I wrote my first Goodreads review!
I will admit that I normally don’t write book reviews, nor do I publish anywhere other than my blog or Retroist, but I seriously didn’t believe I was going to give this book a fair chance. And because, well, mind blown, I decided it was worthy of a quick review.
So, as you know, I’ve gotten into/revisited some aspects of The Baby-Sitters Club at my ripe old age (thanks 30th anniversary!), and had started reading some of the original numbered series again. There was, however, another series of books that came at the tail-end of the series called “Friends Forever,” and this was part of one of that series’ “Super Special” (but not to be associated with the “Super Special” series from the original series).
The “Friends Forever” series focused on the “Core Four” members of The BSC (Kristy, Mary Anne, Claudia, and Stacey), and were new stories set after the fire at Mary Anne’s house. The series lasted from August 1999 until November 2000, and effectively ended the series of books.
Until The Summer Before was published, but that wasn’t until 11 years later.
So here’s my spoiler-free quickie review of Everything Changes.
Enjoy!
Everything Changes by Ann M. Martin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I started re-reading parts of the “Baby-Sitters Club” series as my way of celebrating the 30th anniversary of what is probably my favorite book series of my childhood. On this go-around, I had torn through alot of the ones I’d read in the numbered series (I read up to #88 by the time I stopped reading the series in the summer of 1995), but I didn’t know the “Friends Forever” series existed until I had started going through the numbered books. Being that this part of the series was published four years after I had stopped reading the original series, I was actually quite happy to see there was more than just the ones I had been accustomed to reading.
That said, I wound up shelving this one quickly (I started it in December 2016, but stopped very quickly) – I started to have a feeling this one was going to trample on the series I knew and loved. I cycled back to it a few days ago, and found that once I got into it, I was as engaged with it as I had been with the other books. I basically read the entire book in about 3 hours (non-consecutive – it took a few nights to finish it). I was pleasantly surprised.
While a departure from the series I knew and loved growing up, this was actually a fun read. The idea of the book shifting perspectives surprised me a little at first, but I really did enjoy reading through their thoughts on how everything around them was changing, and how things really weren’t going to be the same anymore. Like growing up in our world, the girls were growing up (though they are seriously eight years older than me, and I was in 11th grade in 1999, they should have been at least finishing college and getting married by that point!). I am considering giving the other “Friends Forever” books a chance at some point (got a few other books to read!!!), but I was very happy that I gave this one a chance. 🙂
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