Ainslee’s Reviews > The All-New Mallory Pike > Status Update

Oh yeah, and Mallory says she's staying at Riverhurst through high school, for the record. Honestly, she potentially got the best end of any BSC character with this one.

SUBPLOT: The Pike kids all want Mallory and Vanessa's room. Weirdly, Byron Does Not Care about any of it, much to Adam and Jordan's horror, so he ends up rooming with Nicky (and all four girls room together, which Mallory must love on vacations). Really wish we had more of the triplets' conversations past this to figure out if that did anything to their relationship.

Meanwhile, Mallory makes at least three really good friends, and she loves her classes and her new life. It's actually really uplifting after all the crap she's been through the whole series, and these friends seem way more on her level than the non-Jessi BSC members. I actually feel sad we don't get to see more of Mallory-- I'd have liked a whole Riverhurst spinoff.

Things are mentioned about her "problems" but never expounded on (guessing a bad home life) which I liked rather than making it all in the reader's face. Mallory goes through mediation channels, which is all realistic-- first the RA, then the dean, who has the roommate who got the single room switch with Alexis, and problem solved. I hope Alexis got some therapy after that; something was definitely wrong with her.

FINALLY we get to Riverhurst, her new boarding school. It's kind of weird-- they have a class that mashes up English and history with SCIENCE of all things; her 6th grade French class is entirely in French; they're reading a Flannery O'Connor story in her English class-- but also sounds really fun. Of course, we need conflict, and here it's her roommate Alexis, who's basically a psycho.

It starts out not-so-great, though, as Mallory daydreams about her family's mealtimes once she's gone. Apparently her parents still believe in hands-off parenting, so all her siblings are running amuck without Mallory to calm them down. Geez, no wonder she's leaving.

Then she launches into a BSC explanation, mentioning that they'd bring Jackie R. a Kid-Kit if he were sick. Uh, won't that just spread germs?

Okay, I... I actually think this is legitimately a good book. I think I'm going to give it 5 stars. This feels wrong somehow. But I always did like this book-- It's a completely new perspective for a BSC book, and by #126 in the series, that's welcome.