Review: "Boy-Crazy Stacey: The Baby-Sitters Club #8"

Boy-Crazy Stacey: The Baby-Sitters Club #8 by Ann M Martin

5 out of 5 stars

Oh.Em.Gee. Would you look at that hunk on the cover?? He's so dreamy. So buff. So...eighteen?!?! Seriously? More like 28. Jeez. Anyway, that hugemongous discrepancy aside, I *love* this book. It's one of my favorites.

It's still summertime in Stoneybrook and the girls are all meeting at Kristy's McMansion for a last sleepover before they all split up for stuff. And right off the bat, we get a "What Stacey is Wearing"! Woo! "I...wanted to be cool since it felt like it was about 150 degrees outside. [I feel ya sister!] ...I decided on this new pink shirt...Big, bright green and yellow birds were splashed all over it. It was gigantic, so it would be cool. I put it on with a pair of baggy shorts, looped a wide green belt around my middle, and hunted up some jewelry-silver bangle bracelets and a pair of silver earrings shaped like bells that actually ring when they dangle back and forth." Poor, deprived Stacey was only able to put on one pair of earrings though, because her parents said she would look like a pirate if she had more than one piercing. Wonder what they would say about my 3 sets and cartilage?

Stacey & Mary Anne got picked to go with the Pike family to Sea City, New Jersey. I want to go to Sea City. Besides the hunky, beefy lifeguards, there's Trampoline Land, Candy Heaven AND Kitchen, Ice-Cream Palace, a ferris wheel, arcade, miniature golf and Burger Garden! Plus, you know, the beach and stuff. Lol...It takes 2 cars and a Barf Bucket to get the Pikes to the beach and mayhem ensues. Claire is calling everybody "Silly-Billy-Goo-Goo", Vanessa is rhyming everything, Nicky wants to hang with his big brothers and not the baby girls, Byron (the sensitive triplet) is scared of the ocean and Stacey falls for the hot hunk of meat on the lifeguard stand, leaving Mary Anne to watch all the kids by herself. Selfish cow. Doesn't Mary Anne know it's LUV?? ;)

Oh and Nicky tells this silly joke: "So one day this matta-baby comes up to me-" "What's a matta-baby?" "Nothing. Whatsa matta with you?" Haha! No? Okay then.

Mary Anne gets a major sunburn, been there done that. Stacey becomes Hunkaholic's new errand girl. Somebody's got to get those cold sodas you know. And it all pays off, because Hunkorama gives her the raddest gift ever: the whistle off his neck, which obviously means he's totally in LUV with her too. I know, you are super jealous, me too. So Mary Anne just keeps getting more and more pissed, but hello? She's suddenly got this cute (for a 9th grader) guy mother's helper helping her out too. So what's she complaining about?

And! There's another "What Stacey is Wearing" plus a special edition "What Mary Anne is Wearing"! (Which is really cheating, because she's wearing Stacey's clothes lol) "Cute guys...I put on a white cotton vest over a pink cotton dress and tied a big white bow in my hair so that it flopped over the side of my head." "...I loaned [Mary Anne] my yellow pedalpushers, a yellow and white striped tank top, and an oversized white jacket."

The girls finally get a night off and go sight-seeing, buy some souvenirs, and Stacey buys Hunkahunka a big heart-shaped box of chocolates. Because that's what any 18 year old dude wants. Right after she buys it though, something MAJOR happens. Stacey catches that slimeball kissing another girl and her heart is totally broken.

Mary Anne is still pissed, but she gets over it and the girls end up hanging out with the guy babysitter and his cute cousin. They turn out to be totally cool guys and the girls *might* be in luv. Stacey gets her first kiss (even though she claims she dated tons in 7th grade?) and Mary Anne goes out on her first date and trades rings with the guy. Really. So all ends well in Baby-Sitters Land and it's back to Stoneybrook. Pull out the Barf Bucket.