOOK: "I'm Zoey, the hero of this book series. I must get back to Chatham Island where all the residents are waiting with baited breath to take orbit around my big, oblivious head. My thoughts are so deep they cannot be contained by a mere aeroplane so it's to the train station for me, Zoey, hero, future Californian and the world's greatest teenager."
Aisha manages to get the truth about Christopher's marriage out of Kendra, in a scene I think of every time I have to go into an attic, where Aisha gets bitten by a spider and throws a vase at poor Kendra. I hate to think what life must have been like for Kendra previously if this life of being pinched and dragged around by Christopher and screamed at by Aisha is preferable. Aisha and Kendra go to a bar so Aisha can use the payphone to track down Christopher's wife, Carina;
"The bartender barely glanced at Aisha's driver's license. "What'll you have?"
"Red wine,"Aisha said recklessly. "Make it a double."
"Make it a what?"
"A double," she said, less certainly.
"What does that mean?""
Claire's stalker is upping his game and slashes all of Claire's clothes. Aaron proves himself to be a useless, unreliable douche whose eyes are now definitely blue. Benjamin thinks he might be going blind again. Kate and Jake may as well not be in the series anymore. Lara is off the booze and her new thing is hating Zoey, which I can definitely get on board with.
Fave bits:
-See above for Aisha ordering wine.
-"Nina had finally fallen asleep at seven in the morning, after re-reading almost the whole Little House on the Prairie series and drinking multiple cups of hot cocoa." I love this and I also love that both Claire and Nina are absolute fiends for cocoa.
ZOEY THROUGHOUT THIS BOOK: "I'm Zoey, the hero of this book series. I must get back to Chatham Island where all the residents are waiting with baited breath to take orbit around my big, oblivious head. My thoughts are so deep they cannot be contained by a mere aeroplane so it's to the train station for me, Zoey, hero, future Californian and the world's greatest teenager."
Aisha manages to get the truth about Christopher's marriage out of Kendra, in a scene I think of every time I have to go into an attic, where Aisha gets bitten by a spider and throws a vase at poor Kendra. I hate to think what life must have been like for Kendra previously if this life of being pinched and dragged around by Christopher and screamed at by Aisha is preferable. Aisha and Kendra go to a bar so Aisha can use the payphone to track down Christopher's wife, Carina;
"The bartender barely glanced at Aisha's driver's license. "What'll you have?"
"Red wine,"Aisha said recklessly. "Make it a double."
"Make it a what?"
"A double," she said, less certainly.
"What does that mean?""
Claire's stalker is upping his game and slashes all of Claire's clothes. Aaron proves himself to be a useless, unreliable douche whose eyes are now definitely blue. Benjamin thinks he might be going blind again. Kate and Jake may as well not be in the series anymore. Lara is off the booze and her new thing is hating Zoey, which I can definitely get on board with.
Fave bits:
-See above for Aisha ordering wine.
-"Nina had finally fallen asleep at seven in the morning, after re-reading almost the whole Little House on the Prairie series and drinking multiple cups of hot cocoa." I love this and I also love that both Claire and Nina are absolute fiends for cocoa.
May 9, 2023
* Zoey is in Washington where she hates her roommate. Her dad sends her some money and she catches a train home, it's a long journey though, and it takes her days to get back to Maine.
* We don't really hear much from Benjamin, other than him offering Lara the chance to join him for cooking lessons with their father.
* Lucas and Nina are feeling ashamed that they kissed, and Nina is feeling very nervous about Zoey coming home which upsets her. Lucas and Nina accidentally meet when they go for a walk on a sleepless night, and they both know that there is an attraction between them, but neither wants to hurt Zoey.
* Lara continues sucking up to her father by offering to paint his portrait.
* Aisha finds out from Kendra that Christopher was married at 16 and that the marriage lasted 7 weeks. She confronts Christopher who refuses to tell her anything, and she dumps him. She the talks to Kendra who tells her that Carina was a drug addict. Aisha calls an operator and asks for every C. Connelly in Boston, and then starts systematically dialing each one, trying to find Carina.
* Kate realises that Jake didn't really believe the letter from her mother, and writes a letter of her own telling her mother not to contact her again.
* Claire feels more and more that she is being watched. She can't sleep, she doesn't want to leave the house, and she's getting more and more stressed out about the whole thing. At one point she realises that her stalker has been in the back seat of her car while she was driving.
* Aaron goes off on tour, and won't be back for several weeks.
* We don't really hear much from Benjamin, other than him offering Lara the chance to join him for cooking lessons with their father.
* Lucas and Nina are feeling ashamed that they kissed, and Nina is feeling very nervous about Zoey coming home which upsets her. Lucas and Nina accidentally meet when they go for a walk on a sleepless night, and they both know that there is an attraction between them, but neither wants to hurt Zoey.
* Lara continues sucking up to her father by offering to paint his portrait.
* Aisha finds out from Kendra that Christopher was married at 16 and that the marriage lasted 7 weeks. She confronts Christopher who refuses to tell her anything, and she dumps him. She the talks to Kendra who tells her that Carina was a drug addict. Aisha calls an operator and asks for every C. Connelly in Boston, and then starts systematically dialing each one, trying to find Carina.
* Kate realises that Jake didn't really believe the letter from her mother, and writes a letter of her own telling her mother not to contact her again.
* Claire feels more and more that she is being watched. She can't sleep, she doesn't want to leave the house, and she's getting more and more stressed out about the whole thing. At one point she realises that her stalker has been in the back seat of her car while she was driving.
* Aaron goes off on tour, and won't be back for several weeks.
October 1, 2023
Ich mochte dieses Buch ganz gerne, aber es war mir teilweise zu viel Drama. Aisha benahm sich einfach heftig kindisch für etwas, was Christopher passiert war bevor sie ihn kannte. Warum Christopher Aisha so unbedingt nichts erzählen wollte hab ich auch nicht verstanden. Claires Stalker ist wirklich beunruhigend. Kate geht mir auch fast nur noch auf die Nerven. Das ist mir zu gewollt. Am liebsten mag ich Nina und Lucas. Die bleiben mir selbst treu. Selbst Benjamin ist nur noch drüber und benimmt sich oft blöd. Ach, man. Die Inselclique ist aber schon ganz cool.
October 11, 2018
Always loving Zoey? Yeah right Lucas!
Another skim read. I've completely phased Kate and Jake out of the story by now and only read glimpses of Aisha/Christopher and Claire.
The writers have done a wonderful job in making me completely despise Lucas and Nina (especially at the end with Nina's jealous reaction when Zoey returned). With friends like that, who needs a character like Lara as an enemy. And the sad part is, while Zoey was in Washington thinking about Lucas, he was at home getting with her "best friend". Smh Apparently Lucas isn't good with words when comforting someone so instead he kisses them 😳 Thank goodness it wasn't Benjamin he was comforting.
Another skim read. I've completely phased Kate and Jake out of the story by now and only read glimpses of Aisha/Christopher and Claire.
The writers have done a wonderful job in making me completely despise Lucas and Nina (especially at the end with Nina's jealous reaction when Zoey returned). With friends like that, who needs a character like Lara as an enemy. And the sad part is, while Zoey was in Washington thinking about Lucas, he was at home getting with her "best friend". Smh Apparently Lucas isn't good with words when comforting someone so instead he kisses them 😳 Thank goodness it wasn't Benjamin he was comforting.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 21, 2026
Props that next to being totally creepy in describing toxic relationships like Aisha and Christopher’s as non-problematic, the author also discusses depressions in a more differentiated way. Also Benjamin has become like a total random dude with no real characteristics at all. Like it feels weird, how he’s seemingly not affected by the break up at all. Nina will always remain the most interesting character.
February 28, 2017
Feeling nostalgic for the books of my youth, I revisited Katherine Applegate and her Islanders omnibus editions (first released as the Making Out series way back in 1993. Yes, I am that old...).
While I found them to be overly-dramatic and a little bit cheesy on second reading, I think they would be loved by teenagers today. YA has taken a much-welcome step in the sphere of fantasy, science fiction and Dystopia, largely, in recent years so for teenagers looking for the traditional romance novels filled with teen-angst and buried secrets, these are a good series to turn to. A little bit Dawson's Creek in it's setting and it's drama, The Islanders is the perfect teen soap opera.
While I found them to be overly-dramatic and a little bit cheesy on second reading, I think they would be loved by teenagers today. YA has taken a much-welcome step in the sphere of fantasy, science fiction and Dystopia, largely, in recent years so for teenagers looking for the traditional romance novels filled with teen-angst and buried secrets, these are a good series to turn to. A little bit Dawson's Creek in it's setting and it's drama, The Islanders is the perfect teen soap opera.
December 6, 2023
I remember being obsessed with this series when I was 14! I made my mom buy me all 29 books (in Germany a 29th book was published, there is no English translation) after borrowing the first one from my then-best friend.
Looking back, the plots got wilder and wilder with time: A lost half-sister, Claire's stalker, Ben miraculously being able to see again etc. I don't think I would enjoy it as much now as I did ten years ago, but it will only have a special place in my heart.
Looking back, the plots got wilder and wilder with time: A lost half-sister, Claire's stalker, Ben miraculously being able to see again etc. I don't think I would enjoy it as much now as I did ten years ago, but it will only have a special place in my heart.
July 23, 2022
Aisha finally learns Christopher's secret. Will it be their end?
Zoey finally decides she should go home but is it too late?
Nina and Lucas have grown closer but are they too close?
Claire has a stalker.
Lara is growing closer to her family without Zoey around. How will this charge when she returns?
The only thing that bothered be about this book was Nina's reaction to a certain incident.
Zoey finally decides she should go home but is it too late?
Nina and Lucas have grown closer but are they too close?
Claire has a stalker.
Lara is growing closer to her family without Zoey around. How will this charge when she returns?
The only thing that bothered be about this book was Nina's reaction to a certain incident.
January 9, 2017
diese Buchreihe hat mich während meiner Teeniezeit begleitet. ich habe sie so geliebt...
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews