The Charmed Circle

    Lauralee Larkin is nervous about starting high school. Not only does she feel in the shadow of Maxine, her seemingly perfect senior sister, but her best friend, Jenny, has moved away. Lauralee has to deal with her anxiety over making friends as well as her guilt and confusion over her new found interest in boys.

    This was the first book in the Whitman Novels For Girls/Teen Novels Series I ever read I really can't remember anything about it. I'm currently already reading 4 other books but why not just start a fifth one I guess even though it's 11:58 on a Thursday night.

- I love the cover a lot. I like how the background is all in pink and the purple text is very retro.

- I'm laughing at how the author is trying to say Lauralee isn't beautiful but refuses to give her any physical flaws. She's slim but it's bad cause she's almost thin, she's suntanned and has beautiful light brown hair but it's bad cause it makes her look too healthy, she has big pretty eyes but it's bad cause her eyelashes are long and thick, her brows are perfectly shaped but it's bad because they're natural looking. Like seriously just give her some real flaws, omg.

- When Maxine leaves for school her father says "bye kitten" to which Lauralee thinks how she wishes her dad would call her kitten but that she can't be called kitten because of her looks. I actually found this so sad. Lauralee, your dad doesn't care what you look like, he loves you.

- It's the end of chapter one and so far I'm not a fan of Lauralee. She seems to love self pity. She complains to herself about how it's not fair her older sister is so efficient and she's not, yet she doesn't try to be efficient. Maxine wakes up and makes her bed, hangs up her clothes, gets ready for school, makes sure she has plenty of time to eat breakfast, and gets to the bus stop early. Lauralee, however, wastes her time sitting around, doesn't do any of her responsibilities like making her bed or washing her breakfast dishes, and then when she leaves late for the bus stop and misses the bus she thinks "was the whole world arrayed against her?". She didn't even remember to bring her notebook and other school supplies with her. When her little brother brings them to her on his way to school she complains about him being too unconcerned with her unhappiness. He's 10 and nice enough to bring her things to her. She needs to chill.

- I'm not sure what to make of Lauralee and Jenny's friendship. It doesn't seem very healthy to be honest. They were best friends but to the point that they didn't want to socialize with anyone else. They also not only were uninterested in boys but to the point of being annoyed when other girls were interested in boys. "they felt no need for the company of boys; they had each other.".

    Lauralee also gets jealous when Jenny mentions having a new friend named Wanda as well as feels guilty for going to the dance with Robert Lee and not Jenny saying "I'll be thinking about you all evening".

    It seems like the two were extremely codependent and, based on Lauralee's anxiety, I would guess that their fear of rejection by others led them to place each other into any roles other people would normally fill. Yeah, when I started reading this book I was laughing over how they were, unintentionally, being described as a couple but no, that's really how it is. They were relying on each other for the emotional intimacy you get from romantic relationships. I think the fact that both of them are so quick to develop an interest in boys once they're apart is proof of that.

- There's a boy who moved there from Alabama and just to make sure we're aware he comes from the south his name is Robert Lee.

- We're introduced to Eloise Fisher, a very popular and beautiful girl who is super nice and friendly to everyone...oh except Elena Sloshek, who Eloise and her friends mock and ignore because ew, she's a poor foreigner. Lauralee, who realizes she needs to make some friends now that Jenny's gone, momentarily thinks about befriending Elena but decides against it because she doesn't want to look "too conspicuous".

- When Lauralee accidentally makes eye contact with Elena she thinks "that foreign-looking girl needn't think she was going to be a friend of hers!". I think Lauralee is suppose to be a likable character but her treatment of Elena is just so gross, same with Eloise. 

    It's said that Elena speaks "some sort of Slavic tongue" at home so Lauralee doesn't even know what country she comes from, I guess it doesn't matter to her and any foreigner is bad? I don't know, it's just so strange how terrible mean everyone is to this really nice and friendly girl all because she foreign.

- I do have to say that Snow did a great job at describing Lauralee's anxiety. They way she feels so conspicuous and that everyone is laughing at her. I've definitely experienced that, especially when I was at a new school and far apart from my best friend. Though I do think Lauralee mentally turning on everyone who doesn't beg for her friendship is taking things a bit far.

- Elena's mother says "Kipferdln" which, according to Google translate, is not a word. Of course google translate isn't always accurate but I think it'd be really hilarious if Snow just made up a foreign sounding word (nevermind, its the name of a pastry!).

- Lauralee apparently was only enjoying Elena's company because of her cutely decorated house and her mom's yummy pastries. The moment those are gone and Lauralee steps outside she remembers that Elena is a poor foreigner, eww.

- Lauralee secretly resents her mother for making a pie of crushed wafers and instant pudding, complaining that Elena's mother would make a proper pie. Ugh, Lauralee is a spoiled brat. Her mother takes care of three kids, a house, all the cooking, makes Lauralee and Maxine's clothing, works on the PTA, and does fundraiser work. Lauralee is lucky her mother finds the time to make any kind of pie.

- Maybe it's because I'm in a bit of a reading slump but I feel like this book is starting to drag. Lauralee has decided to run for class president and school elections are always boring plot material to me. I'm also confused on how Lauralee was so shy at first and now she goes up to the most popular kids in school and asks them to run for school government with her.

- Lauralee is so sure The Mavericks aren't going to win the election that it makes it very obvious they're going to win. Also Lauralee is so stuck up the way she judges the other campaigners, makes me glad she didn't win.

- Wow ok, I don't care what kind of growth Lauralee has by the end of this book, I don't like her. She blames losing the election on her running mates, especially Elena who she basically claims lost the election for them because she's ugly. Yet she can find no fault with her self at all. Instead of seeing it as they ran together, they lost together she sees it as they caused her to lose.

    Ok, I took a month long break from reading. This book was just dragging too much and I really had no interest in the class election. I thought a lot about leaving this book unread which is something I really hate to do. But after picking it back up last night I found it's moving along much better now. Stunt Night was interesting, Elena finally got that makeover we knew was coming to her, Bud seems romantically interested in Lauralee, and Jenny's coming to visit.

- I just realized school work is never mentioned. There's nothing about homework, tests, assignments, or anything. It seems school is purely for socializing.

- Lauralee is so worried about Jenny showing up looking sloppy and hating boys that it's making it very obvious Jenny is going to show up completely changed.

- While working on the float in Mr. Calhan's garage Lauralee and Helen ride a tandem bike that's in there, down the driveway and back. While putting it back in the Garage Binky and his friend Ted see and say they want to ride it too. Lauralee says no because Mr. Calhan had said not to touch anything in the garage and it has been rather irresponsible of her to ride the bike. Later Binky and Ted sneak the bike out and later hide it in the Larkin's garage. Long story short Binky has to announce his theft to the entire freshman class and apologize. Lauralee then says she responsible for the theft because she road the bike...what? That makes no sense. She then makes a big announcement to the freshman class which looks more like a grab for attention than anything else.

- Lauralee is such a brat that it's lucky people were so patient and nice with her, maybe that was only cause they didn't know her true thoughts and opinions of them and situations. But what if Lauralee wasn't so lucky, what if she hadn't gotten lucky enough to win homecoming queen and be accepted by Bud and Eloise. What if she had been treated the same way as Elena was treated by everyone else. Lauralee would have become a monster in that case.

    This book was a mixed bag, the end is a lot better then the beginning but maybe that's because I took such a long break from it. I think I'll let this book go from my collection since its not remarkable and is quite easy to acquire for cheap.