Fall of their 5th sixth grade/eighth grade year
Plot
Mallory has a new assignment where she has to figure out a project on what she wants to do when she grows up. She knows she wants to be a children's author, so she decides to write a play and have the kids in the Kids Can Do Anything Club act it out. She gets permission, but then her teacher tells her that's not enough for the assignment. So she also decides to interview her new favorite author, Henrietta Hayes. She writes her three letters and just gets form letters back, but then she does a little research and finds out Henrietta lives in Stoneybrook! Mallory rides her bike to her house and not only does Henrietta invite her in, but she hires her as her assistant.
Mallory reads a quote from Earnest Hemmingway about how real authors base their writings off personal experience. So she decides the play she writes has to be about her real life, and she writes an absolutely terrible play where she is a perfect person and her entire family are a bunch of aholes. The other babysitters and all the kids in the play tell her it's mean, but she refuses to budge on her "autobiographical" ideas of writing. She then does some research on Henrietta and finds out her life has actually been really sad - both her parents and her brother died in a fire, her husband left her and her only child got killed - but rather than feel bad for her, Mallory gets pissed bc her books are happy, and clearly Henrietta is a liar bc her life isn't happy. So Mallory is super mean to her, writes her a letter and calls her a liar, and then quits her job as her assistant.
Meanwhile, Mallory's family finds out about her play and they are fucking pissed, so they boycott it. Mallory's mom gets involved and goes to see a dress rehearsal of it and agrees it is mean. So Mallory has to rewrite it. And she's pissed at her mentor. Her life is kind of awful.
Then she finally wakes up. She rewrites the play and makes up with Henrietta. Her newly written play goes well, she gets an A on her project and Henrietta is writing a new sequel to the books Mallory loves and dedicates it to her.
The end.
Takeaways
Mallory is such a fucking moron in this book. She seems to forget what "fiction" means, even though writing is supposedly her passion. Stacey is even like "um what about Peter Pan and Charlotte's Web?" and Mallory just blows her off.
When Mallory is writing her play, she calls the character based off herself "Valerie", the one based off Vanessa "Ranessa" and so on. She's so fucking stupid.
I also cannot believe how rude she is to her "favorite" author.
Also, how is a pretty famous author living in Stoneybrook but no one knows? I feel like for as many "authors" days as the school has, she maybe would have been invited since she lives down the fucking street?
Best Character
Vanessa because she takes the lead on not letting Mallory embarrass the entire family.
Worst Character
Fucking Mallory.
No comments:
Post a Comment