Taffy Sinclair Strikes Again

Taffy Sinclair #2

by Betsy Haynes

When Jana has an argument with her four best friends, she acts friendly toward the hated Taffy Sinclair in order to get back at them

Genres: Middle Grade, Young Adult, Childrens

Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

ABOUT ME

Maybe it's because my feisty grandma chased tarantulas around with a broom when we lived on an oil lease property when I was a baby that made me love danger and adventure. And maybe it was my father's spending nights as a trombonist with the bands of his day and his days spent drawing sketches that sparked my artistic side. Do you suppose that because my mother stood only four feet ten inches tall that I feel like a giant at five feet? And I'm sure my FBI (Full Blooded Italian) step-father, his seven brothers and sisters and their families are responsible for my LOVE of Italian food. That's who I am. Who are you?

My First Book, Peppy The Frog That I Wrote In The 2nd Grade

I'll always be a child at heart. Whenever I close my eyes, wonderful, funny, awful, embarrassing memories of middle school/​junior high come flooding back to fill the pages of my contemporary novels. My childhood friendships and rivalries with old enemies all find their way into my books. I've even spied on my own kids for story ideas.

Unlike most kids who can't wait to grow up, I've gotten younger--at least my stories have. I've stepped into the world of 7 to 10 year olds.

I and my husband, Jim, live in Texas on Lake Lewisville north of Dallas. We are owned by our greyhound, Miller. Our favorite things to do are traveling the world and boating.

Reviews

[Pastel Paperback · Rating 3 out of 5]

A much harder one to review in the series, after such a stellar first foray.

Jana is...really mean in this one. After the fiasco of The Against Taffy Sinclair club, the friends have learned their lesson and dubbed themselves The Fabulous Five. Now they're working on improving themselves and becoming more popular and confident. But Jana has the terrible idea to share what everyone thinks the others' worst traits are, which has disastrous, hurtful results (of course.)

Then Taffy slyly steps in and becomes friends with Jana. She teaches her about "body language" and flirting and how to shoot "poison darts" with your eyes at people you're mad at. Jana really becomes a bit of a Taffy clone in this one, only to realize at the end that Taffy was making fun of her the whole time.

The book ends with a big Halloween dance and Jana deciding The Fab Five is worth losing best costume to Taffy over. While Jana is kinda the worst in this, again, the way Betsy Haynes writes her just feels so believable and honest, and, yeah, sometimes we're total brats and awful to our friends when we're 12 or 13. I related to everything.

[sj]

I think I was in third or fourth grade when I devoured these books. It took me forever just to remember the name of this one, but I still remember that the "love interest" (Randy? Why do I think his name was Randy?) had a 1000 watt smile, which even at the tender age of 8 I thought was completely ridiculous.

[Joshua Arnett · Rating 3 out of 5]

We, as a society, are replacing Harry Potter and now reading the Taffy Sinclair books to kids.

[Alana · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF pg 34

What happened between the first book and the second? This is a complete retool for the worse. Jana is vapid, her mom is suddenly a health food nut, her mom's boyfriend suddenly has One Interest, Jana has forgotten what radical feminism is, and she's atrocious to all of her friends. Everything has been flattened and, well, talk about "hopelessly stereotyped"! If I had to read one more line about Melanie being fat...what a disappointment. The first book felt so real, and this feels exactly like a bad BSC knockoff, with none of the charm. At least in the Fabulous Five series Jana wasn't a horrible person.

[Tiffany Spencer]

Taffy Sinclair Strikes Again

Beth, Melanie, Christie, and Katie decide to start a self-improvement club and call it The Fabulous Five. Christie says they should make a list of their faults so they’ll know what to work on. Later on, Jana starts with Klutz but that’s as far as she gets. Then she starts to think of her friends’ faults. Melanie needs to lose weight, Katie is always giving feminine lectures (that no one wants to hear), Beth is too dramatic, and Christie is something of a know it all. Jana then adds bossy to the list before doing her secret ritual. She has a poster of Randy Kirwin over her bed that she looks at before she goes to sleep.She plans to call a special meeting the next day because she figures her friends need help telling them what their faults are. Maybe she could. After all they can take it. They’re mature right?

The next day is Sunday. Beth callsa special meeting after Jana gets home from church. Beth says she has a gret idea. Jana also has a idea for the club. Beth’s idea is to go to the shirt shop and put the Fabulous Five on a customized shirt. Melanie tho has spent all her money at the movies. So they at all chip in and lent her the money. They decide on the color blue for the shirts. Jana suggests next they be honest with each other and make a list of the others faults. Katie says it’s a good idea but Jana notices Katie and Christy looking at her.


The next day, they buy the shirts and wear them to school. Jana hopes that when Randy sees the shirt, he’ll realize she’s special and treat her as such. They run into Taffy flirting with Randy. The girls all in a burst of confidence, unzip ther jackets (to show their shirts) and march into the school. Once inside, Melanie zips up her jacket and says “Wiggins” (whose the meanest teacher at the school). So, they all put their jackets back on. She questions them about the jackets. Jana says they just have the jackets on because it’s extra cold.

Wiggins announces a special party on Halloween Taffy gives Jana looks through class cause she’s burning up in her coat and Taffy knows the reason. At the meeting, when the club me members read the lists they all get offended. Jana’s lists all say “boy crazy” and “immature”. They all walk out of Jana’s room angry. Later, Jana’s mom tells her she had an idea while grocery shopping for Jana’s Halloween costume. She can go as The Jolly Green Giant. Later when alone Jana vows to show her friends she’s not boy crazy. Instead boys are crazy about *her*. She intends to do this by watching Taffy and turning into her clone.

At school, Beth makes a comment out loud about Jana’s crush on Randy (which upsets her). The others just glare at her. Curtis comes up to Jana and tells her that at 1:15 the class is going to get Wiggins by sneezing in unison. Then he offers to sit with Jana. Curtis isn’t the most desirable guy at school. He’s a math genius (aka nerdy). So, Jana tries to make something up (that she’s sitting with a friend). Curtis doesn’t take the hint. She sees Taffy sitting by herself and joins her at her table (so Melanie whose seen her won’t think she doesn’t have any friends). Jana tells Taffy about the prank and they all smile. Randy sees Jana smiling and smiles back at her.

I
n class, Mrs. Wiggins hands all the class tissues and tells them to blow on cue and then tells them to get back to work (after the prank). Jana gets a chance to observe Taffy. Some of the things she notices is she flips her hair and she switches when she walks. She catches on after a while.Scott notices. Taffy gives her a snotty look. Jana practices the walk a lot. She also observes her mother and Pink.
The next day, Taffy offers to walk to school with Jana. She tells Jana she knows why her friends are calling her boy crazy. They’re jealous.There’s this cute boy that’s into her. Taffy says he told her, but he made her promise not to tell because he wants to tell her himself.

So, Jana starts to watch Randy for signs. She also starts to hang out with Taffy more. While eating lunch, Taffy says they’ve been talking about her for a long time. Jana tells her they aren’t her friends and thinks of how they must have been talking about her (even to Taffy) for a long time.Jana and Taffy find a ugly drawing of two girls that says “Roses are red. Violets are blue. Taffy and Jana no one is as snotty as you.”

Jana is upset. Taffy says she can’t let it get to her. She has to use body language to retaliate. She says it can also send messages to boys. She invites her to come over to her house to show her. Jana tho invites Taffy over to her house. Taffy demonstrates a dirty look and how to invade someone’s private space. Her mother taught it to her when everyone gave her such a hard time. She also shows her how to send secret messages. They listen to records and talk about their costumes. (Taffy is going to be the tooth fairy).


While on a shopping trip to get material for her costume, Jana and her mom after they’re done stop for ice cream. Jana’s mom tells her she thinks it’s great she’s expanding her circle, but she’s notices that she hasn’t been talking to her old friends (and asks if anything is wrong). Jana asks what would she do if someone pointed out a fault to her that wasn’t true. She tells her then she’d prove them wrong. This convinces Jana she was right all along to show her friends she’s not boy crazy. At school, Taffy and Jana give her former friends the poison look.


Taffy wants Jana to send Randy, Mark, and Scott messages while they’re on the field. Randy sees Jana and smiles at Jana. He then asks to copy her homework. Mark and Scott want to copy her homework too. Jana can’t believe the cutest boys in class want to copy her homework. Jana tries to practice again in class but gets caught by Mrs. Wiggins (while snooping out gum offenders). At lunch, Randy comes over to sit by Jana but then do does Curtis. Curtis says he heard there will be a prize for the best costume. Jana can’t help but notice how nice Randy is to Curtis. Curtis is inching closer to her.She’s trying to decide tho if she should scoot away from him so Randy won’t get the impression, she likes him. But then she sees her former friends pointing at her and Curtis.

Jana tells Taffy she’ll meet her on the school grounds and runs out the cafeteria. She thinks sees all her friends are friends again and have ganged up on her. She thinks they orchestrated this (Curtis coming over) to make her look like a fool in front of Ramdy because there jealous. Only Randy kept on eating and didn’t notice. Jana wishes Randy would tell her how he feels. Taffy suggests she call. He says she would do it for her but he already told her he liked her once. It would be weird.

In class, Jana is daydreaming about the call, but she ends up getting called out by Mrs. Wiggins. At the end of the day Mrs. Wiggins as for volunteers for the party. Curtis volunteers. Noone else does. She lets him choose a committee. He chooses Jana, Taffy, Beth, Sally, and Randy. Jana decides to call Randy but disguise her voice and pretend she’s “a friend of Jana’s”. Randy gets mad and tells her he’ll tell her how he feels when he’s ready and it’s none of there business. Jana excitedly tells Taffy the next day. Jana notices her ex-friends wearing shirts that say “The Fabulous Four”. Mrs. Wiggins notices. They tell her they formed a private club. She doesn’t say anything after that.

The party committee has to stay after school. Beth maneuvers it so Jana will have to sit by Curtis. Jana notices Randy looking at her. Beth keeps eding Jana closer to Curtis. She tells Beth. Just wait. She’ll tell everyone what she heard about her. (Even tho she hasn’t heard anything). After school, Jana writes bad things about her friends in her notebook. After dinner, Bethcalls and demands to know what Taffy said. Jana says she doesn’t have to tell. Whatever Taffy says is true. Beth said that well it must have been true that Taffy said she’s been trying to use body language but it looks like baby talk and the only boy that likes her is Curtis. She thinks Randy likes her but he doesn’t. Upset by this Jana goes to her room and looks at what she’s been doing in the mirror. Jana realizes Taffy lied. She still hates her. Jana’s mom comes into the room after she saw Jana get upset and heard her conversation. She tells her it looks like she’s flirting. Jana lies and says they are learning about it in school. She tells her there’s nothing wrong with flirting but after that you have to let the person see you for what you really are.

She tries to see if her mom does it around Pink, but realizes she’s already gotten his attention. Jana’s friends come to the dance as scarecrows. She notices that there’s someone in a Hunchback costume that keeps following her around all night. The teacher makes them march around to show off their costumes. Jana joins the line in her Fabusous Five costume. (She’s taken off her Jolly Green Giant costume). Someone starts to applaud . It’s her frieiends. Taffy wins first prize. Curtis wins second. He’s Charlie Chaplin. The Fabulous Five make up. Her friends tell her the Humpback is Randy. That night Jana is upset that Randy doesn’t seem to be interested into her, but she admits she is boy crazy. She tells Randy’s poster tho she’ll get him yet.

My Thoughts
Weirdly I thought this would be from Taffy’s POV. Now it’s been a long time since I was in the sixth-grade but… why would anyone think it would be a good idea to “help someone out” by bringing up their faults? REALLY? Jana didn’t see *immedidately* how horribly wrong this could go? And then she *also* didn’t see it coming that Taffy’s *friendship* came a lil *too easily?
Rating: 5

[Sayo -bibliotequeish-]

As a kid every Saturday we went to Kmart, and every Saturday my mom would let me buy one thing, and it was ALWAYS a fabulous five book. (The cover looks like a spiral notebook cover... I thought that was very clever)
I also managed to track down all the Taffy Sinclair books at a thrift store.

Taffy Sinclair is such a misunderstood character. She was definitely not the nicest person, but I think a lot of that stemmed from insecurity.

I wonder if this series is still at my parents I would definitely read them again.
I remember in the Taffy books Melanie was chubby and it make references to her eating brownies and then one day she was like NO i don't want the brownie... and then she got skinny.
This is a very vague memory... so don't quote me on this one, what you CAN quote me on is that Taffy had a crooked bicuspid, and Jana ate cream cheese and jam sandwiches,... which I tried because of her and they were DIS-GUS-TING, and I never trusted her again.

[Jesska · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 (rounded uppppp)

[Naomi · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars, rounded... down? I guess? For some reason, I find it hard to decide!

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't really like any of these girls, but this was so much fun.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this second installment in the series, Jana and all of her friends get in a big fight when they try to be honest about each other 's flaws for their new self improvement club. Jana starts hanging around with Taffy, who starts teaching her how to flirt, but things don't work out the way Jana wants. This book tries to make Jana the sympathetic character and you do sympathize with her, but man, girls this age are awful.