Patti's Luck

Sleepover Friends #1

by Susan Saunders

The Sleepover Friends think it's just a joke when Kate casts a bad luck "spell" on Patti, until some really unlucky things start happening whenever Patti is around

Genres: Middle Grade, Childrens, Fiction, Young Adult, Friendship, Juvenile

101 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1987

Reviews

[beachbum bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute....I can tell im going to love this revisit w/ the sleepover friends!!

[Marna · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's official. I've finally collected all of these. Even the super mystery beach thriller or whatever.

If I could live inside any intermediate reader series it would be this one. The fifth graders here are really more like sixth graders and everyone eats and shops constantly. My dream existence: a never-ending shopping/food binge. And terrible alternate universe pop music. And a city that is like NYC but isn't. Calling it 'the city' makes it seem as though you are living in a comic book. 'Let's head for Centropolis everyone!'

The Boodles/Bangles. Heat/Heart. I could go on and on.

I tried dressing like Stephanie for the entire 5th grade but ran out of red/black/white pretty quickly

I should not have told you that.

[Leane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember liking this series as a child. It was a fun, quick read.
It's interesting to me to re-read books from my childhood and seeing how mature the characters seemed for their age. Not in an 'I'm trying to be older than I am' kind of way but more responsible and some of the activities they participate in.

[gremlinkitten · Rating 4 out of 5]

My rating is based on how much I would have liked this as a ten-year-old. For some reason, I never read any books in the Sleepover Friends' series, even though it's a kind of a cousin-once-removed to the Baby-Sitter's Club series. So when I saw this and another one at a recent library book sale, I figured, why not?

This book has a little of everything most girls like: sleepovers (duh), junk food and baking, talk of boys, games, makeovers with purple hair gel, movies, the paranormal, school fairs, field trips, new friends, and who knows what I've forgotten! Plus, a moment when Stephanie's father cross-dresses as fortune teller at the school fair. That gave me some thoughts about secrets in that family. Maybe that's why they moved from "The City." There's some moments of suspended belief, the biggest is when Patti and Lauren chase after a car (homework was put on the bumper and apparently it stuck real good :P), Lauren (the narrator) loses track of Patti, gets back to school and tells their teacher that Patti's lost. The teacher, being told of a new student unaware of the area being lost, says not to worry(!), that someone will point her back to the school. What?! All I'm thinking is good thing this isn't the real world! Abduction, anybody? There's also a lot of baking these fifth-graders do, they talk surprisingly well, probably better than I do, and have heaps of common sense, but hey, it's a harmless kids' book that I would have gobbled up when I was that age. Overall, it's a cute book that I think even girls today would enjoy.

[Pastel Paperback · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sleepover Friends is just too adorable. Perfect to read if you want to reminisce about playing Madlibs, watching late night horror movies on vhs, and pigging out on snacks galore.

In the first entry, newcomer Patti joins The Sleepover Friends, believes she has been cursed with bad luck, and spends the rest of the book being clumsy until Kate saves the day. A cute introduction.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Sleepover Friends series was, like the Baby-sitters Club series, one of my early '90s literary loves. Though I haven't read the majority of the short 38-and-one-Super-Special series, the few books I have read, I reread obsessively, though it has been MANY years since my last Sleepover Friends read.

I think I might have read this one before, parts of it were familiar (like when Lauren and Patti chased down the school books left on the car's bumper), but I know I never owned this one back in the day. Rereading as an adult, I was surprised how juvenile it read, surprised that the girls were only in fifth grade - I remembered the books being more BSC-esque, both in the girls' ages and in the books' reading level.

As far as first books in series goes, this one just kind of plops you into the middle of a pre-established friendship, though Patti is new to the gang. Otherwise, it's a fairly generic middle-grade book. Not that it wasn't enjoyable, it certainly evoked memories of childhood sleepovers. I'm just looking forward to getting reacquainted with the Sleepover Friends!

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw a copy of this book the other day and I was flooded with memories. I thought this was how all friends were, having sleepovers every weekend and cooking and streaking their hair purple. I followed this series until the bitter end, probably about 40 books or so. It was much better than the Babysitter's Club.

[Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved these books as a kid so I was excited to revisit them again. It was a bit jarring at first figuring out the narrator, unlike in BSC books it's not the character named in the title. Still once I got past that and the first few chapters I quite enjoyed it. Patti is new in town when her old classmate Stephanie invites her to join her sleepover group. She agrees and during the party another girl Kate puts a "curse" on Patti as a joke and soon after Patti has a string of bad luck and tries to avoid the group. It was a good introduction to the series and I look forward to seeing what if anything I remember from the rest of the books.

[Tiffany Spencer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Patti's Luck
PLOT: The Sleepover Three (Stephanie, Lauren, and Kate) are now the Sleepover Friends. They have invited a new girl Patti to join their crew. One night while watching a horror movie Kate puts a curse on Patti and all kinds of bad luck things follow. But is it all just in Patti's head. Will the girl's find a way to break the chain of Patti's bad luck?

MY THOUGHTS:
*So Much Food! Why aren't any of them 300 lbs?
*Sleepover Friends Food List (Pork/Barbeque Spare Ribs/Dumplings/Onion-Soup-Olives-Bacon Bits-Sour Cream Dip/Crates of Barbeque Potato Chips/Dr.Pepper/Fudge (half-chocolate and half marshmallow fluff)/Chocolate Chip Cookies/Cheese Doodles/Cheese Dip/Baked Refrigerator Sugar Cookies/Two Extra Large Bags of Taco Flavored Corn Chips/Pimento Cream Cheese/

*Purple, sparkly, hair gel sounds COOL! I would definitely try that at a sleepover. Colored hair these days is IN and seems to have come back around!
*I confess when I have to ride an elevator alone I have a fear that all of a sudden it'll stop and I'll be trapped inside just like Lauren, Patti, Mark, and Jenny with a dead phone and that thought really is scary to me.
*An 80's reference (the machine that makes spiders) (I love those!) Does anyone remember those? I also remember the one called Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory that made eatable stuff.
*I also remember book fairs in elementary school. Though I don't remember there ever being a theme and then being done carnival style.

RATE: The cover of this book alone gives me such a sense of nostalgia. I remember owning this book at a young age (possibly buying it)and being into this series. This is such a young, fun, series to read. Basically, it's just about four friend's that sleepover each other's house every weekend. In no ways would a parent probably do that today, but I have a warm feeling about all things connected to my childhood and this was one of em. I remember being so impressed with how sophisticated Stephanie was with all her red, white, and black outfits and room. And then there was all the food that will make you so hungry just reading it. I give it a 7 for taking me back

[Heidi-Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Along with the BSC books, I read every Sleepover Friends book I could for the Summer Reading Program. I will not add each one, and I wouldn't be able to remember all of them. I would estimate that I read about 15 of the books. I definitely felt BSC had a bit more depth in the characters and plots. I would put these books at a 2nd grade level. Maybe 3rd.

[Shaunda · Rating 5 out of 5]

when i was much much younger, i read almost the entire series of these books, and i know i liked them all. these books probably would be far from thrilling to me now, but as a child they were great reads! i dont think im going to take the time to rate the entire series here, but instead i will rate this one book as a signifier of the whole series.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun series--I remember quite a few of their escapades, like eating candied violets and mousse, putting on purple hair gel, how Stephanie always wore black, white, and red, and a neighbor named Donnie they had a crush on... Similar to the Baby-Sitters Club.

[Ashley M · Rating 4 out of 5]

I adored this series as a kid. I feel like it was more relatable to me at that age than the baby sitter's club, although I enjoyed those and sweet valley as well. I loved how the one girl wore only red black and white. It must have been the trigger for my own "fashion" phase in second grade!

[Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides · Rating 2 out of 5]

Along with the Babysitters Club, this was a series I enjoyed reading when I was a tiny thing. Unsurprisingly, it's not much with the re-reading value.

[JH · Rating 4 out of 5]

So good! As much of an origin story as we’re going to get. Loved the purple hair gel, which is referenced in many books after this.

[Julie Gardner]

Nostalgia read-I loved these books as a kid and when I saw them on Kindle free I had to reread them. :)

[Rose 'I Have Too Many Books To Read And No More Room' Barrientos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Does anyone know where I can get some purple hair gel?

Still love this series.

[Celestarius · Rating 4 out of 5]

I owned this book as a kid and recently came across it in ebook form so I decided to revisit it. It's your pretty standard '80s group-of-preteen-girls-doing-preteen-girl-things book. I can't remember if I ever read any other books in this series and I had practically no memory of this one either before or during my re-read, so I guess it wasn't as impactful for me as other series like The BSC and The Fabulous Five. It's cute, though — very tame. Also very white and heteronormative, but like I said, it's an '80s kids book, so that's pretty much par for the course. That said, it manages to include a plot thread where a grown man dresses as a female fortune teller without being cringey or offensive in the usual ways such a plot thread would be, so in that sense it holds up better than a lot of its contemporaries. I doubt I'll be reading any more in the series but if you're looking for a "safe" book for your kids this one should fit the bill!

[Y · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read random volumes of Sleepover Friends in my younger days, when I could find them at Goodwill, but they never quite stuck with me like The Baby-Sitters Club. While I could remember scores of characters and useless character details from that series, the only thing I retained from SF over the years was that the one city girl really liked red, black, and white.

The book is cute enough, but I'm mainly just rechecking out this not-really-a-blast, but maybe a medium-sized-thud from the past because the whole (?) series is available on Kindle Unlimited.

[Edie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I went into this book, knowing I am not the target audience. I read these books when I was a kid and loved them. The nostalgia was awesome!
I can see why I like them as a kid because you’re just hanging out with these girls and they feel like your friends
There isn’t much to these stories so even though I own a few more books in the series, I won’t actually be reading any more of them, but it was really nice to revisit this series and see why I loved it so much back then.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought I had read some of these books as a kid, but I think I’m confusing them with some other Sleepover-type series because none of this was familiar.

However, this was SO cute! I hope I can get more of these books from ILL.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reread

Unfortunately this book didn't age well. I loved reading it in fifth grade, but as an adult there are too many coincidences to be realistic.

[Reading with Cats · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Christin]

A wonderful book I read at 8 or 9!

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so cute. I loved all the vivid food descriptions and sleepover antics. The picture on the cover actually does occur in the story.

[Holly L'Heureux · Rating 5 out of 5]

what a cute 80s tween paperback. cant wait to read more in the series.

[Doris Ware · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute book

[Erica B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading old book from my childhood. Made me miss sleepovers and all the shenanigans that ensued. Also held up pretty well years later.

[Karalee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading this series as a kid!

[Tracey King · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the series that created my love for reading!