Making Out 5: Claire Gets Caught

Making Out #5

by Katherine Applegate

A brand new look for the hugely successful Making Out - the series guaranteed to hook any teenager who's ever fallen in - or out - of love! Making Out 5: Claire Gets Caught; Zoey, Lucas, Jake, Nina, Benjamin, Claire, Christopher and Aisha have all grown up together on Chatham Island, just off the Maine coast. Claire's always been unable to resist interfering in other people's love lives - particularly when it might help her own. If Claire wants something she usually gets it, and it looks like Ben's about to fall straight into the trap, unless Claire gets caught.

Genres: Young Adult, Romance, Fiction, Contemporary Romance, Contemporary, Teen, Childrens

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

#1 New York Times bestselling author Katherine Applegate has written many books for young readers, including THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN, winner of the 2013 Newbery Medal.

Katherine’s picture books include THE BUFFALO STORM, illustrated by Jan Ormerod (Clarion Books); THE REMARKABLE TRUE STORY OF IVAN, THE SHOPPING MALL GORILLA, illustrated by G. Brian Karas (Clarion Books); SOMETIMES YOU FLY, illustrated by Jennifer Black Reinhardt (Clarion Books); and ODDER: AN OTTER’S STORY, illustrated by Charles Santoso (Feiwel & Friends).

She’s written or co-written three early chapter series for young readers: ROSCOE RILEY RULES, a seven-book series illustrated by Brian Biggs (HarperCollins); DOGGO AND PUPPER, a three-book series illustrated by Charlie Alder (Feiwel & Friends). With Gennifer Choldenko, she co-authored DOGTOWN and MOUSE AND HIS DOG, illustrated by Wallace West (Feiwel & Friends).

Books for middle-grade readers include HOME OF THE BRAVE (Feiwel & Friends); THE ONE AND ONLY series, illustrated by Patricia Castelao, including THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN, THE ONE AND ONLY BOB, THE ONE AND ONLY RUBY, and THE ONE AND ONLY FAMILY (HarperCollins); the ENDLING trilogy (HarperCollins); CRENSHAW (Feiwel & Friends); WISHTREE (Feiwel & Friends); WILLODEEN (Feiwel & Friends); ODDER (Feiwel & Friends); and the forthcoming POCKET BEAR (Feiwel & Friends).

With her husband, Michael Grant, Katherine co-wrote ANIMORPHS, a long-running series that has sold over 35 million books worldwide. They also wrote two other series, REMNANTS and EVERWORLD, and a young adult novel, EVE AND ADAM (Feiwel & Friends.)

Katherine’s work has been translated into dozens of languages, and her books have won accolades including the Christopher Medal, the Golden Kite Award, the Bank Street Josette Frank Award, the California Book Award Gold Medal, the Crystal Kite Award, the Green Earth Book Honor Award, the Charlotte Zolotow Honor Award, and the E.B. White Read Aloud Award. Many of her works have appeared on state master lists, Best of the Year lists, and Publishers Weekly, USA Today, and New York Times bestseller lists.

Katherine lives in Nevada with her husband and assorted pets. She is represented by Elena Giovinazzo at Heirloom Literary and Mary Pender at WME.

Reviews

[Sarah Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Claire Gets Caught - daft title because Claire doesn't really get caught doing anything 🤷🏻‍♀️

* Claire organises a ski trip for the gang because there's snow forecast in Vermont. She makes a point of not inviting Jake, even though he is the person she has arranged the whole thing for.
* Anyway, they all end up skiing, in a condo with a hot tub, but only 3 beds and a sofa bed.
- Nina has a go at Claire because she thinks she's after Benjamin, but Claire tells her she was only dancing with Benjamin to get Jake back.
- Zoey asks Jake about the drug use on the football team because she's been asked to write an article about it, and he over-reacts because he thinks that she knows about him using cocaine.
- Jake forgives Claire and they get back together, because he wants some kind of forgiveness for being stupid and using cocaine. Claire is pretty happy about this.
- Aisha hangs out with a Russian boy called Peter, and gets shouted at by Christopher. She's happy that he's jealous, because she still likes him more than anyone.
- Benjamin shouts at Nina because he thinks she's hanging around because she pities him, Nina just doesn't like skiing though, so she eventually tells him that she'd much rather be with him.
- Lucas tries to pressure Zoey into sleeping with him, and tells her he even bought condoms. Zoey tells him again that she's not ready, and explains that if she's slept with Jake and then Lucas she'd have had 2 sexual partners already by age 17, and she thinks that's a lot. Lucas tells her that if she won't sleep with him, he'll find someone else who will and storms off. Zoey decides to go home early.
* Zoey takes several buses back home and goes across to the island on the ferry. She goes home and catches her mother in bed with another man 😲

[Caitlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

K THIS BOOK WAS AWESOME.

I loved it so much. The quiz thing that ran through the entire book was such a neat tie in. I LOVE how she utilizes the diary entries. I wish I could have seen everybody's answers. It was really funny to see the girl's (especially Zoey's) and then Lucas' responses lololol.


This book's main plot was that Claire was trying to get everyone to go to Vermont to go skiing, partially because she likes skiing but mostly so she could sneakily find a way to get alone time with Jake and they could get back together. There was a bit of dramatics involved in trying to get everyone to go which were very enjoyable. One of my favourite parts was when Claire told Benjamin and made it seem like everyone was already going and Benjamin told Lucas who had no idea and then Lucas was super excited about being able to dangle the fact that she didn't tell him under Zoey's nose lmfao.

Another favourite part was Nina comparing herself and Claire to papayas.

And a third final part before I get into like relationship/plotwise specifics was when they all went to the mall and Applegate listed off what they all bought. My favourite part of that was (begrudgingly) Aisha and Christopher both buying the exact same beginning skiing books, and Lucas buying mouthwash, tic-tacs and condoms LOL. For whatever reason that just made me love him even more. I AM HELPLESSLY IN LOVE :(

Specifics!

I guess I will start off with Zoey and Lucas. :( It's hard because I like... I can see BOTH sides :( It's also hard because Applegate's writing in this is both more risque then Animorphs/Everworld was but not risque enough to make it clear exactly what "stuff" Zoey and Lucas are currently doing in their relationship. So I don't know if they're basically just making out and getting handsy or if they're doing everything else in between there and actual sex. I am so on the fence with how I feel about Zoey and it makes me feel like KIND OF an awful person, but I guess for me sex isn't really as much of a big deal as it is to Zoey.Then again I guess she is seventeen, still. But I think Lucas is being extraordinarily patient with her and he seems like he's going about it in the right ways - he wants this to be about both of them. And she's just way too scared to try it. She's building this up and up and up. It seems to be if she was going to sleep with ANYONE she's in the best possible position for it. (Although perhaps in a sleeping bag in the back of a van is not the most romantic of places to lose one's virginity).

That being said, while I understand Lucas' frustrations he did not handle it well. Zoey made it pretty clear that just because they were going to be in a parent-free zone didn't mean they were going to do it and he still barrelled ahead absolutely assuming they would. He brought her out to the van with zero discussion, then yanked out some condoms and then got pissed when Zoey didn't go along with it. Noooot the best plan, Lucas. However... for a lot of people sex is a REALLY important factor in a relationship, and Zoey is basically acting like that's just not going to be in the cards for them. She doesn't even give him any sort of indication that sometime along the road she'll be ready. It's not fair to either of them. I hope they figure out a way to get through this.

Nina and Benjamin!
I love them :) I think they're super cute, Nina especially. I really loved the parts when everyone else went skiing and Benjamin was kind of a douchenozzle and assumed the only reason Nina would ever stay behind was because of pity. For someone so smart, he can be kind of dumb sometimes. I was very excited when they eventually started to communicate and ended up making out :D I hope they last, but I don't know... there's just something about it that makes me unsure if they will. I guess I don't really know enough of what Benjamin actually feels yet. I wish he had more diary entries.

Aisha and Christopher!
First of all, Christopher got sent back on my shit list this book. It started off with Christopher answering a quiz question by saying that he should be able to see other girls but his girlfriends should not be. UM EXCUSE ME?!?!?!?

And he just continued to piss me off the entire time. He's just such a jackass! He talks about how he loves Aisha but continues to not act like it at all. I was happy when Aisha met Peter, and was almost hoping that would develop into something romantic. I was pissed when she got back and Christopher was like "WHO THE FUCK WAS THAT". I want Aisha to meet someone better. She deserves way more than Christopher.
His only redeeming factor in the book was the scene with Lucas where they were both very adorable talking about Christopher's posh living conditions.

Finally Claire and Jake. Firstly, I love Claire lol. POOR JAKE THOUGH. Ugh. At least he seemed to be getting better this book and didn't do anything extraordinarily idiotic. Absolutely nothing good can come of Zoey's newspaper assignment. As soon as I read that I was just like "Welllll fuck".

Excited/nervous to see how the next one goes, but then I'm out of books until Canada Post picks up it's goddamn slack and sends the rest of them. >:(

[Nicky (burialshroud) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my favourite of the Making Out series when I was growing up because there's a road trip, a mall shopping trip and there's a snowy, cosy feel to the book. I enjoyed it a lot this time around.

The novel centres around Claire's plans to get Jake back by depriving him of her presence for a week, then showing him what he's missing on a weekend ski-trip with the rest of the Chatham Island gang. Nina and Benjamin have forgotten how to communicate with each other after their successful homecoming dance date so spend the whole book misunderstanding each other. Pretty annoying but they end up getting together so no harm done in the long term. Christopher is living at Aisha's B&B while he recovers from his injuries, there is some kissing but they're not totally together again.

Lucas is an absolute jackass throughout this whole book. He's pressuring Zoey to sleep with him and in the end thinks that an unzipped sleeping bag in the back of her parents' van is going to be the thing to really drive her wild with desire. It doesn't work, Zoey leaves the trip early and catches her mum cheating with Jake's dad. Poor Jake! He cannot catch a break.

Claire is doing her deluded, romantic puppet-master bit again during this book. Tiresome. She also reveals that she thinks all her exes are still in love with her, including Lucas who as far as I can tell does not even realise she is still knocking around.

Favourite moments:
-Early on in the book there's a scene with the girls just chatting on the ferry that's so great. I would love to read more scenes like this in books in general, just a bunch of girls, being bloody good pals.
-Claire reveals to Nina in an outside-a-nightclub argument that the whole weekend was set up to get Jake back.
-The lists showing what everyone bought on the pre-trip mall visit.
-The road trip chapter. I thought it really captured the fun/exasperating nature of going on a long drive somewhere.

Notes:
-No sign of Holly.
-While the gang is at the club there is no mention made of Aisha's sub-par dancing. I'm sure this is a thing in one of the later books. In fact Aisha meets an Estonian who asks for dance lessons from her in exchange for skiing lessons from him.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the road trip aspect of this book. Nina and Benjamin are definitely becoming my favourites in this series. Claire is still the worst. I still hate how some issues are being handled and how certain character relationships are being handled.

[Jenn N · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another reread of a classic series I first read when I was like 13.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seems to be getting back on track, I really enjoyed this one and all the developments within

[Taylor Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Im obsessed!!!@

[Misha Saad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now i want to complete the series .!!!

[Dori · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't like care and was disappointed in Lucas in this book.

[Elaine Mullane || Elaine and the Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

Feeling nostalgic for the books of my youth, I revisited Katherine Applegate and her Islanders omnibus editions (first released as the Making Out series way back in 1993. Yes, I am that old...).

While I found them to be overly-dramatic and a little bit cheesy on second reading, I think they would be loved by teenagers today. YA has taken a much-welcome step in the sphere of fantasy, science fiction and Dystopia, largely, in recent years so for teenagers looking for the traditional romance novels filled with teen-angst and buried secrets, these are a good series to turn to. A little bit Dawson's Creek in it's setting and it's drama, The Islanders is the perfect teen soap opera.

[C. B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember being obsessed with this series when I was 14! I made my mom buy me all 29 books (in Germany a 29th book was published, there is no English translation) after borrowing the first one from my then-best friend.
Looking back, the plots got wilder and wilder with time: A lost half-sister, Claire's stalker, Ben miraculously being able to see again etc. I don't think I would enjoy it as much now as I did ten years ago, but it will only have a special place in my heart.

[Katherine Hayward Pérez · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was going to be a five, but I gave it a four as there is quite a lot of talking about the road trip, and it is not until about chapter 13 that they go on it. In this book, we get to know more about Claire, and her relationships. The group also takes a road trip to Vermont. You can see more of this review on my blog myreadingparadise.wordpress.com.

[Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recommend reading this series. It will teach you about relationships.

[Jenaya · Rating 4 out of 5]

love, lost....good

[Isa · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.0

[Katelynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

SO STRESSFUL. also cute. MOSTLY STRESSFUL.

[Nadine · Rating 4 out of 5]

diese Buchreihe hat mich während meiner Teeniezeit begleitet. ich habe sie so geliebt...