PEN PALS 1

So when I last did a review, it was mere hours before Hurricane Michael hit. Michael would change my entire life. We lived without power, running water and cell service for 8 days. Our entire apartment complex was condemned. We were forced to call my dad, who lives in North Carolina, and have him help relocate us.

Here it is, about 5 weeks after we arrived. We lived in a motel for almost a month before being able to move into our new apartment.

The majority of what I lost in the hurricane was books. My entire off-site storage unit was inaccessible, so we abandoned it. The last time we checked, they still weren't answering phones. My favorite books were in the apartment, but I lost almost all my childhood collections, academic books, manga, Archies I've collected since 4th grade, graphic novels, Stephen King books, all these series that I loved and spent thousands on, just gone. The only 80s/90s girl series I still have are Sleepover Friends, Bad News Ballet, Junior High, and Canby Hall. And I only have Canby Hall because I never got very far rereading them! My entire Babysitters Club, Sweet Valley Twins and Fabulous Five collections are gone.

Now that we've got an address again and I've got income, I looked into some of these series on ebay. Obviously, BSC and SVT are out of reach. There are just plain too many of them. But smaller series are quite doable. Pen Pals is one I was going to reread at some point, so I decided to start there. With only 18 books in the regular series and 2 super editions, it was pretty affordable. I got all but three of the books for less than $20! I'm not sure what other series I'm going to recollect, though I do know Fabulous Five is one of them. Their prices looked pretty decent, too.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to 80s time travel with some Pen Pals reviews. The series is a combination of the allure of all-girl boarding school, a la Canby Hall, and the dynamics of a group of girls with different personalities, a la Babysitters Club.

Let's look at them on the cover. You can tell blonde Palmer is the snobby, spoiled one by her outfit and her stance. Amy is the rocker girl, although I don't think she'd be wearing white socks and sneakers. Some black boots would have been better. Amy's one of the original girls who wear mostly black. Shanon is the shy, low self-esteem one who's there on a scholarship, also obvious from her pose. And Lisa is the tall, artsy one. She looks like she should be sporty, but she's more Claudia than Kristy. Or actually now that I think about it, she's a pretty good blend of the two, since her "great idea" was to have the girls advertise for pen pals from the nearby boys' school. Lisa's the most leadery of the foursome.

So yeah, the girls are bemoaning the lack of boys and Lisa decides they should advertise for pen pals. There's a kerfluffle about them doing this, because due to misunderstanding, an awkward older girl thinks they're starting a sorority. With the headmistress's blessing, the girls finally get their letters and choose their pen pals, who turn out to be a group of four roommates, just like the girls are.

This book has a lot of interesting storylines going on at the same time. It's definitely more complex than BSC and SVT. Let's count them off.

1) The girls advertise for pen pals and then the entire rest of book, you get to read letters back and forth between the two groups.

2) Shanon wants to write for the paper, but becomes a gofer. This one ends well with her getting to work on some of her ideas, even though the older girl in charge was initially against younger students writing.

2a) Linked to Shanon's writing are mentions of the school being a bit old-fashioned, because the career choices they discuss are limited and they don't offer a wide variety of classes. Like they have knitting and not woodshop or auto mechanics. I can't remember if this goes anywhere in future books, but it's a little bit of social commentary either way.

3) The Kate problem. I can't remember their term for Kate. She's not an RA, but she's kind of in charge of the area of the dorm the girls live in. She also works for the paper and is the one who got Shanon the job. There's this whole subplot with her having a crush on some guy, who ended up dating Shanon's popular older sister, and it causes drama. She ends up being friends with Shanon and possibly Lisa's older brother is interested in her based on her Halloween party costume.

4) When the girls go to send pictures to their pen pals, Shanon chickens out and sends a photo of her older sister instead. Then there's big drama with her pen pal finding out.

5) Palmer is a bitch. Like seriously, she's one of the bitchiest main characters in any of these series. Possibly the bitchiest actually. I don't think I can come up with another girl who's like her. The ones that are typically are the antagonist (the Bunheads in Bad News Ballet, Cokie Mason, Jenny Carlin) or occasional antagonist/frenemy (Lila Fowler). She's constantly snobby, disagreeable, selfish and can be downright mean. She's also a plotter and you can see the wheels turning in her head, because she does not like her pen pal.

Yep, all of that is going on in 100-some pages.

The characters are mostly likeable, except Palmer. Shanon's the quiet, studious underdog you want to root for. Amy's the wild, creative musician. I always liked those two best. I do like Lisa for her artsy side, but not as much as the other two.

I'm looking forward to digging back into this series!