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The Baby-Sitters Club #60
Mary Anne's Makeover
When Mary Anne sees a picture of a haircut that she really likes, the Baby-sitters don't pay much attention to it. They like good old Mary Anne just the way she is.
But Mary Anne really wants to get the haircut. So she goes ahead and gets it - along with some new clothes and a little makeup. Mary Anne can't wait for her friends to see her.
What a mistake! The Baby-sitters can't believe what she's done. And that makes Mary Anne mad. What kind of friends are they?
135 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1992
About the author
Ann M. Martin
1,144 books3,149 followersAnn Matthews Martin was born on August 12, 1955. She grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, with her parents and her younger sister, Jane. After graduating from Smith College, Ann became a teacher and then an editor of children's books. She's now a full-time writer.
Ann gets the ideas for her books from many different places. Some are based on personal experiences, while others are based on childhood memories and feelings. Many are written about contemporary problems or events. All of Ann's characters, even the members of the Baby-sitters Club, are made up. But many of her characters are based on real people. Sometimes Ann names her characters after people she knows, and other times she simply chooses names that she likes.
Ann has always enjoyed writing. Even before she was old enough to write, she would dictate stories to her mother to write down for her. Some of her favorite authors at that time were Lewis Carroll, P. L. Travers, Hugh Lofting, Astrid Lindgren, and Roald Dahl. They inspired her to become a writer herself.
Since ending the BSC series in 2000, Ann’s writing has concentrated on single novels, many of which are set in the 1960s.
After living in New York City for many years, Ann moved to the Hudson Valley in upstate New York where she now lives with her dog, Sadie, and her cats, Gussie, Willy and Woody. Her hobbies are reading, sewing, and needlework. Her favorite thing to do is to make clothes for children.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/annmma...
Ann gets the ideas for her books from many different places. Some are based on personal experiences, while others are based on childhood memories and feelings. Many are written about contemporary problems or events. All of Ann's characters, even the members of the Baby-sitters Club, are made up. But many of her characters are based on real people. Sometimes Ann names her characters after people she knows, and other times she simply chooses names that she likes.
Ann has always enjoyed writing. Even before she was old enough to write, she would dictate stories to her mother to write down for her. Some of her favorite authors at that time were Lewis Carroll, P. L. Travers, Hugh Lofting, Astrid Lindgren, and Roald Dahl. They inspired her to become a writer herself.
Since ending the BSC series in 2000, Ann’s writing has concentrated on single novels, many of which are set in the 1960s.
After living in New York City for many years, Ann moved to the Hudson Valley in upstate New York where she now lives with her dog, Sadie, and her cats, Gussie, Willy and Woody. Her hobbies are reading, sewing, and needlework. Her favorite thing to do is to make clothes for children.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/annmma...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
June 17, 2016
this is my first time reading this book!
in this tolerable mary anne book (I know, how could it be tolerable and be narrated by mary anne?) written by ghostwriter Peter Lerangis, mary anne gets what sounds like a louise brooks-style haircut. her dad takes her to the mall for the haircut and lets her buy some new makeup and new clothes too. the baby-sitters all hate her new look, mostly because dawn tells them to/they're the worst, and mary anne gets weirdly popular with the shallow crowd at school. meanwhile, carolyn arnold tries to invent a time machine.
highlights:
-carolyn plotline. firstly, she wants to invent a time machine because she loves back to the future so much. I just find that so cute and awesome! secondly, once she pretends it's really invented, she tries to swindle the neighborhood kids out of money, saying she'll send them back in time. she gets really embarrassed, knowing full well that the time machine won't actually work. mary anne saves the day (no, not Mary Anne Saves the Day) by telling her to give all the kids their money back and have them play a game where they pretend they went back in time. all in all very cute. I love excited scientist carolyn who never seems to think that girls can't be anything they set their minds to.
-in general I think this is an interesting and important plot that is handled well. when I was a middle schooler/high schooler, I knew lots of girls that were pretty and got a lot of male attention. other girls would call them slutty or avoid them (or both) without getting to know them at all. I think it's especially effective that mary anne's closest friends, some of whom are really into appearances (most notably stacey and claudia), start to act mean and avoidant to mary anne, assuming her personality has changed. see lowlights, though, for the other side of this -- I wonder what was going through the bsc members' heads.
-carlos, the high school boy that is rumored to have asked mary anne to his dance (even though mary anne doesn't even know who he is) ends up going to the sms dance with sabrina bouvier, one of the popular girls that has started/perpetuated the rumors about mary anne. it's very silly but cute.
-in ann's notes (in the second edition of the book) she says that after they gave mary anne short hair the model who posed for book covers playing mary anne had to wear a wig. this means that there are consistent models from book cover to book cover. I find that so interesting, in general, but especially because sometimes they look really consistent (kristy and jessi both have pretty cosistent book cover-faces, for instance) but many of them look very different from cover to cover. I can only ever tell who is dawn and who is stacey based on their clothes. I wonder whether they re-cast as the models got older (like menudo) or kept really adult-looking models on playing tweenagers (like dawson's creek).
lowlights/nitpicks:
-mary anne says she is the one who spoke to mrs. arnold/had the girls talk to mrs. arnold about how they didn't want to wear matching clothes anymore. uh, MALLORY did that (see Mallory and the Trouble With Twins). it's just like mary anne to take credit for something she didn't do (though it's also like kristy to do that and I love kristy).
-I desperately want this story from someone else's perspective in the bsc. ideally not dawn, whose perspective is kind of addressed at the end. who is really the jerk in this story? does mary anne start avoiding her friends because she is mad that they only said neutral, not positive things about her new look? if so, does that make it her fault that they drift apart?
-dawn calls mary anne's hair a boy haircut in an insulting way. I take back everything good I said about her and her soapboxy feminism in Starring the Baby-sitters Club!.
-dawn was mad that mary anne hadn't told her she planned to cut her hair. she says she felt left out and jealous that mary anne had told her dad about it and spent the day with him. partly because she felt left out by not being the first person mary anne thinks to tell about these things, but also because she misses her dad and is projecting that onto mary anne. the problem is that YOU HAVE A DAD. you have TWO BIOLOGICAL PARENTS who are both ALIVE. mary anne does not. seriously dude can you not make this about you? (note: I am shocked that I am saying "can you not make this about you?" to one of the bsc characters who isn't mary anne, but whatevs)
-carolyn says that the time marilyn wanted to get sent back to was paris in the early 1900s, but that's not true. that was what jessi said.
-carolyn invented a pretend time machine, not a pretend TARDIS, so how can she pretend send someone to paris in the early 1900s? as opposed, of course, to stoneybrook in the early 1900s.
mary anne outfit:
-"For instance, that day I was wearing teal-colored stirrup pants and a bulky ski sweater with a colorful snowflake print, over a pink turtleneck."
-"It was a fiery red, off-the-shoulder crepe dress, with shirred sleeves, a fitted bodice, and a skirt that flared to mid-calf...some stockings and a pair of shoes to go with it."
dawn outfit:
-"For the first time I noticed Dawn's dress. It was made of black velvet, with a sheer bodice trimmed with beading and lace, and a flared, above-knee skirt. With black stockings and shoes, and her hair pulled up in a French braid, Dawn looked absolutely breathtaking."
snacks in claudia's room:
-milk duds (n.s.)
-oat bran pretzels under her bed
-goobers (n.s.)
in this tolerable mary anne book (I know, how could it be tolerable and be narrated by mary anne?) written by ghostwriter Peter Lerangis, mary anne gets what sounds like a louise brooks-style haircut. her dad takes her to the mall for the haircut and lets her buy some new makeup and new clothes too. the baby-sitters all hate her new look, mostly because dawn tells them to/they're the worst, and mary anne gets weirdly popular with the shallow crowd at school. meanwhile, carolyn arnold tries to invent a time machine.
highlights:
-carolyn plotline. firstly, she wants to invent a time machine because she loves back to the future so much. I just find that so cute and awesome! secondly, once she pretends it's really invented, she tries to swindle the neighborhood kids out of money, saying she'll send them back in time. she gets really embarrassed, knowing full well that the time machine won't actually work. mary anne saves the day (no, not Mary Anne Saves the Day) by telling her to give all the kids their money back and have them play a game where they pretend they went back in time. all in all very cute. I love excited scientist carolyn who never seems to think that girls can't be anything they set their minds to.
-in general I think this is an interesting and important plot that is handled well. when I was a middle schooler/high schooler, I knew lots of girls that were pretty and got a lot of male attention. other girls would call them slutty or avoid them (or both) without getting to know them at all. I think it's especially effective that mary anne's closest friends, some of whom are really into appearances (most notably stacey and claudia), start to act mean and avoidant to mary anne, assuming her personality has changed. see lowlights, though, for the other side of this -- I wonder what was going through the bsc members' heads.
-carlos, the high school boy that is rumored to have asked mary anne to his dance (even though mary anne doesn't even know who he is) ends up going to the sms dance with sabrina bouvier, one of the popular girls that has started/perpetuated the rumors about mary anne. it's very silly but cute.
-in ann's notes (in the second edition of the book) she says that after they gave mary anne short hair the model who posed for book covers playing mary anne had to wear a wig. this means that there are consistent models from book cover to book cover. I find that so interesting, in general, but especially because sometimes they look really consistent (kristy and jessi both have pretty cosistent book cover-faces, for instance) but many of them look very different from cover to cover. I can only ever tell who is dawn and who is stacey based on their clothes. I wonder whether they re-cast as the models got older (like menudo) or kept really adult-looking models on playing tweenagers (like dawson's creek).
lowlights/nitpicks:
-mary anne says she is the one who spoke to mrs. arnold/had the girls talk to mrs. arnold about how they didn't want to wear matching clothes anymore. uh, MALLORY did that (see Mallory and the Trouble With Twins). it's just like mary anne to take credit for something she didn't do (though it's also like kristy to do that and I love kristy).
-I desperately want this story from someone else's perspective in the bsc. ideally not dawn, whose perspective is kind of addressed at the end. who is really the jerk in this story? does mary anne start avoiding her friends because she is mad that they only said neutral, not positive things about her new look? if so, does that make it her fault that they drift apart?
-dawn calls mary anne's hair a boy haircut in an insulting way. I take back everything good I said about her and her soapboxy feminism in Starring the Baby-sitters Club!.
-dawn was mad that mary anne hadn't told her she planned to cut her hair. she says she felt left out and jealous that mary anne had told her dad about it and spent the day with him. partly because she felt left out by not being the first person mary anne thinks to tell about these things, but also because she misses her dad and is projecting that onto mary anne. the problem is that YOU HAVE A DAD. you have TWO BIOLOGICAL PARENTS who are both ALIVE. mary anne does not. seriously dude can you not make this about you? (note: I am shocked that I am saying "can you not make this about you?" to one of the bsc characters who isn't mary anne, but whatevs)
-carolyn says that the time marilyn wanted to get sent back to was paris in the early 1900s, but that's not true. that was what jessi said.
-carolyn invented a pretend time machine, not a pretend TARDIS, so how can she pretend send someone to paris in the early 1900s? as opposed, of course, to stoneybrook in the early 1900s.
mary anne outfit:
-"For instance, that day I was wearing teal-colored stirrup pants and a bulky ski sweater with a colorful snowflake print, over a pink turtleneck."
-"It was a fiery red, off-the-shoulder crepe dress, with shirred sleeves, a fitted bodice, and a skirt that flared to mid-calf...some stockings and a pair of shoes to go with it."
dawn outfit:
-"For the first time I noticed Dawn's dress. It was made of black velvet, with a sheer bodice trimmed with beading and lace, and a flared, above-knee skirt. With black stockings and shoes, and her hair pulled up in a French braid, Dawn looked absolutely breathtaking."
snacks in claudia's room:
-milk duds (n.s.)
-oat bran pretzels under her bed
-goobers (n.s.)
October 2, 2020
i think i have to take a beat on this bsc reread. mary anne got a haircut and then her friends were super rude about it. dawn said she looked like a boy! claudia (still rules) and stacey LOVE clothes, why were they on mary anne’s jock so hard about wanting new clothes and makeup?!?? it’s so easy to say this at my big age, but screw those girls! you go through a personal revelation and level up so hard and your best friends are jealous instead of supportive? goodBYE. my hold came through on a super special so i’m absolutely not gonna “take a beat” but your girl needs more than this!
April 4, 2016
Identity is a trap. We are all living under the weight of our own pasts, and the expectations that this has set in the minds of the people we know. I think Thomas Jefferson said something about rewriting all the laws every few years, so that the past should have no tyranny over the present; I would settle for some kind of periodic personal amnesty where we could change styles and pop-music tastes without comments from friends and loved ones. These days the past is more tyrannical than ever in human history; thanks to Google and Facebook and the insistence on using real names and persistent identities and personal branding, none of us will ever escape the things we did and said once upon a time.
I think nothing that has ever been on the Internet has delighted me quite as much as Summer Anne Burton's "The Definitive Ranking Of All 131 Baby-Sitter’s Club Cover Outfits". I remember coming upon it after a miserable day at work and everything was transformed and the world was beautiful. It has sent me back to check out some of the later BSC books which I never read back in the day. (I probably stopped around the time Stacey came back from New York.) One which I wanted to check out was Mary Anne's Makeover, because Burton was so into post-makeover Mary Anne. I hadn't really known that this makeover had ever happened.
I don't know if it's great or terrible that at almost 35 years old I still identify so much with perpetual middle-schooler Mary Anne. (One thing that was weird even in the books I had gotten to, and by this book is now completely bananas, is the 8th Grade Time Loop the BSC is stuck in. How many winters, how many Halloweens, how much crazy stuff has gone on, while they've been in the same grade?) The moment the BSC condescendingly declared the haircut she found in the magazine "not you" I was absolutely pro-haircut. Break free, Mary Anne! I wanted to shout. I have my own issues to work out, clearly. My best friend and brothers still sometimes point out when I'm contradicting some opinion I held when I was 14, and this kind of subtle identity enforcement still weighs on my mind when I'm clothes shopping or whatever. But I wanted to see Mary Anne--the shyest, most easily-cowed Baby-Sitter--be brave and go for a radical change.
Unfortunately I can't say that the book is really a success at exploring these issues, though. I have a feeling there was a decision at BSC Corporate that Mary Anne should get a haircut and Ghostwriter #5 (who, you know, "helps prepare the manuscript") had to write a story around it. The makeover trip itself is a nice, conflict-free little interlude, but after it all becomes vague. Mary Anne and the BSC hardly talk to each other; it's hard to tell if the problem is all in her mind or what the hell is going on. I was afraid that was going to be the story--they think she's too cool for them and doesn't like them anymore, she thinks they hate her for changing, classic BSC misunderstanding. But instead we just sort of don't know what they were thinking, and they're just being jerks or something. All we get are some ominous portents about from Dawn about missing her dad which I presume will lead to Farewell, Dawn a few books in the future.
For me, I have to say, on this first cover with Mary Anne's new hair, I'm not really a fan, but later on (like on Maid Mary Anne) it does indeed look fabulous. Which makes sense, because that's how changes work: you're uneasy at first, but eventually you come to like the new, and the old now looks strange. And as the change becomes the status quo, in its turn it too becomes a trap. All we can do, to truly be free, is to wage a perpetual revolution against ourselves.
I think nothing that has ever been on the Internet has delighted me quite as much as Summer Anne Burton's "The Definitive Ranking Of All 131 Baby-Sitter’s Club Cover Outfits". I remember coming upon it after a miserable day at work and everything was transformed and the world was beautiful. It has sent me back to check out some of the later BSC books which I never read back in the day. (I probably stopped around the time Stacey came back from New York.) One which I wanted to check out was Mary Anne's Makeover, because Burton was so into post-makeover Mary Anne. I hadn't really known that this makeover had ever happened.
I don't know if it's great or terrible that at almost 35 years old I still identify so much with perpetual middle-schooler Mary Anne. (One thing that was weird even in the books I had gotten to, and by this book is now completely bananas, is the 8th Grade Time Loop the BSC is stuck in. How many winters, how many Halloweens, how much crazy stuff has gone on, while they've been in the same grade?) The moment the BSC condescendingly declared the haircut she found in the magazine "not you" I was absolutely pro-haircut. Break free, Mary Anne! I wanted to shout. I have my own issues to work out, clearly. My best friend and brothers still sometimes point out when I'm contradicting some opinion I held when I was 14, and this kind of subtle identity enforcement still weighs on my mind when I'm clothes shopping or whatever. But I wanted to see Mary Anne--the shyest, most easily-cowed Baby-Sitter--be brave and go for a radical change.
Unfortunately I can't say that the book is really a success at exploring these issues, though. I have a feeling there was a decision at BSC Corporate that Mary Anne should get a haircut and Ghostwriter #5 (who, you know, "helps prepare the manuscript") had to write a story around it. The makeover trip itself is a nice, conflict-free little interlude, but after it all becomes vague. Mary Anne and the BSC hardly talk to each other; it's hard to tell if the problem is all in her mind or what the hell is going on. I was afraid that was going to be the story--they think she's too cool for them and doesn't like them anymore, she thinks they hate her for changing, classic BSC misunderstanding. But instead we just sort of don't know what they were thinking, and they're just being jerks or something. All we get are some ominous portents about from Dawn about missing her dad which I presume will lead to Farewell, Dawn a few books in the future.
For me, I have to say, on this first cover with Mary Anne's new hair, I'm not really a fan, but later on (like on Maid Mary Anne) it does indeed look fabulous. Which makes sense, because that's how changes work: you're uneasy at first, but eventually you come to like the new, and the old now looks strange. And as the change becomes the status quo, in its turn it too becomes a trap. All we can do, to truly be free, is to wage a perpetual revolution against ourselves.
June 18, 2017
What can I say about this book? That it was the first book to make me hate a character? That it reads like 'Baby's First Foray into an Abusive Relationship? That Ann M Martin must be screwier than Bender's aunt Rita if she thinks this is how friends behave? That Dawn Schafer is the worst character in anything ever written? EVER. All of the above? Okay, I'm game.
So, Mary Anne sees a short haircut and after thinking she'd look pretty fly in it, gets it done. And what happens? Her friends (The best friends You'll Ever Have!) turn on her like a flock of rabid geese. For a HAIRCUT. And the leader of this pack of wolves is her BEST FRIEND and SISTER. Dawn has acted terribly to Mary Anne before, usually blaming her for things she HERSELF has enacted, but this is by far the worst. And her excuse for treating her so terribly is incredibly lame. She was jealous of the time Mary Anne was spending with her own father. Okay fine. You're a divorced kid, you're gonna miss the parent you're not with. But that doesn't excuse the fact that Dawn spends PLENTY of time with her own mother, WITHOUT Mary Anne around and Mary Anne doesn't say boo. Or the fact that Richard is Mary Anne's only LIVING parent as HER mother DIED. It's not like both of their parents were favoring Mary Anne and ignoring Dawn. It's not like Mary Anne can spend time with her mother AT ALL unless it's via ouija board while Dawn can still see both her parents.
Dawn is acting like a vile little pustule and Mary Anne is the one who ends up apologizing to HER. Because Dawn is her mistress and she has to pass every life choice she makes by HER to get her blessing. Because Dawn gets to have BOTH her parents to herself but Mary Anne isn't allowed her ONE. Dawn does her damnedest to ruin Mary Anne's LIFE because she committed the cardinal sin of getting a haircut and spending the day with her dad. Because everything Mary Anne does needs to go through Dawn first because her tender wittle feewings might be hurt. Because everything must revolve around Dawn. DAWN. DAWN. DAWN. I was appalled by this book at 11 and I'm even more appalled by it in my 30s. This isn't good writing. This isn't how friends act. This is hands down the worst book I've ever read. It's disgusting that this was targeted at kids. That it's message is you're never allowed to do what you want about how you look if your friends don't agree. That if you spend time with a parent, you're being selfish. That no matter how badly someone treats you, you should always crawl back to them apologizing for what you did. I only gave it one star because zero isn't an option. Read only if you want to be outraged.
So, Mary Anne sees a short haircut and after thinking she'd look pretty fly in it, gets it done. And what happens? Her friends (The best friends You'll Ever Have!) turn on her like a flock of rabid geese. For a HAIRCUT. And the leader of this pack of wolves is her BEST FRIEND and SISTER. Dawn has acted terribly to Mary Anne before, usually blaming her for things she HERSELF has enacted, but this is by far the worst. And her excuse for treating her so terribly is incredibly lame. She was jealous of the time Mary Anne was spending with her own father. Okay fine. You're a divorced kid, you're gonna miss the parent you're not with. But that doesn't excuse the fact that Dawn spends PLENTY of time with her own mother, WITHOUT Mary Anne around and Mary Anne doesn't say boo. Or the fact that Richard is Mary Anne's only LIVING parent as HER mother DIED. It's not like both of their parents were favoring Mary Anne and ignoring Dawn. It's not like Mary Anne can spend time with her mother AT ALL unless it's via ouija board while Dawn can still see both her parents.
Dawn is acting like a vile little pustule and Mary Anne is the one who ends up apologizing to HER. Because Dawn is her mistress and she has to pass every life choice she makes by HER to get her blessing. Because Dawn gets to have BOTH her parents to herself but Mary Anne isn't allowed her ONE. Dawn does her damnedest to ruin Mary Anne's LIFE because she committed the cardinal sin of getting a haircut and spending the day with her dad. Because everything Mary Anne does needs to go through Dawn first because her tender wittle feewings might be hurt. Because everything must revolve around Dawn. DAWN. DAWN. DAWN. I was appalled by this book at 11 and I'm even more appalled by it in my 30s. This isn't good writing. This isn't how friends act. This is hands down the worst book I've ever read. It's disgusting that this was targeted at kids. That it's message is you're never allowed to do what you want about how you look if your friends don't agree. That if you spend time with a parent, you're being selfish. That no matter how badly someone treats you, you should always crawl back to them apologizing for what you did. I only gave it one star because zero isn't an option. Read only if you want to be outraged.
December 15, 2020
(LL)
Man, I knew I wouldn’t like this from the title!
The main lesson from this book is: it’s okay for your friends to alienate you for WEEKS for changing your look because they were jealous...as long as they say sorry afterwards. Dawn was jealous and so were the other girls in the school, but I have no idea why the rest of the BSC would be such terrible people to Mary Anne for changing her hair.
Honestly, this had body shaming written all over it and I didn’t care for it. Being jealous of someone does not excuse the literal trash treatment Mary Anne received from the BSC and Dawn, so I couldn’t give this book any higher than two stars. Terrible message overall. Disappointing to say the least.
Man, I knew I wouldn’t like this from the title!
The main lesson from this book is: it’s okay for your friends to alienate you for WEEKS for changing your look because they were jealous...as long as they say sorry afterwards. Dawn was jealous and so were the other girls in the school, but I have no idea why the rest of the BSC would be such terrible people to Mary Anne for changing her hair.
Honestly, this had body shaming written all over it and I didn’t care for it. Being jealous of someone does not excuse the literal trash treatment Mary Anne received from the BSC and Dawn, so I couldn’t give this book any higher than two stars. Terrible message overall. Disappointing to say the least.
June 10, 2011
08/30/2009
Mary Anne gets a make-over and her so-called "friends" treat her like crap because she didn't consult them. I pretty much hated everybody in this book except the Arnold twins.
Passive-aggressive douchery FTL.
Mary Anne gets a make-over and her so-called "friends" treat her like crap because she didn't consult them. I pretty much hated everybody in this book except the Arnold twins.
Passive-aggressive douchery FTL.
August 4, 2019
i really liked this i have to be honest i thought i wouldn't but i like them enough to want to read more
December 5, 2010
the book opens with mary anne babysitting for the arnold twins, & you can tell right away that it's a lerangis book, because when carolyn tries to communicate something up the stairs from the basement, it is written in phonetic gibberish. lerangis loves his allergy-speak & muffle-speak. carolyn is in the basement because she is building a time machine. this is our babysitting B-plot.
the A-plot gets going on the babysitters club meeting that afternoon, when mary anne pages through one of claudia's fashion magazines & is intrigued by some of the short hairstyles on the models. she asks the other girls what they think of her possibly getting a haircut, & they kind of laugh at her. stacey authoritatively declares, "it's just not you."
at home that evening, mary anne is grumpy & eventually she realizes that it's because her friends were less than supportive of mary anne making a change in her appearance. she made a new year's resolution to "be the best [she] can be, in all possible ways" (sheesh), & she thinks that also includes her appearance. she looks through some of her own magazines & finds another model with a short style. mary anne looks in the mirror with her hair pulled up & realizes she has a nice jawline & short hair could really flatter her. she goes downstairs & asks richard if she can get a haircut. he is agreeable, & even suggests making it a father-daughter outing at the washington mall. mary anne is excited & asks him to keep it a secret from dawn & sharon, because she wants to surprise everyone with her new look.
on saturday, mary anne & richard go to the mall & have a great day. mary anne gets her haircut & she loves it. she gets a free makeover at a new cosmetics shop, & richard lets her buy some of the make-up the stylists used. richard & mary anne also go in 50/50 on some new clothes for mary anne. when they get home, she rings the bell so she can really surprise sharon & dawn--& does she ever! they are speechless, but finally sharon enthuses over how great mary anne looks. dawn doesn't really say anything at all.
later that evening, mary anne calls logan & asks him to come by the next morning because she has a "surprise" for him. dawn gets on the extension & spills the beans about the haircut. mary anne is really angry (yes, angry! mary anne!) with dawn for that. when logan comes by the next day, he thinks mary anne looks great, though he tells her that what really matters most is that SHE likes the way she looks.
when mary anne goes to school on monday morning, she tries to brace herself for her classmates' reaction to her new look, but it's pretty much overwhelmingly positive. she gets a few "wow"s, including one from cokie mason, & shawna riverson shoots logan some dirty looks because she thinks he has his arm around some hot new girl. but when mary anne sees kristy, claudia, & stacey in the hall, they are less enthusiastic & make comments like, "we told you it wasn't you," &, "it'll grow out." it' also obvious that dawn spilled the beans to the rest of the club before they had a chance to see the haircut for themselves.
mary anne has a hard time dealing with the negative reaction from the other babysitters, so asks logan to come to the next few babysitters club meetings, for moral support. but when he can't come on friday, she has to face it alone, & everyone is surprisingly nasty to her, making little comments about all the time she's spending with logan & her new clothes & such forth. plus, there's a rumor going around at school that some high school boys are interested in mary anne & want to invite her to the high school winter dance. mary anne suspects that at least one of the rumors was started by kristy.
mary anne decides not to go to babysitters club meetings until someone apologizes to her. which means she is missing a lot of meetings. & when she's sitting for the arnold twins & finds carolyn out collecting dollar bills from neighborhood children in exchange for a trip in her "time machine," she's not sure what to do. she thinks about calling kristy or stacey for advice...but she's not talking to her friends. so she's stumped.
& then logan starts acting weird with mary anne. he avoids her all day at school & calls in the evening to ask if they are still on for the january jamboree. mary anne is confused until logan explains that he knows about mary anne's plans to go to a high school dance with one of her high school suitors. mary anne sets him straight & they have a good laugh. dawn overhears & makes some asshole comment, which causes them to have a fight. but then mary anne feels bad about the fight & asks dawn to talk. which is kind of bullshit. as much as i hate mary anne, dawn is clearly in the wrong here & i wouldn't talk to dawn until she got over herself. but i guess this is why mary anne is often described as "sweet & sensitive" & i am not.
when they talk things out, dawn confesses that she fell left out of mary anne's big trip to the mall with richard. dawn is all, "we're sisters. we're not supposed to have secrets. wouldn't you be hurt if i was thinking about eating meat or something & i didn't talk to you about it first?" basically, dawn is being a jealous hater who thinks mary anne isn't allowed to make decisions without her. the rest of the babysitters club was basically just falling in line behind dawn (save for mallory & jessi, who generally try not to get mixed up in fights the eighth graders have with each other). dawn also admits that it made her feel sad & jealous to see how close mary anne & richard are. it made her miss her own dad, & that was hard for her. & i'm sure watching dawn & sharon hang out is no big whoop to mary anne, whose mother is DEAD, so she can't even go visit or call her on the phone if she starts feeling bummed. dawn is really a self-centered piece of work in this one. but mary anne is more understanding than i would have been, & eventually they are laughing & back to normal.
they go to a babysitters club meeting, where everyone falls silent when mary anne walks into the room. no details are offered about how they patch up their differences. mary anne just narrates that it was a "long talk". i seriously don't know what the fuck these girls have to say besides, "i felt weird when you cut your hair because i fear change, which is totally my problem & not yours. i'm sorry for being an enormous asshole. please forgive me." it's almost hard to take the conflict in this book seriously because it's so lopsided & weird.
in the last chapter, carolyn unveils her time machine & seems nervous about the fact that she KNOWS it's not going to work. mary anne convinces her to pretend it works & give all the kids their money back. they can all just play a big game of pretend & have fun. which they do, & it works out great. i'm not sure what applicable A-plot lessons we were supposed to draw from the time machine story, but at least it gave mary anne a chance to rain on mallory's parade by claiming that she (mary anne) was the one who talked to mrs. arnold & convinced her to let the twins express their own unique personalities (which mallory actually did in BSC book #21, "mallory & the trouble with twins"). i know ann was still writing the books back then, but get your shit together, lerangis!
the A-plot gets going on the babysitters club meeting that afternoon, when mary anne pages through one of claudia's fashion magazines & is intrigued by some of the short hairstyles on the models. she asks the other girls what they think of her possibly getting a haircut, & they kind of laugh at her. stacey authoritatively declares, "it's just not you."
at home that evening, mary anne is grumpy & eventually she realizes that it's because her friends were less than supportive of mary anne making a change in her appearance. she made a new year's resolution to "be the best [she] can be, in all possible ways" (sheesh), & she thinks that also includes her appearance. she looks through some of her own magazines & finds another model with a short style. mary anne looks in the mirror with her hair pulled up & realizes she has a nice jawline & short hair could really flatter her. she goes downstairs & asks richard if she can get a haircut. he is agreeable, & even suggests making it a father-daughter outing at the washington mall. mary anne is excited & asks him to keep it a secret from dawn & sharon, because she wants to surprise everyone with her new look.
on saturday, mary anne & richard go to the mall & have a great day. mary anne gets her haircut & she loves it. she gets a free makeover at a new cosmetics shop, & richard lets her buy some of the make-up the stylists used. richard & mary anne also go in 50/50 on some new clothes for mary anne. when they get home, she rings the bell so she can really surprise sharon & dawn--& does she ever! they are speechless, but finally sharon enthuses over how great mary anne looks. dawn doesn't really say anything at all.
later that evening, mary anne calls logan & asks him to come by the next morning because she has a "surprise" for him. dawn gets on the extension & spills the beans about the haircut. mary anne is really angry (yes, angry! mary anne!) with dawn for that. when logan comes by the next day, he thinks mary anne looks great, though he tells her that what really matters most is that SHE likes the way she looks.
when mary anne goes to school on monday morning, she tries to brace herself for her classmates' reaction to her new look, but it's pretty much overwhelmingly positive. she gets a few "wow"s, including one from cokie mason, & shawna riverson shoots logan some dirty looks because she thinks he has his arm around some hot new girl. but when mary anne sees kristy, claudia, & stacey in the hall, they are less enthusiastic & make comments like, "we told you it wasn't you," &, "it'll grow out." it' also obvious that dawn spilled the beans to the rest of the club before they had a chance to see the haircut for themselves.
mary anne has a hard time dealing with the negative reaction from the other babysitters, so asks logan to come to the next few babysitters club meetings, for moral support. but when he can't come on friday, she has to face it alone, & everyone is surprisingly nasty to her, making little comments about all the time she's spending with logan & her new clothes & such forth. plus, there's a rumor going around at school that some high school boys are interested in mary anne & want to invite her to the high school winter dance. mary anne suspects that at least one of the rumors was started by kristy.
mary anne decides not to go to babysitters club meetings until someone apologizes to her. which means she is missing a lot of meetings. & when she's sitting for the arnold twins & finds carolyn out collecting dollar bills from neighborhood children in exchange for a trip in her "time machine," she's not sure what to do. she thinks about calling kristy or stacey for advice...but she's not talking to her friends. so she's stumped.
& then logan starts acting weird with mary anne. he avoids her all day at school & calls in the evening to ask if they are still on for the january jamboree. mary anne is confused until logan explains that he knows about mary anne's plans to go to a high school dance with one of her high school suitors. mary anne sets him straight & they have a good laugh. dawn overhears & makes some asshole comment, which causes them to have a fight. but then mary anne feels bad about the fight & asks dawn to talk. which is kind of bullshit. as much as i hate mary anne, dawn is clearly in the wrong here & i wouldn't talk to dawn until she got over herself. but i guess this is why mary anne is often described as "sweet & sensitive" & i am not.
when they talk things out, dawn confesses that she fell left out of mary anne's big trip to the mall with richard. dawn is all, "we're sisters. we're not supposed to have secrets. wouldn't you be hurt if i was thinking about eating meat or something & i didn't talk to you about it first?" basically, dawn is being a jealous hater who thinks mary anne isn't allowed to make decisions without her. the rest of the babysitters club was basically just falling in line behind dawn (save for mallory & jessi, who generally try not to get mixed up in fights the eighth graders have with each other). dawn also admits that it made her feel sad & jealous to see how close mary anne & richard are. it made her miss her own dad, & that was hard for her. & i'm sure watching dawn & sharon hang out is no big whoop to mary anne, whose mother is DEAD, so she can't even go visit or call her on the phone if she starts feeling bummed. dawn is really a self-centered piece of work in this one. but mary anne is more understanding than i would have been, & eventually they are laughing & back to normal.
they go to a babysitters club meeting, where everyone falls silent when mary anne walks into the room. no details are offered about how they patch up their differences. mary anne just narrates that it was a "long talk". i seriously don't know what the fuck these girls have to say besides, "i felt weird when you cut your hair because i fear change, which is totally my problem & not yours. i'm sorry for being an enormous asshole. please forgive me." it's almost hard to take the conflict in this book seriously because it's so lopsided & weird.
in the last chapter, carolyn unveils her time machine & seems nervous about the fact that she KNOWS it's not going to work. mary anne convinces her to pretend it works & give all the kids their money back. they can all just play a big game of pretend & have fun. which they do, & it works out great. i'm not sure what applicable A-plot lessons we were supposed to draw from the time machine story, but at least it gave mary anne a chance to rain on mallory's parade by claiming that she (mary anne) was the one who talked to mrs. arnold & convinced her to let the twins express their own unique personalities (which mallory actually did in BSC book #21, "mallory & the trouble with twins"). i know ann was still writing the books back then, but get your shit together, lerangis!
May 28, 2012
Oh, man. I'm kind of glad I stopped reading these before this one came out.
Long story short, Mary Anne decides she's tired of being the same old her, so she asks her dad to take her to get her hair cut. He does, and takes her shopping for new clothes and make up at the same time.
Of course, this is enough for ALL OF THE BSC MEMBERS to act like total snapebags toward her for most of the book.
Not because they're jealous, no. Because they're hurt that she didn't invite them along.
Jeez. When I was 13, I just cut my hair and showed up at school. No big, no one was pissed or hurt. No one said anything when I dyed it, either.
Another flawed premise from the get-go.
Long story short, Mary Anne decides she's tired of being the same old her, so she asks her dad to take her to get her hair cut. He does, and takes her shopping for new clothes and make up at the same time.
Of course, this is enough for ALL OF THE BSC MEMBERS to act like total snapebags toward her for most of the book.
Not because they're jealous, no. Because they're hurt that she didn't invite them along.
Jeez. When I was 13, I just cut my hair and showed up at school. No big, no one was pissed or hurt. No one said anything when I dyed it, either.
Another flawed premise from the get-go.
February 10, 2020
The Baby-sitters Club members are such catty bitches and Mary Anne forgave them (Dawn) way too easily. I still don't really know what their problem was in the first place. Jerks.
Read
February 20, 2025Maryanne’s Makeover
Maryanne is sitting for Carolyn and Marilyn Arnold. Marilyn is practicing a piece that puts Maryanne in the mind of people in powdered wigs. Carolyn makes an announcement about a “flux capacitator”. She says she’s discovered the secret of time travel. While Marilyn is playing and Carolyn is in the basement, Maryanne tries to finish some homework. She thinks about Logan for a little bit. Then she hears noises coming from the basement. When Marilyn is done they go pay Carolyn a visit. Carolyn says when she’s done, they’ll go where no girl has gone before. When the boiler comes on, Carolyn screams and they all have a good laugh.
At the BSC, they talk about Carolyn and Marilyn and Stacey mentions a dance coming up. Maryanne sees an outfit in a magazine that she thinks is beautiful. It’s a paisley shift with a scoop neck that’s cinched at the waist. Dawn thinks she would look great in it. Kristy says she couldn’t wear sneakers with it. Maryanne thinks oh well. So, much for that. There’s a job for Rosie Wilder. Kristy and Jessi are free. Jessi offers to take it. She and Rosie bonded over barre excersizes last time. All of a sudden, Maryanne sees this cut in the magazine that’s *made* for her!
The style is a “bowl cut” close cropped at the back. Maryanne made a New Years resolution to be her best self and that also means *looking* her best. None of them think the look is *her*. Stacey is the one that says it first. Maryanne just agrees and says I guess not. She tries to brush it off, but she feels strange and thinks what’s wrong with wanting to try something different. She doesn’t say much the rest of the meeting. The silent treatment continues when she gets home and at dinner.
She’s not sure what’s causing it, but then when she’s in her room she thinks of Stacey’s comment. Maryanne puts her hair up and discovers she likes the way the curve of her jaw looks. Then she sees she looks GREAT with short hair and that maybe it is *her*. It’s just taken years to come out. Maryanne finds a fashion magazine in her hidden drawer and finds a similar style. Then she comes to a decession. She’s going to the salon and getting the cut. But first, she has to convince her dad. But after she tells him (and shows him the picture) he says she’d look lovely. He’s always thought short hair would suit her. They make plans to go to Washington Mall on Saturday, get her cut, and make it a father-daughter day. Maryanne tells him she wants to keep it a secret so don’t tell Sharon and Dawn. He promises not too.
When Jessi sits for the twins, she and Carolyn bond over movies “Back to the Future” and books “The Time Machine” and “Time and Again” about time travel. Jessi asks them what time period they’d go back to if they could. Carolyn says when her mom and dad were little so she could sit for them (and Marilyn adds and make them eat broccoli). Marilyn says the late 1700’s so she could hide Mozart’s pencils so he wouldn’t write such hard music. Jessi says she’d go to the 1900’s and see this ballet dancer that was so great people use to faint in the audience.
Then they go to the basement. The time machine looks the same (crates, ropes tied to the boiler). It still needs some parts Carolyn (the book says Marilyn but it’s probably supposed to be Carolyn). This is what they need: Flux Capacitator, Warp Consol, the hands from a Broken Clock, Unplugged Telephone, Old Blanket, Dish Towel, Toilet Paper (wow Claudia doesn’t have to feel bad anymore. Carolyn spells just as badly as she does.) and One Curtain Rod.
So, they go on a scavenger hunt. Marilyn gets bored and goes to read. Carolyn tinkers around and says it’ll be ready in a week. Jessi wonders if she’s taking this serious, but then tells herself Carolyn knows the difference between fantasy and reality. But does she? Not only does Maryanne get the new ut, Richard lets her get makeup (after she gets a free makeover at “About Face”) and makes an agreement with her to get whatever clothes and accessories she needs (at E Stevens) if she’ll pay half. They also have lunch at a Mexican restaurant and bring home Chinese. Richard is VERY COOL for all this! I don’t think I’ve ever been as impressed with him.
Maryanne goes around and rings the doorbell and Sharon and Dawn come to the door. When they see her they just stare. Finally, Sharon says “Who is this gorgeous movie star.” Dawn pretty much remains silent. At dinner, Maryanne and Richard start to talk about their day and where they went. Dawn asks why Maryanne didn’t tell them. Maryanne says she didn’t decide until the last minute. Dawn said she thought she said she was thinking about it. Maryanne says she was just thinking and you know how she is. Dawn says she *thought* she did. Maryanne starts to feel like she should apologize but for what she’s not sure.
Later, she realizes Dawn is jealous. She should have invited her (maybe). She shouldn’t have let her father buy her so many things. (Uh why? It’s YOUR father and it’s HIS money) and she shouldn’t have bragged about it. Logan calls and asks what she did today. She tells him she has a surprise for him, but Dawn (whose being petty) picks up the phone and tells him she got a new haircut. At first, Logan (after guessing its short) asks her why she did it and Maryanne gets upset. He apologizes and says he can’t wait to see it and asks if he can see her first thing in the morning. Maryanne then waits for Sawn to apologize or not. And if not its fine because she really doesn’t have anything else to say to her. Logan loves her cut. The other kids do to. Even Cookie tells Maryanne she looks great! The BSC tho aren’t surprised because Dawn’s told them. They tell her they told her it didn’t look good but don’t worry she’ll grow it out. Logan says they’re all a bunch of haters, but if she likes it screw them. She asks him to come to the meeting with her so she won’t have to face them alone and he says ok.
I’ll skim this part briefly. Claudia sets for the Arnold’s on a rainy day. They decide to invite over Hailey, Matt, and Stacey. Carolyn tells them to stay out of the basement so Matt, Halley, and Marilyn try to spy through the basement window (from outside). Carolyn later says she’s got the final piece. Now she’s ready for her first trip. Maryanne decides not to eat with the rest of her friends at lunch. Then she finds out that Kristy started the rumor that a friend of Charlie’s thinks she’s cute and wants to know her name. When she tells Logan this, he says and your upset about *that*. He tells her she’s taking this *way* too seriously.
She says people have been looking at her on the sly. Logan suggests she talk to her friends. She says nope. She’s pissed. She’s supposed to go shopping with Kristy but she doesn’t want to. So, he invites her over to hang out. She tells Kristy but she just says ok. Hunter and Kerri love Maryanne’s hair. For a couple of meetings, Logan’s gone with Maryanne but he can’t go to this one because he’s going over Austin’s house. So, he tells her to bring something to read (to fill the silence) and they practice things to say back if they should say something about her clothes or hair. On the way, they pass Kristy and Charlie going to the meeting. They don’t offer Maryanne a ride. Maryanne gets a job with Mrs. Prezzioso. Kristy makes a snide remark about what if Maryanne gets a date with Logan. There are after all some girls who’d drop their *girlfriends* for the sake of their boyfriends.
Maryanne is getting to know all these girls at school she barely knew before because of her new look. There’s Hannah, Sabrina, and Sharon. Sabrina and Sharon are two girls the BSC talk about because they have expensive clothes and wear lots of makeup and call them snobs. But maybe Maryanne thinks the BSC are the snobs for being judgmental. Maryanne decides not to go to anymore sitting jobs until they start being nicer. Sabrina tells her some boy at the HS named Carlos is going to ask her to the Winter Ball but she decides not to tell Logan about it. Logan is surprised they aren’t talking and that she’s decided not to the meeting. He tells her it’s getting out of hand. She doesn’t go to the meeting and at dinner Dawn throws jabs at her about it (and being with Logan instead). Maryanne takes as much of it as she can and then excuses herself to her room and cries.
Maryanne sits for the Arnold’s again and listens to Marilyn practice for her recital. Then she finds Carolyn taking money and requests for her time travel machine. She wishes she could talk to the BSC and isn’t sure what she should do about it. Logan hears that some guy asked Maryanne to the dance and calls her and confronts her but she tells him its just a rumor. She says she figured if she’d just avoid it things would blow over. He tells her she’s been avoiding a lot of things but they haven’t blown over. But he tells her he believes her. (He also asks her if they’re going the January dance).
Maryanne tries to have a discussion with Dawn but it turns into an argument with Dawn accusing Maryanne of spending more time with Logan and skipping meets. And Maryanne accuses Dawn of being jealous. Dawn says Maryanne has a boy haircut and clown make up. Maryanne thinks Dawn’s a witch and she shouldn’t have even bothered. She’ll never talk to her again. She wishes she never meet her. Then she starts to cry. Then after this, it becomes clear. She blew it. She decides to try again. Maryanne finds Dawn and tells her she’s sorry. Dawn doesn’t say it back but Maryanne gets a small smile out of her when she says she really does want to talk to her without throwing tofu around. They go up to Maryanne’s room and she apologizes again. And then we find out Dawn is mad because Maryanne didn’t talk to her about getting the haircut. REALLY? She says she would have loved to help her shop. Maryanne says the trip was her father’s idea.
Dawn says she felt left out and it got worse when she spent all that time with Logan. Maryanne says she wasn’t trying to hurt her. She thought she’d be happy for her. They’re always telling her to be independent. When she does they treat her like a traitor. The only reason she spent time with Logan was because of how they treated her. Dawn says then she spent time with Carlos. Maryanne tells she never even knew the guy. Dawn said it was hard to see her change. Maryanne says everyone changes but can’t they still be friends even with her with short hair. And they hug it out.
All the BSC make up and everyone tells Maryanne her hair looks great! Maryanne tells them about Carolyn’s scheme. Stacey says she should have told them. Kristy says she’ll be sitting there Thursday. Maryanne volunteers to bring over Jenny and Andrea. Maryanne gets Carolyn to *pretend* to take trips to other times and places, but she has to give the kids their dollar back. Dawn goes with Pete to the dance. She confesses to Maryanne, she was jealous because she misses her dad a lot. At the January Jamboree, some of things of interest are: Kristy wears heels (but not for long), Cludia wears a lame outfit, Stacey wears a slinky (Hollywood type), silk, gown. Her date is Sam (who brings a rubber tarantula and keeps annoying people with it until Stacey tells him to stop).
They talk about the time machine and were they’d go Pete (Super Bowl Three), Logan (the first day he saw Maryanne), Dawn (that room about 23 years ago to see Richard and Sharon at one of their school dances). Logan, Dawn, and Maryanne recognize Sabrina’s date (Carlos). They all say his name, (and they must be loud because), he looks around smileds, shrugs, and keeps dancing. I know he’s probably thinking uh how do these middle school kids even know me or Are they calling *me*?
My Thoughts
I just didn’t get it. There is *NOTHING* wrong with Maryanne’s hair. It actually does look good on her. Back then this cut was VERY popular with actresses and you saw it all the time in video’s (and on celebrities). Halle Berry was one of the ones that set the trend for this look. I think the BSC were all a bunch of haters in this one. Book after book they push at Maryanne to come out a little more and when she does what do they do. Tell her the look isn’t right for her. And what’s crazy is the look is and Claudia and Stacey don’t pick up on this right away but they’re supposed to be “the fashion experts”. Noone tells her until *the end* of the book and then they all just LOVE her hair. REALLY?!
But who I was impressed HIGHLY with was Richard. Was Richard not *the best* dad in this book? First of all, I don’t know of any dad’s (or males for that matter) who will sit around in a beauty salon for 2 or 3 hours. Even the nicest one might drop you off, maybe pay for it, and then pick you up. But sit around with you and *wait*? Not gonna happen. It takes WAY longer in a beauty salon than a barber shop. The same with men going with ladies to shop. This is what I’ve seen from men. Most of the time they like to get what they’ve come for and be out. I have not seen ONE that will stand around in a store while their (daughter, wife, girlfriend, sister, etc) stands around browsing through clothes racks for hours. *I* don’t even like doing this.
Logan was great too! He immediately apologizes when he sees she’s upset that he wasn’t enthusiastic about her getting her hair cut. He encourages her all through the book not to listen to “her friends”. He comes to the meetings with her to kind of have her back. He comes to her and doesn’t do like some guys do in books when they hear there’s someone else and get all mad. He’s actually more decent about it then a male I use to date that would fly all off the handle if I didn’t get back to him when he paged me. (This was when I was in college). So, Richard and Logan both get 10’s from. The BSC gets O’s because they were all PETTY for no reason whatsoever!
Rating: 7 This one wasn’t as bad as the last one’s have been.
Maryanne is sitting for Carolyn and Marilyn Arnold. Marilyn is practicing a piece that puts Maryanne in the mind of people in powdered wigs. Carolyn makes an announcement about a “flux capacitator”. She says she’s discovered the secret of time travel. While Marilyn is playing and Carolyn is in the basement, Maryanne tries to finish some homework. She thinks about Logan for a little bit. Then she hears noises coming from the basement. When Marilyn is done they go pay Carolyn a visit. Carolyn says when she’s done, they’ll go where no girl has gone before. When the boiler comes on, Carolyn screams and they all have a good laugh.
At the BSC, they talk about Carolyn and Marilyn and Stacey mentions a dance coming up. Maryanne sees an outfit in a magazine that she thinks is beautiful. It’s a paisley shift with a scoop neck that’s cinched at the waist. Dawn thinks she would look great in it. Kristy says she couldn’t wear sneakers with it. Maryanne thinks oh well. So, much for that. There’s a job for Rosie Wilder. Kristy and Jessi are free. Jessi offers to take it. She and Rosie bonded over barre excersizes last time. All of a sudden, Maryanne sees this cut in the magazine that’s *made* for her!
The style is a “bowl cut” close cropped at the back. Maryanne made a New Years resolution to be her best self and that also means *looking* her best. None of them think the look is *her*. Stacey is the one that says it first. Maryanne just agrees and says I guess not. She tries to brush it off, but she feels strange and thinks what’s wrong with wanting to try something different. She doesn’t say much the rest of the meeting. The silent treatment continues when she gets home and at dinner.
She’s not sure what’s causing it, but then when she’s in her room she thinks of Stacey’s comment. Maryanne puts her hair up and discovers she likes the way the curve of her jaw looks. Then she sees she looks GREAT with short hair and that maybe it is *her*. It’s just taken years to come out. Maryanne finds a fashion magazine in her hidden drawer and finds a similar style. Then she comes to a decession. She’s going to the salon and getting the cut. But first, she has to convince her dad. But after she tells him (and shows him the picture) he says she’d look lovely. He’s always thought short hair would suit her. They make plans to go to Washington Mall on Saturday, get her cut, and make it a father-daughter day. Maryanne tells him she wants to keep it a secret so don’t tell Sharon and Dawn. He promises not too.
When Jessi sits for the twins, she and Carolyn bond over movies “Back to the Future” and books “The Time Machine” and “Time and Again” about time travel. Jessi asks them what time period they’d go back to if they could. Carolyn says when her mom and dad were little so she could sit for them (and Marilyn adds and make them eat broccoli). Marilyn says the late 1700’s so she could hide Mozart’s pencils so he wouldn’t write such hard music. Jessi says she’d go to the 1900’s and see this ballet dancer that was so great people use to faint in the audience.
Then they go to the basement. The time machine looks the same (crates, ropes tied to the boiler). It still needs some parts Carolyn (the book says Marilyn but it’s probably supposed to be Carolyn). This is what they need: Flux Capacitator, Warp Consol, the hands from a Broken Clock, Unplugged Telephone, Old Blanket, Dish Towel, Toilet Paper (wow Claudia doesn’t have to feel bad anymore. Carolyn spells just as badly as she does.) and One Curtain Rod.
So, they go on a scavenger hunt. Marilyn gets bored and goes to read. Carolyn tinkers around and says it’ll be ready in a week. Jessi wonders if she’s taking this serious, but then tells herself Carolyn knows the difference between fantasy and reality. But does she? Not only does Maryanne get the new ut, Richard lets her get makeup (after she gets a free makeover at “About Face”) and makes an agreement with her to get whatever clothes and accessories she needs (at E Stevens) if she’ll pay half. They also have lunch at a Mexican restaurant and bring home Chinese. Richard is VERY COOL for all this! I don’t think I’ve ever been as impressed with him.
Maryanne goes around and rings the doorbell and Sharon and Dawn come to the door. When they see her they just stare. Finally, Sharon says “Who is this gorgeous movie star.” Dawn pretty much remains silent. At dinner, Maryanne and Richard start to talk about their day and where they went. Dawn asks why Maryanne didn’t tell them. Maryanne says she didn’t decide until the last minute. Dawn said she thought she said she was thinking about it. Maryanne says she was just thinking and you know how she is. Dawn says she *thought* she did. Maryanne starts to feel like she should apologize but for what she’s not sure.
Later, she realizes Dawn is jealous. She should have invited her (maybe). She shouldn’t have let her father buy her so many things. (Uh why? It’s YOUR father and it’s HIS money) and she shouldn’t have bragged about it. Logan calls and asks what she did today. She tells him she has a surprise for him, but Dawn (whose being petty) picks up the phone and tells him she got a new haircut. At first, Logan (after guessing its short) asks her why she did it and Maryanne gets upset. He apologizes and says he can’t wait to see it and asks if he can see her first thing in the morning. Maryanne then waits for Sawn to apologize or not. And if not its fine because she really doesn’t have anything else to say to her. Logan loves her cut. The other kids do to. Even Cookie tells Maryanne she looks great! The BSC tho aren’t surprised because Dawn’s told them. They tell her they told her it didn’t look good but don’t worry she’ll grow it out. Logan says they’re all a bunch of haters, but if she likes it screw them. She asks him to come to the meeting with her so she won’t have to face them alone and he says ok.
I’ll skim this part briefly. Claudia sets for the Arnold’s on a rainy day. They decide to invite over Hailey, Matt, and Stacey. Carolyn tells them to stay out of the basement so Matt, Halley, and Marilyn try to spy through the basement window (from outside). Carolyn later says she’s got the final piece. Now she’s ready for her first trip. Maryanne decides not to eat with the rest of her friends at lunch. Then she finds out that Kristy started the rumor that a friend of Charlie’s thinks she’s cute and wants to know her name. When she tells Logan this, he says and your upset about *that*. He tells her she’s taking this *way* too seriously.
She says people have been looking at her on the sly. Logan suggests she talk to her friends. She says nope. She’s pissed. She’s supposed to go shopping with Kristy but she doesn’t want to. So, he invites her over to hang out. She tells Kristy but she just says ok. Hunter and Kerri love Maryanne’s hair. For a couple of meetings, Logan’s gone with Maryanne but he can’t go to this one because he’s going over Austin’s house. So, he tells her to bring something to read (to fill the silence) and they practice things to say back if they should say something about her clothes or hair. On the way, they pass Kristy and Charlie going to the meeting. They don’t offer Maryanne a ride. Maryanne gets a job with Mrs. Prezzioso. Kristy makes a snide remark about what if Maryanne gets a date with Logan. There are after all some girls who’d drop their *girlfriends* for the sake of their boyfriends.
Maryanne is getting to know all these girls at school she barely knew before because of her new look. There’s Hannah, Sabrina, and Sharon. Sabrina and Sharon are two girls the BSC talk about because they have expensive clothes and wear lots of makeup and call them snobs. But maybe Maryanne thinks the BSC are the snobs for being judgmental. Maryanne decides not to go to anymore sitting jobs until they start being nicer. Sabrina tells her some boy at the HS named Carlos is going to ask her to the Winter Ball but she decides not to tell Logan about it. Logan is surprised they aren’t talking and that she’s decided not to the meeting. He tells her it’s getting out of hand. She doesn’t go to the meeting and at dinner Dawn throws jabs at her about it (and being with Logan instead). Maryanne takes as much of it as she can and then excuses herself to her room and cries.
Maryanne sits for the Arnold’s again and listens to Marilyn practice for her recital. Then she finds Carolyn taking money and requests for her time travel machine. She wishes she could talk to the BSC and isn’t sure what she should do about it. Logan hears that some guy asked Maryanne to the dance and calls her and confronts her but she tells him its just a rumor. She says she figured if she’d just avoid it things would blow over. He tells her she’s been avoiding a lot of things but they haven’t blown over. But he tells her he believes her. (He also asks her if they’re going the January dance).
Maryanne tries to have a discussion with Dawn but it turns into an argument with Dawn accusing Maryanne of spending more time with Logan and skipping meets. And Maryanne accuses Dawn of being jealous. Dawn says Maryanne has a boy haircut and clown make up. Maryanne thinks Dawn’s a witch and she shouldn’t have even bothered. She’ll never talk to her again. She wishes she never meet her. Then she starts to cry. Then after this, it becomes clear. She blew it. She decides to try again. Maryanne finds Dawn and tells her she’s sorry. Dawn doesn’t say it back but Maryanne gets a small smile out of her when she says she really does want to talk to her without throwing tofu around. They go up to Maryanne’s room and she apologizes again. And then we find out Dawn is mad because Maryanne didn’t talk to her about getting the haircut. REALLY? She says she would have loved to help her shop. Maryanne says the trip was her father’s idea.
Dawn says she felt left out and it got worse when she spent all that time with Logan. Maryanne says she wasn’t trying to hurt her. She thought she’d be happy for her. They’re always telling her to be independent. When she does they treat her like a traitor. The only reason she spent time with Logan was because of how they treated her. Dawn says then she spent time with Carlos. Maryanne tells she never even knew the guy. Dawn said it was hard to see her change. Maryanne says everyone changes but can’t they still be friends even with her with short hair. And they hug it out.
All the BSC make up and everyone tells Maryanne her hair looks great! Maryanne tells them about Carolyn’s scheme. Stacey says she should have told them. Kristy says she’ll be sitting there Thursday. Maryanne volunteers to bring over Jenny and Andrea. Maryanne gets Carolyn to *pretend* to take trips to other times and places, but she has to give the kids their dollar back. Dawn goes with Pete to the dance. She confesses to Maryanne, she was jealous because she misses her dad a lot. At the January Jamboree, some of things of interest are: Kristy wears heels (but not for long), Cludia wears a lame outfit, Stacey wears a slinky (Hollywood type), silk, gown. Her date is Sam (who brings a rubber tarantula and keeps annoying people with it until Stacey tells him to stop).
They talk about the time machine and were they’d go Pete (Super Bowl Three), Logan (the first day he saw Maryanne), Dawn (that room about 23 years ago to see Richard and Sharon at one of their school dances). Logan, Dawn, and Maryanne recognize Sabrina’s date (Carlos). They all say his name, (and they must be loud because), he looks around smileds, shrugs, and keeps dancing. I know he’s probably thinking uh how do these middle school kids even know me or Are they calling *me*?
My Thoughts
I just didn’t get it. There is *NOTHING* wrong with Maryanne’s hair. It actually does look good on her. Back then this cut was VERY popular with actresses and you saw it all the time in video’s (and on celebrities). Halle Berry was one of the ones that set the trend for this look. I think the BSC were all a bunch of haters in this one. Book after book they push at Maryanne to come out a little more and when she does what do they do. Tell her the look isn’t right for her. And what’s crazy is the look is and Claudia and Stacey don’t pick up on this right away but they’re supposed to be “the fashion experts”. Noone tells her until *the end* of the book and then they all just LOVE her hair. REALLY?!
But who I was impressed HIGHLY with was Richard. Was Richard not *the best* dad in this book? First of all, I don’t know of any dad’s (or males for that matter) who will sit around in a beauty salon for 2 or 3 hours. Even the nicest one might drop you off, maybe pay for it, and then pick you up. But sit around with you and *wait*? Not gonna happen. It takes WAY longer in a beauty salon than a barber shop. The same with men going with ladies to shop. This is what I’ve seen from men. Most of the time they like to get what they’ve come for and be out. I have not seen ONE that will stand around in a store while their (daughter, wife, girlfriend, sister, etc) stands around browsing through clothes racks for hours. *I* don’t even like doing this.
Logan was great too! He immediately apologizes when he sees she’s upset that he wasn’t enthusiastic about her getting her hair cut. He encourages her all through the book not to listen to “her friends”. He comes to the meetings with her to kind of have her back. He comes to her and doesn’t do like some guys do in books when they hear there’s someone else and get all mad. He’s actually more decent about it then a male I use to date that would fly all off the handle if I didn’t get back to him when he paged me. (This was when I was in college). So, Richard and Logan both get 10’s from. The BSC gets O’s because they were all PETTY for no reason whatsoever!
Rating: 7 This one wasn’t as bad as the last one’s have been.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 20, 2026
Keeping my rating even if it is just for the nostalgia of buying this from B. Dalton.
The debut of Mary Anne's short haircut.
I'm not sure what other books Peter Lerangis ghostwrote before this one but yeah, it is kind of funny to have a man writing about teenage girls having drama. The B-plot of Carolyn Arnold of the Arnold Twins thinking she can build a time machine like in Back to The Future sounds like something more his speed.
Mary Anne is just sitting in Claudia's room for a BSC meeting and spots a model in Seventeen magazine sporting a very 1920s hairstyle. All of the other girls (well, Jessi and Mal just give little smiles as if they think Mary Anne would never go through with it) tell Mary Anne that it just isn't the right hair cut for her.
Mary Anne has grown so much backbone that she decides that she would like to have shorter hair than her long hair to bring out her face while looking in the mirror. Still a little insecure since her dad has always been strict, she asks him if thinks she would look good with the haircut.
Richard says that he thinks Mary Anne would look lovely with the haircut but is it what she really wants? Yes, it is so thank you Mr. Spier for being a good parent! Mary Anne wants it to be a surprise since it is a New Year, New Mary Anne so Richard plans it as a father-daughter outing.
He takes Mary Anne to the Washington Mall to the place where Stacey gets her hair permed by her stylist, Joyce. There happens to be a new cosmetic store having a grand opening with free makeovers, so Richard allows Mary Anne to purchase the make-up the ladies use on her. Buying them lunch as well, Richard says that Mary Anne can pay him back with her baby-sitting money when Mary Anne sees a dress to wear to the January Jamboree dance with Logan.
The nice day becomes sort of sour when they get home. Sharon thinks Mary Anne looks great, but Dawn barely says a word about how her stepsister looks. Dawn seems to be perturbed that Mary Anne didn't tell her and that she got some new clothes and make-up. The catty line is crossed when Mary Anne calls Logan to say she has a surprise for him tomorrow on Sunday and Dawn is on the line to spoil that she got a haircut.
Logan, however, loves Mary Anne's new haircut and so do a lot of people at Stoneybrook Middle.
All except for Kristy, Stacey, Claudia and Dawn. Dawn told the other girls and they offer back-handed opinions more than compliments that her hair will grow out so Mary Anne is angrier after the hurt fades away. She sits with Logan at lunch separately from the BSC and asks him to go with her to the meeting that afternoon because Mary Anne is still a sensitive person. When he already has plans for Friday, Mary Anne goes it alone but spends most of her time after school with Logan.
At the meeting, Kristy shows off the new things she bought for the Kid-Kits without Mary Anne that they were supposed to get together. The reception is so cold that Mary Anne decides she is done with going to meetings until one of the girls can apologize. It is bad that she and Dawn aren't even talking at home to each other and Mary Anne still keeps her appointments but thinks seriously about quitting the club.
It isn't made clear if it was some other girls that were already popular and jealous of Mary Anne getting an upgrade or Kristy because she has older brothers that go to the high school, but a rumor starts around SMS. Mary Anne is going out with some guy named Chris or Carlos to the high school winter dance and it causes problems between her and Logan.
I do not miss the world of middle school gossip and high school mean girls. This book came out before I even turned ten and I should have paid more attention to it then instead of maybe thinking it was exciting and cool.
Eventually it is explained by Dawn to Mary Anne that she was more jealous of Mary Anne spending time with her dad than getting the haircut and all the new things. Dawn misses her dad and would like to be that close to Richard but also, she was hurt that Mary Anne didn't want to do this whole make-over thing with her since they are sisters. Part of it makes sense I suppose.
The other girls patch things up too and admit they like Mary Anne's new haircut. Earlier in the book, Logan picks up on all the passive-aggressiveness of the others towards Mary Anne and just says they are jealous. Where were all of these smart teenage boys when I went to middle school?
Points for Logan in that even though he likes the new hair style it is important that Mary Anne likes it and he learned from their break-up not to be controlling. Another shock is that even Cokie Mason says something far nicer to Mary Anne about her new hair than her so-called best friends.
A day when pigs flew, I'm sure.
Mary Anne's Makeover is still one of my favorite BSC books. If you haven't read this one, I highly recommend it.
The debut of Mary Anne's short haircut.
I'm not sure what other books Peter Lerangis ghostwrote before this one but yeah, it is kind of funny to have a man writing about teenage girls having drama. The B-plot of Carolyn Arnold of the Arnold Twins thinking she can build a time machine like in Back to The Future sounds like something more his speed.
Mary Anne is just sitting in Claudia's room for a BSC meeting and spots a model in Seventeen magazine sporting a very 1920s hairstyle. All of the other girls (well, Jessi and Mal just give little smiles as if they think Mary Anne would never go through with it) tell Mary Anne that it just isn't the right hair cut for her.
Mary Anne has grown so much backbone that she decides that she would like to have shorter hair than her long hair to bring out her face while looking in the mirror. Still a little insecure since her dad has always been strict, she asks him if thinks she would look good with the haircut.
Richard says that he thinks Mary Anne would look lovely with the haircut but is it what she really wants? Yes, it is so thank you Mr. Spier for being a good parent! Mary Anne wants it to be a surprise since it is a New Year, New Mary Anne so Richard plans it as a father-daughter outing.
He takes Mary Anne to the Washington Mall to the place where Stacey gets her hair permed by her stylist, Joyce. There happens to be a new cosmetic store having a grand opening with free makeovers, so Richard allows Mary Anne to purchase the make-up the ladies use on her. Buying them lunch as well, Richard says that Mary Anne can pay him back with her baby-sitting money when Mary Anne sees a dress to wear to the January Jamboree dance with Logan.
The nice day becomes sort of sour when they get home. Sharon thinks Mary Anne looks great, but Dawn barely says a word about how her stepsister looks. Dawn seems to be perturbed that Mary Anne didn't tell her and that she got some new clothes and make-up. The catty line is crossed when Mary Anne calls Logan to say she has a surprise for him tomorrow on Sunday and Dawn is on the line to spoil that she got a haircut.
Logan, however, loves Mary Anne's new haircut and so do a lot of people at Stoneybrook Middle.
All except for Kristy, Stacey, Claudia and Dawn. Dawn told the other girls and they offer back-handed opinions more than compliments that her hair will grow out so Mary Anne is angrier after the hurt fades away. She sits with Logan at lunch separately from the BSC and asks him to go with her to the meeting that afternoon because Mary Anne is still a sensitive person. When he already has plans for Friday, Mary Anne goes it alone but spends most of her time after school with Logan.
At the meeting, Kristy shows off the new things she bought for the Kid-Kits without Mary Anne that they were supposed to get together. The reception is so cold that Mary Anne decides she is done with going to meetings until one of the girls can apologize. It is bad that she and Dawn aren't even talking at home to each other and Mary Anne still keeps her appointments but thinks seriously about quitting the club.
It isn't made clear if it was some other girls that were already popular and jealous of Mary Anne getting an upgrade or Kristy because she has older brothers that go to the high school, but a rumor starts around SMS. Mary Anne is going out with some guy named Chris or Carlos to the high school winter dance and it causes problems between her and Logan.
I do not miss the world of middle school gossip and high school mean girls. This book came out before I even turned ten and I should have paid more attention to it then instead of maybe thinking it was exciting and cool.
Eventually it is explained by Dawn to Mary Anne that she was more jealous of Mary Anne spending time with her dad than getting the haircut and all the new things. Dawn misses her dad and would like to be that close to Richard but also, she was hurt that Mary Anne didn't want to do this whole make-over thing with her since they are sisters. Part of it makes sense I suppose.
The other girls patch things up too and admit they like Mary Anne's new haircut. Earlier in the book, Logan picks up on all the passive-aggressiveness of the others towards Mary Anne and just says they are jealous. Where were all of these smart teenage boys when I went to middle school?
Points for Logan in that even though he likes the new hair style it is important that Mary Anne likes it and he learned from their break-up not to be controlling. Another shock is that even Cokie Mason says something far nicer to Mary Anne about her new hair than her so-called best friends.
A day when pigs flew, I'm sure.
Mary Anne's Makeover is still one of my favorite BSC books. If you haven't read this one, I highly recommend it.
October 26, 2020
This was a cute book. I like seeing Mary Anne come out of her shell more and become more confident. Dawn was such a snot to her though! But Logan was a sweetheart. Also, it’s pretty impressive that Stacey landed Kristy’s brother Sam as her date to the middle school dance - he’s in high school! (If I’m remembering correctly, he’s the one who flirted with her a lot in the very first book of the series so he must really like her!)
June 26, 2012
OMG, the babysitters are such total b-words to Mary Anne in this book, and she ends up apologizing to them! All because she had the nerve to get a new look—after many derisive comments from the BSC that she wouldn't dare. And then when she does dare? More derision!
Oh, hell, no.
She does show more of a spine in this one, but damn if she isn't also simultaneously reverting to her old invertebrate ways.
If you aren't rooting for Mary Anne to get some real friends and for Dawn to choke on an alfalfa sprout by the end of this installment, then I don't get you.
Oh, hell, no.
She does show more of a spine in this one, but damn if she isn't also simultaneously reverting to her old invertebrate ways.
If you aren't rooting for Mary Anne to get some real friends and for Dawn to choke on an alfalfa sprout by the end of this installment, then I don't get you.
June 15, 2020
As much as I love this book, it’s also infuriating. I love reading about Mary Anne’s makeover, I love how awesome Logan is in this one, and I love the time machine plot, but the way the other girls treat Mary Anne is awful.
I sort of understand why Dawn is jealous at first, but there is no excuse for Kristy, Claudia and Stacey’s reactions. Even after Mary Anne and Dawn finally have a heart-to-heart, there is still never any resolution on why the other girls were so nasty to her.
This might be the only BSC book that I love this much while also hating most of the plot.
I sort of understand why Dawn is jealous at first, but there is no excuse for Kristy, Claudia and Stacey’s reactions. Even after Mary Anne and Dawn finally have a heart-to-heart, there is still never any resolution on why the other girls were so nasty to her.
This might be the only BSC book that I love this much while also hating most of the plot.
January 7, 2022
I won't defend Mary Anne’s haircut, because I know my rating of Mary Anne books will be directly impacted by how strongly I reacted to the cover and my recent unfortunate short haircut. That said, Dawn continues to be an emotionally unstable, vindictive bitch, and the BSC’s reaction to a HAIRCUT is honestly concerning. The fact that I even have to say “Mary Anne should be able to get a hideous Nick Carter haircut without losing every single one of her friends” shows how cultish the BSC has become.
August 7, 2021
The first part of this book with Mary Anne and her dad shopping and hanging out at the mall was really cute, the babysitting storyline is really cute, but I'm so tired of the drama amongst the BSC members over dumb stuff. I know they're middle schoolers but there have been so many plotlines with the same things happening and they really never learn to speak to each other? The only person who doesn't suck in this book is Logan.
January 3, 2022
I enjoyed the shopping mall chapter best, where Mary Anne's dad takes her to get her haircut (with Stacey's stylist) and buys her makeup and new clothes, including a red dress for the upcoming school dance. The baby sitters didn't like her new look and gave her a hard time, and this made me dislike Dawn as well, who was anything but supportive. She made it all about herself. The rest of the book didn't do much for me.
December 9, 2009
Mary Anne gets an update from her braids and schoolgirl outfits to leggings and a short haircut. New and improved? Eh. But now she's getting more attention at school and Logan is jealous, and so is Dawn? For me the part that stands out most is when some hair falls in her eyes and she thinks a spider landed on her head.
Read
September 10, 2019It was, of course, a great book. But I didn't like the bullying (hit a little close to home), and Dawn says something really heartbreaking at the end (but I won't tell what). Of course, I love ALL things Mary Anne. But she breaks my heart a little.
July 26, 2010
I've never liked how the other girls treat Mary Anne in this one. They were no better than bullies.
July 18, 2013
fine book a dab think to girls love makeover and stuff
December 19, 2020
These books always feel like coming home. This one wasn't my favourite and also gave me trauma flashbacks to grade 8 and how means girls can be for no reason but all in all these are so solid
September 3, 2023
Okay, first: go Mary Anne! Live your best life, and good for you for going ahead with the haircut and new clothes even after your friends tease you about wanting the cut in the first place.
And second: BSC members SUCK. Seriously. Especially Dawn. (Not Mallory and Jessi, who as Mary Anne notes, were innocent bystanders throughout the whole mess.) But for real. You're 13 years old, one of your best friends (or stepsister-BFF!) gets a new hairstyle and new clothes. She's understandably both excited AND NERVOUS about it. And instead of having her back and assuring her she looks incredible, they tell her she looks awful??? WTF???
The worst part is that she doesn't even objectively look awful. Every other character, INCLUDING ARCH-NEMESIS COKIE MASON, says Mary Anne looks great in the new cut. It's only her supposed best friends who tell her it doesn't suit her, and it'll grow out, and (Dawn -- grr) she looks like a boy. Who TF needs those kinds of friends???
Logan is a total champ, even though the series makes him a baddie at various points, he's super sweet and supportive of Mary Anne here. And honestly acts much better than the BSC members do. Seriously, the BSC goes full mean girls on Mary Anne.
And the reason Dawn is so mean to Mary Anne about the cut is that she's hurt Mary Anne didn't invite her along? Why would she, Dawn, when she showed you guys the cut in the magazine and ALL OF YOU said it wouldn't suit her? Why on earth would she invite that kind of negativity into her big moment???
Even worse I think are Stacey and Claudia. Like okay, I can see how Dawn and Kristy are super hurt and disliking how Mary Anne is changing, and just reacting immaturely. But Stacey and Claudia are the fashionistas of the group; surely they would be able to objectively appreciate how good Mary Anne looks in the new cut and hair? But nooooo they neg her as much as Kristy and Dawn do!
And then when Sabrina spreads a rumour about Mary Anne cheating on Logan with a random high school guy named Carlos, DAWN BELIEVES HER??? Seriously, Dawn??? What kind of BFF-stepsister are you?
Ughhhh...
In brief: Mary Anne is awesome, and she deserves much better friends than the BSC.
4 stars only for how awesome Mary Anne and her makeover are. 1 star for Claudia and Stacey. ZERO STARS FOR DAWN AND KRISTY. Or maybe a negative five stars for Dawn, I dunno. Ugh.
And second: BSC members SUCK. Seriously. Especially Dawn. (Not Mallory and Jessi, who as Mary Anne notes, were innocent bystanders throughout the whole mess.) But for real. You're 13 years old, one of your best friends (or stepsister-BFF!) gets a new hairstyle and new clothes. She's understandably both excited AND NERVOUS about it. And instead of having her back and assuring her she looks incredible, they tell her she looks awful??? WTF???
The worst part is that she doesn't even objectively look awful. Every other character, INCLUDING ARCH-NEMESIS COKIE MASON, says Mary Anne looks great in the new cut. It's only her supposed best friends who tell her it doesn't suit her, and it'll grow out, and (Dawn -- grr) she looks like a boy. Who TF needs those kinds of friends???
Logan is a total champ, even though the series makes him a baddie at various points, he's super sweet and supportive of Mary Anne here. And honestly acts much better than the BSC members do. Seriously, the BSC goes full mean girls on Mary Anne.
And the reason Dawn is so mean to Mary Anne about the cut is that she's hurt Mary Anne didn't invite her along? Why would she, Dawn, when she showed you guys the cut in the magazine and ALL OF YOU said it wouldn't suit her? Why on earth would she invite that kind of negativity into her big moment???
Even worse I think are Stacey and Claudia. Like okay, I can see how Dawn and Kristy are super hurt and disliking how Mary Anne is changing, and just reacting immaturely. But Stacey and Claudia are the fashionistas of the group; surely they would be able to objectively appreciate how good Mary Anne looks in the new cut and hair? But nooooo they neg her as much as Kristy and Dawn do!
And then when Sabrina spreads a rumour about Mary Anne cheating on Logan with a random high school guy named Carlos, DAWN BELIEVES HER??? Seriously, Dawn??? What kind of BFF-stepsister are you?
Ughhhh...
In brief: Mary Anne is awesome, and she deserves much better friends than the BSC.
4 stars only for how awesome Mary Anne and her makeover are. 1 star for Claudia and Stacey. ZERO STARS FOR DAWN AND KRISTY. Or maybe a negative five stars for Dawn, I dunno. Ugh.
February 1, 2025
One of the worst books in the series. Mary Anne gets a surprise haircut/makeup/two (2) whole new outfits (with one being a new dress for a school dance), and her best friends / stepsister lose their ever-loving minds, too caught up in jealousy from the attention/not being the ones to get a Brand New Outfit to get over Mary Anne not getting their permission before acquiring, quote, her "boy haircut". Mary Anne temporarily grows a backbone and stops talking to them after too many rude comments. They double down when she dares to spend time with her supportive boyfriend instead of freely tolerating their abuse. Eventually, she grows tired of the fighting and decides to stop "avoiding the problem" when they don't apologize, and ends up groveling to the meanest of the bunch (her stepsister) for forgiveness so her friends will stop bullying her.
A very disappointing book. I wish I could use Carolyn Arnold's time machine to go back and avoid reading it. But hey, I managed to block out the majority of the nasty details of the book when I first read it 25 years ago, and hopefully I can do it again.
A very disappointing book. I wish I could use Carolyn Arnold's time machine to go back and avoid reading it. But hey, I managed to block out the majority of the nasty details of the book when I first read it 25 years ago, and hopefully I can do it again.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 1, 2023
This is the worst Baby-Sitters Club book I've ever read. The other members are so cruel to Mary Anne!! Bullying her as well as ignoring her because they don't like her new hair cut/she didn't include them, especially Mary Anne's stepsister Dawn. I'm really disappointed because Dawn was one of my favourite characters as a child. I'm really glad my childhood self didn't read this one!
The subplot about one of the twins they babysit creating a time machine was extremely boring.
The only positive aspect of this book was how supportive Mary Anne's Dad was! He was really encouraging and let her express herself through changing her hair and clothing style (contrary to how he was in the early novels) and they had a fun day at the mall together because of it.
Overall, a slow and tedious read with frustrating behaviour and miscommunication towards Mary Anne (Logan included). With friends like these, who needs enemies? :(
The subplot about one of the twins they babysit creating a time machine was extremely boring.
The only positive aspect of this book was how supportive Mary Anne's Dad was! He was really encouraging and let her express herself through changing her hair and clothing style (contrary to how he was in the early novels) and they had a fun day at the mall together because of it.
Overall, a slow and tedious read with frustrating behaviour and miscommunication towards Mary Anne (Logan included). With friends like these, who needs enemies? :(
January 12, 2026
This is the big book for Mary Anne, where she cuts all of her hair off!
It's her (fifth?) new year as an 8th grader, and she makes a resolution to be her best self. When she sees a model with a short hair cut in a magazine, she thinks she could pull it off, and surprisingly, her dad agrees! They have a really nice father-daughter day at the mall, she gets her haircut, and Richard buys her some makeup and pays for half of the clothes she wants! Who is this guy?
Then, Dawn is a jerk like usual and is mean to her about her haircut. Logan is nicer than usual and really supportive. All of the BSC 8th graders are mean to her. Eventually they all make up.
And Carolyn Arnold is building a time machine in her basement.
There's a reference to Beauty and the Beast the movie, which was only a couple of years old at this point! And Back to the Future.
Mary Anne was pretty cool in this book and I hope she stays that way.
It's her (fifth?) new year as an 8th grader, and she makes a resolution to be her best self. When she sees a model with a short hair cut in a magazine, she thinks she could pull it off, and surprisingly, her dad agrees! They have a really nice father-daughter day at the mall, she gets her haircut, and Richard buys her some makeup and pays for half of the clothes she wants! Who is this guy?
Then, Dawn is a jerk like usual and is mean to her about her haircut. Logan is nicer than usual and really supportive. All of the BSC 8th graders are mean to her. Eventually they all make up.
And Carolyn Arnold is building a time machine in her basement.
There's a reference to Beauty and the Beast the movie, which was only a couple of years old at this point! And Back to the Future.
Mary Anne was pretty cool in this book and I hope she stays that way.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 22, 2019
Great moral, but the plots made no sense. I can kinda understand why Dawn was upset, but the other BSC members’ reasons aren’t clear. I have 2 theories though.
If it’s just because they didn’t want her to cut her hair, that’s weird. If they were jealous, I have something to say: “Stacey, Kristy, Claudia, you are my favorite BSC characters. In fact, I’m going to read your books next to show my appreciation.” The only good things about this book were the outfits:
pg. 17: teal stirrups, colorful, bulky snowflake print sweater, and pink turtleneck (Mary Anne)
pg. 19: slouch hat, sequined vest, oversized button down shirt, stirrups, and lace up boots (Claudia)
pg. 51: oversized indigo cable knit sweater and a pair of floral paisley print Lycra leggings with a French terry top (Mary Anne)
If it’s just because they didn’t want her to cut her hair, that’s weird. If they were jealous, I have something to say: “Stacey, Kristy, Claudia, you are my favorite BSC characters. In fact, I’m going to read your books next to show my appreciation.” The only good things about this book were the outfits:
pg. 17: teal stirrups, colorful, bulky snowflake print sweater, and pink turtleneck (Mary Anne)
pg. 19: slouch hat, sequined vest, oversized button down shirt, stirrups, and lace up boots (Claudia)
pg. 51: oversized indigo cable knit sweater and a pair of floral paisley print Lycra leggings with a French terry top (Mary Anne)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 24, 2020
This books seems superficial at first glance, but actually is quite important. It's so difficult to make such a drastic change as a teenager, even more so without the support of your friends. I loved that those who supported Mary Anne complimented her appearance, but drilled home that the most important thing is that she was happy and comfortable with her new look. While it's nice to be attractive for others, it's so important to make yourself look good for yourself, first and foremost.
I would have liked to have seen some of the views of the other characters to understand how they were feeling, and why they were so nasty.
I would have liked to have seen some of the views of the other characters to understand how they were feeling, and why they were so nasty.
August 28, 2017
This book upset me SO MUCH when I was a kid! I despised how mean the other girls were to Mary Anne just because she dared to get a hair cut and buy herself some new clothes. These girls could be pretty shallow and petty in these books, but this one more or less took the cake with all that. How on earth could you totally just ostracize your best friend/step sister because she wanted to surprise you with a new look? These girls were the freaking worst, I swear.
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