The Clique Sporking Chapters 12-19
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b1tchlasagnaOctavian Country Day School: The Café
12:26 PM, September 2nd
It’s lunchtime and Massive Blockhead and her friends are eating and gossiping. Harrison tells us Dylan has a pale grilled chicken breast from her Zone lunch, Alicia has a veggie burger (no bun). It looks like she's doing vegan and keto at the same time, which seems like the most restrictive diet ever. Here’s what I mean, a vegan diet involves a lot of beans, lentils, grains, pasta, quinoa etc. all of which are not allowed on keto, as they're way too high in carbs. You can however, have meat, butter, cheese, etc. on keto, (butter is even a great way to add more fat to your diet) but obviously you can’t have those if you’re vegan. They're contradictory diets basically. I'm sorry if I sound nitpicky, but when I spot inaccuracies around a topic I know rather well, I want to point it out.
Kristen is just dipping a banana into a Styrofoam cup of fro yo, and Massie has some spicy tuna rolls. Just like when Harrison’s describing their designer clothes, I don’t care about what they’re eating. It doesn't add to the plot, nor is it used for characterization, like the lunch scene in the Breakfast Club, where the group’s packed lunches reveal something about themselves (i.e. Bender doesn't have a lunch because his parents didn’t care enough to make him one, Andy has several weeks worth of food to build muscle for wrestling, Claire eats something exotic and expensive because her family’s extremely rich).
The Blockhead starts the conversation with “I have plans with a Briarwood boy on Saturday,” which is apparently worth “a minimum of twenty points.” Hey, wait a minute, I didn’t bring this up before because I hadn’t thought of it, but who determines how much points a certain tidbit of information is worth? Do you just decide how much it’s worth? That sounds like a broken system!
She only told them now and not earlier, since she didn’t want Claire to hear. Kristen asks “when did you meet him?” and Massive Blockhead answers “yesterday, at Galwaugh Farms.” This makes Alicia a little…I won’t say suspicious, more like confused, as she was supposed to be “sick.” Massie lies and says “I wasn’t sick all day.” They buy it, so the Blockhead starts gushing about how “he is fifteen, ah-dorable, and has his own horse,” prompting Kristen to say “he could be the one.”
Even if Chris didn’t already have a girlfriend, I would still be spamming X. I believe in high school sweethearts, they’re rare nowadays, but they do still exist. I don’t however, believe in junior high sweethearts.
Also, isn’t it a little weird that a fifteen year old wants to date someone a few years his junior? Massie would be 12-13. When you’re that young, age makes a world of difference. That’s why it’s weirder to see a 17 year old dating a 15 year old than a 25 year old dating a 30 year old.
Then she recounts chapter 4, where she met Chris and thank the gods of literature, the chapter ends, and we get Claire’s perspective flip of the canteen.
Octavian Country Day School: The Café
12:26 PM, September 2nd
Claire's looking through all the “fancy” food they serve. I put “fancy” in quotation marks because the sushi platters, tofu steaks, crudités and a colorful “design your own salad” section aren’t as fancy as Harrison makes it seem. Sorry, but you missed your mark by about two decades. The last time sushi was classified as “luxury food” was in the 80s. That's why the Breakfast Club, which was made and set in the 80s had Claire eat sushi for lunch, to establish that she’s from a rich family.
In the 2000s, sushi wasn't fancy anymore, nor was it seen as some kind of exotic food only rich people could afford. It's like you're writing for a different period, Harrison. Aside from that, tofu steak sounds like it’d be cheaper than real steak. I'm quite sure tofu would cost less than real beef tenderloin. Crudités is a fancy French word for raw vegetables served with a dipping sauce, so it doesn’t sound any different from those ready made veggie platters you can get at the grocery store, you know the ones with cherry tomatoes, baby carrots, sliced cucumbers, celery, broccoli/cauliflower florets etc.
In the end, all she buys is a Toblerone chocolate bar. This surprises the cashier, who says. “finally, a girl around here who actually eats chocolate.” She thinks it’s so “refreshing.”
Claire wondered if it was really possible to be in a school where no one are junk food. I too, am having doubts. Why would you even sell chocolate if no one buys it? It sounds pretty wasteful to order a bunch of stuff no one would buy just so you could let it sit there in the candy counter. How long has that been there? That sounds like Claire just bought nasty, expired chocolate. Also, are you implying everyone in this school is so diet obsessed, like the Blockhead, they won't eat chocolate for fear of getting fat?
I'm gonna have to start spamming X again. I don't buy this for a second. Think of your school when you were around the same age. Were there people were watching what they were eating to be thinner? Yeah, probably. Were there also people who didn't give a crap? Of course. See this is why it's so unbelievable that an entire school would act like a hive mind on a low fat diet.
Right after she pays for her food, she spots the Massive Blockhead, Alicia, Kristen and Dylan, at their own table. Of course it’s the most exclusive table, in fact it’s so speshul and unique it was the only four-top in the café whereas all of the other tables were designed to fit at least six. During my first reading, I thought it was implausible that the four most popular girls in the school come with their own table, now I don’t find it as unbelievable because in one of the later books, William Block stops OCD from implementing uniforms by donating a new library. What’s stopping him from building a table just for his “darling” daughter and her friends?
Claire makes some observations.
Even though she knows they’re awful people, even though if she tried talking to them, they’d talk behind her back too, Claire still wishes she could be there, solely because it would mean a promising future at OCD.
Now I know Claire’s young and dumb, as we all were at that age. And when you’re young, you can’t see that far ahead into the future. You think junior high will last forever because that’s how it feels; a few years feel like an eternity and you think the person were then will be the person you’ll always be. Claire thinks her uncool and unfashionable Country Mouse self will be the person she'll always be, she's not thinking that she'll change or things will improve, she assumes everyday at OCD would be as disastrous as her the first half of her first day. It's all due to being young and not having perspective. It's why Claire desperately wants to be popular and it’s why she wants to impress Massive Blockhead and her clique. For now, I can understand why she has that mindset towards someone who torments her. Emphasis on for now.
Claire starts looking at some other tables. There was one where the girls are wearing such heavy makeup they look like someone on the Psychic Friends Network did their makeup. Another table has a group has girls so thin, they looked like the lipstick-covered straws that floated inside their diet Coke cans.
Yikes, that description.
She sees a white flash of light that came from one, of the middle tables. It has three people in it, and she decides to approach them.
Remember: three people.
Claire asks them if the flash came from a “PowerShot S100 digital Elph” and the photographer, a girl with hair separated into seven braids dressed in faded jeans with suspenders and a pink tank top, says "yes" and that it was a birthday gift.
This is Lane Abeley. She's Chris' sister, and she's one of the nicer students at OCD. She eventually becomes Claire's real friend, but I hear in the later books, Claire ditches her for the “Pretty Committee.”
Claire just so happens to have the exact same model in her bag. How convenient. Then we get a description of the other two girls, both of whom have rhinestone tattoos, a blue butterfly for one and a pink heart for the other. The former is wearing red cords and a T-shirt that read “Daddy's Little Girl.” The latter, has blue-and-white striped jeans as well as an I ♥ Carbs T-shirt. Remember them because this will come up a second later.
Wait, so the entire student body is supposedly so into becoming and staying thin they won't eat chocolate, yet this one girl loves carbs, which along with sugar will fatten you up. Where's the consistency? Oh but wait, there's more!
While the Blockhead and her friends are glaring at Claire (Massie, I thought you wanted her to hang out with other people), they start taking pictures of themselves doing exaggerated poses of Vincent's “different expressions.” One of the girls tells Claire to “show me lost.” Claire makes such a funny face, some girl in a FCUK T-shirt starts laughing so hard, she starts squirting milk out her nose.
All right, now the problem with the three people I mentioned before rears its ugly head. One of the three’s Layne. We've already learnt what the other two are wearing, and there's no French Connection T-shirt mentioned anywhere! Is there a fourth girl Harrison forgot to mention? Oh but wait, there's even more! The other two girls introduce themselves as Heather and Meena. We don't know which is which; is Heather the girl with the Daddy T-shirt or is that Meena? No one knows, Harrison never tells us.
How did this book get past the editor?
Look, I get during the 90s there was a trend where popular books would get rushed out, so much so they'd be written by ghostwriters and the editor would only skim through them before they got published. This happened with Animorphs, Goosebumps, and the Babysitters Club books. They were pushed out so quickly during the peak of their popularity; it went up to like, Goosebumps #500 and Babysitters Club #800. (Slight exaggeration but you get my point).
Now, the Clique came out in 2004, so it missed the 90s by a few years but the same process happened. Usually with these churned out books, you'd see a huge drop in quality in the later ghostwritten ones. The earlier books written by the original author would be decent enough, but when you compare them to the later books you'd be able to pinpoint where they started rushing the release process and when they used a ghostwriter. In those later books, you'd get things like inconsistencies, flanderization, bad twists that come out of nowhere etc. Example: I heard one of the ghostwritten Animorphs books was really just a thinly veiled soapbox for veganism and despite that moral; they threw consistency out the window and had the main cast eat burgers at the end.
The thing with the Clique is that the inconsistencies you'd expect in a later ghostwritten book shows up in the first one! Harrison wrote this herself and it still reads like a sad, sloppy excuse typed out at 5 in the morning by someone who doesn't care and just wants to get this over with, when the deadline's two days away!
Layne asks if Claire is Massie's friend because she saw her talking to the Blockhead earlier and because she's dressed like a “pure Massie-chist.” I think this is a Clique-ism for dressing in a way Massive Blockhead would approve of, so in trendy designer clothes. Claire lies and says the Blockhead was “scared I'd make other friends and dump her.” Normally I wouldn't like the lying, but given all the torment she's been through, I see it as Claire being so desperate for acceptance, she's resorted to lying to not get ostracized. Heather and Meena have to leave for their next class, and Claire promises “plenty more Massie stories.” Layne offers Claire some oatmeal from a thermos but she declines.
Meanwhile, Massive Blockhead, Alicia, Dylan and Kristen are leaving, and look at Claire's reaction when they're getting close, she's already starting to sing "wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings These are a few of my favorite things" in her head. That tells me Claire immediately associates the Blockhead and the Bitchy Committee with stuff that makes her nervous. Wow, you really did traumatize her in one day, Massie.
They ignore Claire and Layne, causing the latter to say that “Massie really is jealous.” Claire nervously agrees, but she relaxes the moment the Bitchy Committee are gone. They spent the rest of lunch period talking about their mutual love of old musicals (especially Sound of Music, Annie, and Wizard of Oz ), skater boys, and digital cameras. They hated the snobby factor of Teen Vogue and thought Drew Barrymore seemed like she’d be kinda bitchy.
I have to be honest, the first time I read this, I got flashbacks to chapter 3 of I'm Not Okay the badfic by Raven, Tara Gilespie's friend, where the Sue Eternity and her new friends talked about bands like Slipknot, MCR, Evanescence, GC, Marilyn Manson, Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, Dead Can Dance, Christian Death, Joy Division, The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Clan of Xymox, Fields of the Nephilim, Southern Death Cult, 45 Grave, X-mal Deutschland, Garden of Delight. They all agreed that they rocked and they all hated shitty pop bands like BSB and Play. I first thought it was hard to believe that Claire just so happened to meet someone who liked and hated the same things she did. It was convenient, too convenient. Upon a rereading, I realized it is possible to meet someone with the same likes and dislikes as you, so it's not exactly implausible.
But I can’t exactly say the same about the circlejerk. You would think despite liking the same things, they’d have different opinions about them. Maybe Claire buys into the fan theory that Glinda is the true villain in the Wizard of Oz, maybe Layne takes everything at face value and believes the Wicked Witch is the real villain. I'd like to see some variety, even if they do like the same things.
Soon enough, lunch is over. Layne puts the thermos away in her bag, which had a dark green shell that opened like the trunk on a scooter. The surface was covered in stickers from different snowboard companies, except for two spots on the either side. That’s where the stereo speakers were. Layne starts playing music, Claire compliments the bag, saying “half the bags I’ve seen around here cost ten times more and they don’t do anything!” Layne thinks that was funny and asks Claire to hang out on Friday. Claire says yes
Briarwood Academy: Hidden in the Bushes
3:25 PM, September 4th
School’s over, and the heavy oak doors of Briarwood Academy flew open and a rush of boys in gray jackets and red ties ran out. That description implies they’re all in uniform. After all those outfit descriptions, it’s a little weird to see them not dressed in Lacoste, Armani, or Hugo Boss clothes. I guess Harrison thought scrolling through GQ for what guys should wear isn’t as fun as scrolling through Teen Vogue and Seventeen for what girls should wear so she had them all put in uniforms. Across the street behind the hedges, Massie, Alicia and Dylan are spying them with binoculars they’d “borrowed” from the science lab.
Oh my god, they’re stalking their love interests! Now, of course this isn’t half as bad as Edward following Bella in his car in Port Angeles and watching her sleep before they even started dating or Patch from Hush Hush knowing everything about Nora the moment they meet, but Twilight and all the bad YA novels that followed traumatized me so much with their BS that Stalking Is Love, even something as minute as this is making me gag.
They have trouble spotting him, so Massive Blockhead tells them to look for a guy that looks like “Leo DiCaprio, before he got doughy.” When Alicia points out everyone at Briarwood looks like a young Leonardo DiCaprio, Massie tells her Chris, or should I say, Chris Abeley, who’s a “firsty-lasty” (meaning he’ll always be referred to as Chris Abeley, not Chris) has messy blond hair. But I’m pretty sure even a 90s Leonardo DiCaprio was blond, I distinctively remember him being blond inTitanic and Romeo and Juliet, and since everyone else also looks like a Leo clone, that advice is useless!
Massie keeps searching, Dylan starts eating a chocolate raspberry Zone bar, and Alicia asks if the Blockhead would rather get a “kiss from Chris Abeley after he ate a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and drank pickle juice or…a kiss from Chris Abeley after he barfed up clam chowder?” She says both then reflects on how they had to prepare for their stakeout. First, she told Isaac she was going to the library after school and to pick her up at 4:30, then it’s implied they skipped their last class to hide behind the hedge since OCD and Briarwood both ended at the same time. I hope Isaac will have the sense to pick up Claire and bring her home beforehand, otherwise that one time comment I made about her having to walk home will go from one off comment to canon.
Massie continues searching and Dylan and Alicia ask her to relay every, last detail of their last conversation. Like what exactly he said and if he was “making eye contact with you when he said ‘It’s a date?’ ” When the Massive Blockhead confirmed “he even winked” Alicia and Kristen starts acting like she had just told them she was engaged to be married. Kristen? When did she get there? There’s no mention of her showing up, I even reread the page a few times and then used Ctrl+F to check my ebook, I thought my sleep deprived brain was misreading it, but nope. She really did just pop up out of nowhere.
That’s not how you do it, Harrison. You have to establish her arriving there first. Otherwise it looks like she just teleported there!
Kristen explains she’s late because “we ended up getting this major assignment in the Women in the Workforce” and she couldn’t just leave. She has to start a business but she’s out of ideas. I guess the old fashioned lemonade stand won’t cut it here. Dylan jokes that she should “invent something for people who don’t have ideas,” while Massie sarcastically suggests something to help her find Chris. You mean a tracking device?
Just as Kristen’s convinced they missed him, Massive Blockhead finds Chris, walking down the front steps of the building, with a beat-up leather bag over his shoulder and a can of Red Bull.
She zooms in on her binoculars and then starts gushing about how hooooot Chris is. Come on, I can’t be the only one feeling uncomfortable.
While the Blockhead’s putting on a new coat of lip gloss when she sees him approaching, Dylan comments that it’s “almost like he knows Massie’s here,” and then it mentions her spitting out a cherry pit. Wait, what? Cherries? Harrison, you said before she was eating Zone bar, where did the cherries come from? Oh right, nowhere! This isn’t as bad as Kristen’s teleporting, but it still screamed “unedited.”
Chris gets so close to the hedge, his back’s facing them, so our “heroes” have to resort to texting to communicate.
Actually, he was only looking to pour his unfinished Red Bull over the hedge. And he just happens to dump the stream of pink liquid right on the Blockhead’s…head.
That’s karma for you. For being a stalker.
It turns out he was also waiting for a blue BMW blasting guitar-heavy boy music. Some guy asks him “how was detention,” and after he gives a sarcastic response of it being “killer!” Chris throws the empty can behind the hedge and it ricocheted off Alicia’s kneecap. Littering. What a classy guy.
After the car leaves, they start laughing, first over the Blockhead’s soaked hair, then over Alicia’s red knee. Dylan says “you guys look so ridiculous,” but Alicia says she shouldn’t be talking since her lips are so red from the cherries, she looked like the Joker. Massive Blockhead then says she wishes they sold that shade. I’m pretty sure they do! Bright red is the most popular shade, I don’t think it’s ever gone out of style. It’s everywhere, just go to Sephora. Dylan checks her reflection to confirm, then this happens.
It’s odd to see them sing about Maybelline of all things, given their characterization so far, I thought they’d be mocking it for being a cheap, drugstore brand.
Then the chapter ends with the arbitrary SOTU.
Octavian Country Day School : First-Floor Bathroom
9:25 AM, September 5th
Dylan and the Blockhead are checking their reflection. Dylan’s lips are still bright red from the cherries. She grabbed a facial towel off the cosmetics table by the window and rubbed it across her lips, but it only made them redder. I loved cherries and I’ve had them plenty of times, but I’ve never encountered ones that’d stain my lips. Which brings up the question, what kind of mutated cherries are these?
Massie still thinks it looks good and she suggests Dylan “top it off with a clear gloss.” Dylan however says “my mother threatened to cancel my Zone deliveries if I keep eating high sugar fruits that aren’t part of the program.”
You were eating a chocolate raspberry bar yesterday, I’m willing to bet it was full of sugars and other processed stuff. So that’s allowed but cherries aren’t? The Zone diet sounds very inconsistent.
The Blockhead still wishes her makeup lasted that long. Dylan then jokes that Kristen could start a makeup company and sell cherries but Massie thinks that’s actually a great idea. Dylan suggests the name Homebody for their brand, “because all of our ‘body’ products will be made from ‘home.’ ” You know homebody already has a meaning to it, right? It means someone who likes to stay home, watch Netflix, crack open a beer, relax with their cat, and not go out. Even Massive Blockhead thinks the name “should be more glamorous,” but Dylan still thinks “it’s all about being catchy and clever.” Except homebody isn’t any of those things. It sounds like you’re trying to market makeup to introverts who are bingewatching the Office for the umpteenth time on a Friday night, which is a stupid idea. Who gets all dolled up just to stay home?
Even the Blockhead sees how stupid the name is, except her reasoning is that “there’s nothing catchy or clever about Guerlain, Dior or Clarins” yet they’re “doing a little better than Hard Candy or Urban Decay.” They’re named after famous designers, Guerlain is named after Pierre-François Pascal Guerlain, Clarins is named after Jacques Courtin-Clarins, and Dior’s of course named after Christian Dior. You can’t go the same route and name it after yourselves and hope it’ll work on a greater scale. It won’t ‘cause you’re not famous designers.
When Dylan points out they don’t know how to make cosmetics, Massie says “that’s what the Internet is for.” Then when the former wonders if Kristen will like it, the latter says “we’ll make her like it.”
Then the Blockhead goes into a stall, takes a piss and fantasizes about how great it would be to have everyone in the school, especially the older girls, rely on her for the latest beauty products and makeup advice. Then Claire would never threaten her social status again. She was never competition in the first place though.
And it ends with another SOTU.
You know it’s weird fashion designers are “out” considering how obsessed with fashion they are. Ironic, to quote Palpatine.
The Guesthouse: The Living Room
5:00 PM, September 5th
It’s Friday, Claire’s relaxing with a bowl of mint chocolate-chip ice cream, and Todd’s telling her eleven people are coming over, twelve if Stevie Levine can get out of his stepbrother’s bar mitzvah dinner. When she asks how it’s possible he made that many friends, he replies “the raisins.”
Kendra then walks in. I mean it, she knocked but she walked in before anyone could answer. Technically it is her house, but she’s lending it out to the Lyons to use as their own until they can rent a place somewhere, you would think she’d let them answer first. Claire tells her “my mom isn’t home,” but Kendra was actually looking for Claire to invite her to Massie’s sleepover, the one she has every Friday. Claire is skeptical and says “Thanks, but I’m sure Massie doesn’t want me at her party,” but Kendra insists “and Massie insists” too.
At this point, anyone with functioning eyeballs can see she’s just setting this up without telling her own daughter. Kendra, how could you possibly think that’s a good idea? Even if Massie had been a likable character, you’re still supposed to tell her you invited Claire! Even if Massie was spoiled sweet, I don’t think she would’ve liked it if a last minute guest showed up unannounced, I don’t think she would’ve liked it if she found out Kendra invited Claire then never told her about it!
My God, Kendra! It’s like you don’t know how people operate!
Claire accepts the invitation. But it’s not without guilt. First she goes to her computer, which has a picture of her old friends Sarah, Sari and Mandy sitting in a speedboat, waving at the camera as a background. Just the photo makes her yearn for them. She was about to IM them and ask how she should cancel her plans with Layne, but she knew they’d tell her not to. They’d tell her to forget about Massie and her snobby friends, and Claire didn’t feel like explaining why she shouldn’t.
Claire has a “what I’m about to do is stupid, I know it’s stupid, but I’m gonna do it anyway” moment. You know how I played devil’s advocate a few chapters ago and I tried to explain why Claire’s so desperate for the Blockhead’s acceptance. Well, devil’s advocate’s ending. I really don’t like characters who know what they’re doing is stupid yet they go on and do it anyway. She had my sympathy and understanding then, because she was only fantasizing about being accepted by someone who hated her. That’s not a crime. Here, she’s crossed the line from fantasy to actually doing something stupid, despite knowing how stupid it is. When you knowingly do something dumb, that’s when you lose me.
So she makes a lie up on the spot about how she has to babysit Todd. Layne offers to “come over and help,” but Claire comes up with another one on the spot about how “Todd is really sick and highly contagious.” I kind of want to make a joke about him having the coronavirus, but I don’t want this spork to feel dated. Plus that might be poor taste, given how millions of people have died from it. Layne buys it, and Claire reschedules it to tomorrow, then hangs up.
The Block Estate: Main House
8:00 PM, September 5th
Claire finally gets there half an hour late because she didn’t want to seem anxious. Well, in her attempt to not be seen as anxious, in the sense that she didn’t want to look too eager, she comes off as anxious, as in nervous. How ironic.
Everyone else is there, dancing on the brown leather couches. No one answered when she knocked, but Claire just assumes it’s because the music is too loud, so she takes a page out of Kendra’s book and just enters.
The moment she gets in, the nerves come back. Claire was wearing her favorite blue-and-white sheep print pajamas while Massie, Dylan, Alicia and Kristen were fully dressed. As opposed to being stark naked. Claire can hear loud pop music being blasted from the speakers that hung in every corner and she can see that a giant glass bowl of popcorn was sitting on the glass coffee table and there are clothes all over the floor.
Before anything else can happen, Kendra tells them to start packing up the clothes, all of them designer of course. She starts folding them into a crisp rectangle before placing it in one of the many cardboard boxes on the floor. The other girls were half-heartedly doing the same. Bean’s the only one who acknowledges Claire’s presence; he ran up to her and sniffed her toes. But before she could pet him, Massive Blockhead let out a high-pitched whistle and Bean scampered back to her mistress.
Kendra says to Claire, “we’re so glad you could come,” and then Massie comments “nice jammies,” in what I assume can’t be a nice tone. And Kendra just ignores this. I’m not saying she should’ve called Massie out right then and there, that’d just make the Blockhead angrier and bitchier to Claire. I mean, she could’ve saved the moment and gave Claire a genuine compliment, like “yeah those are nice pajamas, cute and comfy, I like it.” Then the other girls would have to agree or risk exposing themselves as nasty bullies. You would expect an adult amongst a group of seventh graders to be socially savvy enough to think of that.
Dylan’s getting rid of a white cashmere sweater she got on Labor day, because it supposedly “makes her look fat.” Kristen wonders if she should take it instead but decides not to when the other girls (minus Claire) shake their heads. Finally Claire asks “what are you guys doing?” No one answers until Kendra cleared her throat in a very loud you-better-say-something-now sort of way.
God, I hope red flags are going off in her head. Maybe seeing it in person will be a wakeup call?
Massie picks Kendra’s reaction up immediately and she explains it’s for an auction they hold every year to “raise money for OCD scholarships.” Alicia adds that they’re getting rid of clothes that were so last season, then afterwards they’ll “go on a shopping spree to replace it with brand new stuff.”
Once again, Claire realizes she’s on unfamiliar territory as a rush of panic ripped through her body. That’s because no one had told her clothes were like milk or cheese, with a “best before” date and shelf life.
Despite not having much, despite only throwing clothes out when they got stained or when she grew out of them, she offers up “a bunch of stuff” to donate. The other girls cry respond with a “No!” in unison, and Alicia even rolls her eyes, and even tells Claire “the whole idea of the auction is to make money.” Because apparently everyone in Westchester is just as shallow them, and obviously no one will buy Claire’s old clothes. This is giving me flashbacks to Pretty Little Liars the books IIRC, where everyone in Rosewood’s apparently so shallow no one would befriend Hanna when she was going through her loser “Hefty Hanna” phase even though she was nicer then than she is now, and even in those days Hanna was nowhere close to being ugly (this was book Hanna by the way) and she was rich like everyone in Rosewood. I feel like this book’s pulling my leg. I have a hard time believing everyone in Westchester operates in this collective hive mind. It's the nO oNe At OcD eAtS cHoCoLaTe thing all over again. C’mon book. People don't act in this bizarre hive mind collective, like you assume. Outliers exist.
The Block Estate: The Kitchen Pantry
9:15 PM, September 5th
Oh my god, hell’s frozen over. Guys, take out your cameras. We’re gonna need to document this moment, and we don’t have a lot of these scenes. Kendra actually pulled the Blockhead aside, into the kitchen pantry, where they’re surrounded by cans of soup, bottles of mineral water, bags of pretzels, and boxes of doggie biscuits. It’s where they always talk when Massie was about to be in trouble for something. Wait, the Massive Blockhead actually gets into trouble with her parents? That’s new.
I guess I owe her an apology for assuming she’s just ignoring her daughter when Massive Blockhead and the Bitchy Committee were bullying Claire by exclusion. She tells the Blockhead to just try, try to give Claire a chance. Massie however, whines for Kendra to stop talking about Claire and “start thinking about how your matchmaking is starting to affect me!” Talk about narcissism. Hey, Massive Blockhead, it doesn’t affect you half as much as it affects her. The bad stuff that happened to her in school? That only happened because of you? Seriously, what bad thing happened to you because of her? The “worst” was some kid who made a snarky comment about you befriending her! That’s it! That wasn’t even a “rumour” that could do actual damage!
Then the Blockhead tops it off with “it’s like you care about her happiness more than you care about mine!” She runs off and locks herself up in the bathroom. Instead of trying to coax her out, Kendra leaves her there. Massive Blockhead stays in the bathroom for a while, even after Kristen tells her “we’re going out to the cabana to set up.” She read old issues of Town and Country for ten minutes until she heard her mother go upstairs for the night. No doubt to get a drink.
Wait a minute…so Kendra was outside the entire time? And she didn’t say anything to get Massie to come out? So much for trying. I take back my apology then! I haven’t seen parents this useless since the time DW’s parents just stood by when she threw a tantrum on Christmas over not getting the toy she wanted, or the time they let her throw a tantrum for a week over not getting invited to a birthday party for a girl she wasn’t even friends with, or the time they stood by and allowed DW to annoy Arthur to the point he punched her in retaliation.
When she’s about to go to the cabana, she hears someone in the living room. She assumes it’s Kristen stealing old clothes from the charity boxes, I’m not kidding, the book outright says she figured Kristen had snuck back in to swipe a few things out of the box, just like she’d done the year before, and she wanted to catch her in the act.
And that didn’t tip you off that something’s up? Massie doesn’t know Kristen’s “broke” by the way. Her brushing off what she thinks is an out of character moment for Kristen makes her look like an idiot. You would think that being the queen bee and ruling they school she’d be anything but.
Nope, it’s Claire, who was kneeling beside the box and feeding it folded sweatshirts. She had a soft semismile on her face. She looked both peaceful and proud. Then she comments that “At least they both have company,” before she leaves for the cabana. What? Harrison, you established Claire was alone, just a paragraph ago!
The Block Estate: Cabana #3
10:15 PM, September 5th
Massive Blockhead enters the cabana and everything’s all ready. Four sleeping bags were laid out like the spokes of a bicycle wheel, and Bean’s white sheepskin bed was in the center. Dylan’s in the middle of eating a bowl of soy crisps and Junior Mints and the others are playing an intense round of Would You Rather. All right, that is the lamest game ever. It sounds like the sort of “game” you’d play in a long car ride with your friends while you’re on a road trip and you’re all bored out of your minds. At least play Truth or Dare. It would make sense for the alpha bitch and her girl posse to at least try to get a few secrets out of each other y’know for manipulating and blackmailing each other later on. Even the movie knew how stupid Would You Rather was, they actually play Truth or Dare in the movie.
For the record, I will not be reviewing the movie. It cuts out all of the book’s more uncomfortable parts so it’s a watered down, boring middle school version of Mean Girls. Just watch Mean Girls.
Alicia asks everyone if they’d rather have “a condition that makes you snore twenty-four seven or a condition that makes you fall down every ten seconds” Dylan and Kristen choose the former. Kristen then asks if they’d rather have “a long curly pig’s tail or Chihuahua ears sticking out of the top of your head.” Alicia picks the ears proving that she’s a furry. Dylan takes the tail and says “I already look like a pig, so I might as well just go with it.” To emphasize her point she starts eating like a pig, shoving crisps and mints into her mouth like there’s no tomorrow. Kristen says she doesn’t, but the Bitchy Blockhead says “you just smell like one.” The book says she was trying to lighten the mood because she didn’t want the night to become yet another Dr. Phil session about Dylan and her insecurities. Gee, I fucking wonder why she has them! Also, if the book hadn’t told me she was just joking around, I would’ve thought she was being bitchy. That doesn’t come off as a joke, it’s way too mean spirited. It reads more like a snide comment you give to someone you don’t like.
She then asks them who they’d rather be “(a) Completely and utterly friendless or (b) someone with tons of friends who secretly hate you.” Everyone else picks a, and because she has such a healthy relationship with them, she immediately picks a despite wanting b.
Then Claire walks in and when she notices four sleeping bags instead of five, the tiny pulses beat like a heart on the side of Claire’s jaw. Alicia quickly asks her the same question Massive Blockhead asked, and Claire quickly picks b without really thinking about it.
Alicia tells her “Congratulations, you’re halfway there. The ‘friends’ part is the only thing you’re missing.” When the Blockhead doesn’t tell her how savage that roast was, she quickly says “I’m kidding Claire.”
Claire’s struggling to keep her cool. Her face was bright red, but her voice was calm as she replies “Where I come from, jokes are funny.” Then she changes the subject and asks if they have extra sleeping bags even though it’s mentioned “your mom said you had extras.”
I am blaming the root of this problem on Kendra. She invited Claire without checking with Massie first, which I pointed out she should've done even if Massie was likable and more like Cher Horowitz. After seeing with her own eyes how they treat Claire, she just leaves after a pathetic attempt of a talk with the Blockhead. You know what a smart/decent parent would've done? Certainly, she couldn't have dismissed Claire right there and then, but she would've checked up on them every now and then under the guise of "thoughtfully" bringing them snacks and soda.
While she’s off to get them “in the closet by the bathroom,” Dylan waved a piece of paper in the air. Turns out it’s Drew Divine’s number, and Alicia calls him, squealing in excitement that “I can’t believe I’m about to talk to the hottest guy on the Young and the Restless.” I don’t want to sound repetitive, so I’m not gonna talk once again about how stupid it is to have a group of seventh graders getting all excited over an actor from a genre they’d never touch. Someone answers and Alicia says “Uh, yeah, this is May your dead wife. I know what you and Melanie did and as soon as you come out of that coma, I will haunt you for the rest of your life.”
I looked it up on the Young and Restless wiki, and there really is a character named Melanie Daniels and she really did have a relationship with someone named Adam Newman. Except Adam never had a wife named May, though strangely enough he was in a coma at some point. But I'm pretty sure he wasn't with Melanie at the time though, I think that was before they met. The inconsistencies are pretty weird. I wonder if that was because due to copyright laws, Harrison couldn’t reference an actual arc and had to make something up. But later on in the book, there are actually lyrics to not one but two Britney Spears songs. That tells me copyright isn’t a problem. That just looks like Harrison referenced a show then made up an arc.
The prank call gets interrupted when a guy on Drew’s end asked “Honey, who is it?” Alicia ends the calls when she realizes “Oh my gawd, cute coma guy is gay!” and Kristen says “Someone should tell his mistress, Melanie, that her boy isn’t who she thinks he is.” I don’t know if she’s joking or if she really can’t tell fiction from reality. Harrison, writing isn’t like talking. You can’t tell by tone of voice or facial expressions to determine if a character’s joking or serious. Context is important, but even then it’s not a tell all. That’s why on the Internet, people often times do mistake jokes for serious comments. If you want the readers to know Kristen’s just kidding, you have to mention her tone of voice, otherwise it ends up being confusing.
At the mention of guys, Dylan says “I can’t believe you’re going riding at Galwaugh Farms with Chris Abeley tomorrow.” When Kristen asks what she’s going to wear, the Massive Blockhead says she hasn’t thought about it, and Claire wants to shout “Puh-lease! I’ve watched you try out outfits all week from my bedroom window.” Harrison, do you realize what you wrote? It sounds like Claire’s into voyeurism.
Dylan then asks what the Blockhead would do “if he tries to kiss you.” So Massive Blockhead responds “then I’ll kiss him back.” Then ewwwws and laughter filled the room. I get the laughs but “ewwwws?” Just a few chapters ago, you were all excited she was ahem, “going out with Chris,” you spied on him at his school, the book even had this line where Alicia and Kristen acted like Massie told them she was engaged when she told them Chris winked when he said “it’s a date.”
Hell, even a few sentences ago, Dylan was still excited about the date. You consistently had them act like annoying little teenyboppers now all of a sudden they’re acting like they’re younger, like they’re still at that age where boys are gross and have cooties. This flip flopping is giving me mini flashbacks to Teen Titans Go, the boys vs. girls clip where Robin starts flip flopping between “ewww cooties” and “omg Starfire’s about to touch me” and the flip flopping that happens in two seconds just looks bizarre, like he has split personalities.
Dylan jokes that she should get “a few cherries to rub on your lips.” Kristen begs her to shut up because the project’s stressing her out and she just wants to relax, before she humors them for two seconds. Dylan still wants to go with the name Homebody, Massie still thinks “it should be something more glamorous,” Claire suggests Shimmer Down but everyone keeps ignoring her. Then Massie comes up with Glambition and everyone loves it. And this is just me, probably but I can’t look at that name without thinking of my favorite eyeshadow palette, which by the way is also called Glambition.
They (except Claire) pick up their bottles of Perrier and clinked their bottles and gulped their lemon-lime seltzers. When I first read that, I initially pictured them with alcohol, even though that’s obviously not what Harrison meant. That’s just me. Whenever someone mentions a seltzer, the first thing I’ll always assume is that they’re talking about hard seltzer, just like when someone mentions cider, my first thought will be they’re talking about hard cider.
As everyone’s getting into their sleeping bags, Claire asks “Does anyone want to hear a ghost story?” Massie decides to humor her, so Claire gets a flashlight and she asks Massie to turn off the lights. When that’s all done, she positioned the flashlight under her chin and turned it on. Alicia says she “the red reflection from the flashlight makes you look like Satan.” Claire agrees and orders them all to lie down. They do so and she tells them a story that sounds like a creepypasta or urban legend.
Well that was nice of them (not!) to humor Claire for two seconds, making her think they’re gonna be nice for once, before they went back to ignoring her.
Then when the laughter dies down, everyone gets tired and they all fall silent. It’s then mentioned this is the Massive Blockhead’s least favourite part about sleepovers because she’s always the last one to fall asleep and she hates lying in bed. Sounds like insomnia but okay. Then out of nowhere, Alicia makes a loud fart noise with her mouth. Then she asks Claire if she’d farted and everyone aside from Claire laughs. All right, it’s clear Alicia did that just to torment Claire. Of all these knockoff Plastics here, she’s shaping up to be my least favorite one.
Claire snarks back “Actually Alicia, I thought it was your boobs rubbing together.” Alicia replies “I wish it was your thighs rubbing together on your way back to O-Town.” Then no one says anything, and they all start falling asleep except for the Blockhead who’s listening for any whimpering sounds that might be coming from Claire. But there weren’t any.
She’s then reminded of the pet shop she bought Bean from. Bean was a tiny puppy then but she was in a cage with two golden retrievers and a Jack Russell terrier. The other dogs didn’t like Bean and every time she went to play with one of the squeaky toys, they’d yap at her and make her drop it. I can see the terrier doing it, because terriers can be a little aggressive but golden retrievers are sweeties. I’m a cat person and I absolutely adore them. What the hell happened to those pups to make them react like that? This sounds like the sort of place that’d get raided by the ASPCA. And I just thought of this. The Blocks are rich, of all the places they could’ve gotten a new puppy, of all the fancy breeders they could’ve gone to, they chose a backalley pet store. Says a lot about them.
But like Claire, Bean never gave up. Even when she got pounced on and clawed, she held on to the toy. Wait, those sound a bit more like cats. Cats pounce and claw.
So Massive Blockhead has this wordless epiphany and then realizes she liked Bean’s fighting spirit and she all of a sudden gets this kind of grudging respect for Claire. I’ll address this in about two seconds, hold on.
She hears someone getting up. It’s Claire. She was rolling her sleeping bag up as quietly as she possibly could. Then she leaves. Upon seeing that everyone else was sleeping, the Blockhead follows her as she makes her way barefoot across the damp grass to the guesthouse. She asks Claire where she’s going. Where do you think?
Massive Blockhead tries to explain “we were just joking around. We do it to everyone.” Yeah, it’s the old iT wAs JuSt A pRaNk excuse. Hey, why don’t you ask Dylan how utterly hilarious and totally unproblematic your fat jokes are?
By the way, this is how she “jokes” about other people outside her friends group.
Claire lies about how she’d “rather sleep on a mattress than a floor.” The Massive Blockhead suggests she take the flashlight and even runs back to get it, feeling confused. It wasn’t her fault if Claire had social problems. Right? So why did she suddenly feel a weird desire to help her?
Claire smartly ignores her as the Blockhead calls out to her.
All right, now let’s address the epiphany that came out of nowhere. You would think this is a turning point, you would think from here on now, she’d lose the bitchy attitude towards Claire. Well, if that was the case, you wouldn’t be reading this. I would not be sporking it. No. This lasts for…you guessed it, two seconds. Then in a few chapters later she’s back to her old self. I’m not kidding. There’s a pool scene where Alicia, Kristen and Dylan are dumping food on Claire. And the Blockhead laughs. And it’s implied she started it. And this is what prompts Claire into plotting revenge.
So yeah. That epiphany meant nothing. Because sTaTuS qUo Is GoD or something. Speaking of that TV Tropes actually lists it as something happening over and over again in the books.
You can say this is one of the series’ weaker points. It makes the book so, so annoyingly repetitive. And in this case, it makes the Blockhead seem forgetful when her personality reverts back to her normal, nasty self. Not to mention it makes her epiphany look insincere.
I don’t know what Harrison and the publishers were thinking, assuming that Status Quo Is God was a good idea. My best guess is to keep the episodic nature of the books, but Status Quo Is God is of those things that if you fumble, it’ll bite you back hard. When it’s overdone, it’s tiring and it can turn people away from a series, because it robs said series of a chance to develop its characters after seasons upon seasons (or books upon books in this case) of monotony, and it stops it from shaking things up and doing something different and exciting. It’s one reason why I always change the channel when I see a “Spongebob tries to get his boating license…again” episode. No doubt it’ll happen again with the Clique.
This chapter’s over and I'm out. 
