Round One | Round Two

And….here we are, at the end of one of my absolute favorite series. The third round is a bit like Return of the Jedi, in that we have really strong books plus some stuff that, like Ewoks, feels more like filler in that they’re one-off issues that haven’t appeared before and won’t show up again. Still this conclusion has a lot of great moments in it. This has been a huge dose of escapist nostalgia for me: it was nice to return to a world where no one was using cellphones, where people would drop by one another’s house just to see if they were there and wanted to go hang out at the park.

Dawn and Sunny still aren’t speaking, despite Mrs. Winslow getting closer and closer to the end. A happy distraction has arrived, though, in a form of a concert that features a guitarist Dawn is absolutely smitten with — obsessive, silly smitten, a fun change from our usual serious, introspective and grounded Dawn. After she and Amalia fail to score tickets, they’re distraught — but enter Ducky, who had gotten four. Ducky will be happy to take Amalia, Dawn, and Sunny along with him. Oh, boy. enter the awkwardness. Things get worse at the concert when Sunny acts out in a way that hurts Ducky — yes, St. Ducky, the amazingly considerate Ducky, the guy who is there for her even when he’s dealing with his own stuff. Granted, Ducky does open the door to a night of bad decisions on everyone’s part when he agrees to drink a rum & coke that a friend of his brother’s provides, but Sunny makes things a lot worse than they needed to be. Granted, her mom is on the precipe of death, but that’s no excuse for near-emotional abuse of friends. Still, her friends love her more than their despair of her recent behavior, which leads to reconciliation at the end despite the 2 am screaming.

Quotes:

“He tried to kill himself. He tried to kill himself.“
“But maybe I wasn’t a good enough friend to him.”
“Oh, that is so self-centered. Don’t give yourself so much credit.”
Ducky looked wounded, just for a moment. Then he burst out laughing.
“I don’t know whether to feel insulted or comforted,” he said.

I DO NOT UNDERSTAND SUNNY.

But I still wish we were best friends again.

We all kind of agreed that NO MATTER WHAT Sunny’s reaction to us was,
we would rally around her.
We would MAKE her be our friend again, and then we would stick with her
through the worst, until things got better again, and forever. Because that’s
what friends do.

Sunny, Diary 3:

Sunny’s third and final diary in this series is…..bittersweet. As you might guess from the cover, the great horror that has been steadily growing through the series, the black hole that is Mrs. Winslow’s death, will here have its victory. The journal is divided into two parts: the first are Sunny’s entries from the last few days of her mom’s life, as she, her dad, and her aunt Morgan rally around one another and brace themselves. Dawn is there, the girls having mended fences, and — after a scene where Ducky and Sunny have a heart to heart — so is he. This section of the book hits rougher than it did twenty years ago, given that teenage-me had yet to experience a serious death. As sad as this part of the book is, I was looking forward to certain elements of it, because this is the book that the reader really gets to know Mrs. Winslow. In the previous books she’s been part of Sunny’s life, but when Sunny can get past her dread and despair enough to go see her mom, there’s usually someone else there. We get glimpses of their relationship, glimpses of the person, but never a full look. Here we get that, as Sunny talks to her mom here more than she has in the previous books combined. Mrs. Winslow gives Sunny her journals, and Sunny begins to read (and share them) in the second half. This book is both sad and sweet — heartbreaking in what Sunny has to endure, but bracing and comforting realizing that despite Sunny’s frequent failings, grace has prevailed and she, her family, and her friends are facing this together.

My brain is no longer my own. It’s been hijacked by Mom.
I hate you, Mom.
I love you, Mom.

“It does feel that way. You just have to remember that the way things feel isn’t always the way things are.”

“Morgan,” said Mom, “tell Sunny what you felt would be an appropriate baby gift when she was born.”
Aunt Morgan and Dad began to laugh. “Oh, no! That was deranged!” cried Aunt Morgan.
“Tell me,” I said. I couldn’t imagine what they were laughing about.
“No!” said Aunt Morgan.
“Okay, then I’ll tell,” said Mom. “Sunny, two days after you were born, your aunt Morgan flew out here and showed up at our house bearing a huge bottle of vodka. A pink ribbon was tied around its neck.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Vodka for a baby?” I said.
“No, for your parents!” exclaimed Aunt Morgan. “I couldn’t think of a better gift for two adults who were about to have their entire lives turned upside down.”

Should I be writing all these things down? I don’t know. I am chronicling my mother’s death. It doesn’t seem right.

THIS ISN’T HAPPENING THIS ISN’T HAPPENING THIS ISN’T HAPPENING THIS ISN’T HAPPENING

A half hour later Amalia had joined Dawn, Ducky, Maggie, and me. Now the five of us were sitting around crying, laughing — and talking a bit more than we had been earlier.
When was the last time the five of us were together in one place other than school? Was it the night of that dreadful party, the night we met Ducky?
That was months ago. It seems like forever ago.
I have been so horrible to most of my friends lately. And here they all were, gathered around me like a cocoon. Protecting me. Loving me. Not caring how horrible I’ve been. For just a second I felt a teeny, teeny bit better.
Then I remembered what is going to happen tomorrow.

Maggie, diary 3. After the emotionally intense ride that was Sunny’s finale diary, Maggie is almost comfort food. The therapist that Amalia found for her in round two is working wonderfully, and Maggie has realized that she was being so restrictive about her food because it was one of the few areas in her life she had any control. At a movie-launch party (…boy, her dad is busy with his movies — three in one year!), she bumps into a rising teen star Tyler something-or-another, and they hit it off, which leads to Maggie and VANISH being invited to be extras in one scene, providing authentic teen-garage band sound vibes to the movie. Her relationship with Tyler is very up and down, because as much as she likes him, she wonders how on the level he really is. Even if he’s not just a shallow, limelight-obsessed actor who doesn’t have the seriousness for a real relationship, what if he’s using her because of her father’s connections? Given that the reader has only just met Tyler, the stakes in this book are very low — a possibly needed followup to the intensity of the preceding book.

Quotes:

Ducky said that our lives over the past few months would make a good TV series.
“It certainly wouldn’t be a sitcom though,” said Amalia.
“If it’s not a comedy then I don’t want my character in it,” Sunny told us.
No one said anything. But we were all thinking, How can it be a comedy if your mother dies in it?
“My mother would want it to be a happy series,” Sunny said softly. “She loved to laugh.”

Amalia, diary 3. This has a bit of a Very Special Episode feeling going on: while Amalia is dealing with general life stuff (finals, ambiguity in re this guy she’s been going out with, but not Dating), but then one night during a date, she’s confronted by a group of drunk mean girls who physically assault her and even spit on her out of ethnic hate, so she’s dealing with the pain and anger of that, which is amplified after Brendan begins distancing himself from her — either because he doesn’t know how to deal with her having feelings in general, or doesn’t know how to approach the issue of prejudice. To make matters worse, Amalia’s emotional state leads her to lash out at Maggie, who has been hanging out a lot at Amalia’s place to avoid her drunken mother and workaholic-control freak father. After Amalia’s sister Isabel shares her own experiences with Amalia, she realizes how to rise above the pain and not let it deform her. Given that we’re pushing toward the end of the series, Amalia and Maggie also make up.

Quotes:

Ducky, diary 3. We approach….the finale. Amalia is still wrestling with commitment issues in re: Brendan, who she really likes but doesn’t want to fall for. Maggie’s mom is no longer spiraling out of control, she’s an absolute train-has-left-the-tracks-and-is-about-to-wipe-out–a-city. Ducky literally has to wake up in the middle of the night and pick up Maggie and her little brother, because their mother is in a drunken rage so severe that Maggie almost calls the police. (Where is dear old dad? Working on yet another movie.) Helping Maggie is as bit of a relief for Ducky, because things with Sunny are getting weird. Of all the relationships in this book, I’ll admit to liking Ducky and Sunny’s the best — in part because Ducky is such a wonderful guy who becomes for Sunny exactly what she needs: a big brother who cares about her as she is, not as a potential love interest. Their senses of humor and style mesh perfectly. Through all the chaos of the past year, he’s been there for her — and to a more limited degree, she for him, giving him someone to talk to about his own problems even if she’s a bit distracted by cancer and boys. But now…she keeps laughing at his jokes a little too hard and he keeps seeing her give him strange looks . And then she kisses him, but — well, there’s no floating hearts, no rising “Love Theme”. Ducky loves Sunny, but not….that….way, and he doesn’t know what to do about it. He’s reluctant to ask the girls about it, because….well, isn’t Sunny more their friend than his? Fortunately, their connection leads to a beachside talk, whereupon they agree to be Best Friends, and the book and series end with a sweet pizza party. I was really sad when this series ended, but it was a nice final book.

Quotes:

Heartburn and Heart Pain
This could be the title for a country music song.
Taco takeout indigestion.
And stupid, stupid, stupid Ducky.
Asking Ted’s advice?
AGAIN?
WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?

“Don’t get all mush-brained on me. That’s probably why I kissed you in the first place—the mush factor of summer.”
“And I thought it was my unique sense of style,” you joke back.
Sunny rolls her eyes. “I’ll give you unique,” she says.
You laugh. “You’re the one who dreams of personalized bowling shirts,” you say.
And Sunny laughs.
It feels so good.
Best friends.

You look up at the stars.
If you wished on a star, you’d wish for friends exactly like these.
You, Christopher, are one lucky Duck.