There's a Bat in Bunk Five

This is a sequel to The Cat Ate My Gymsuit, except it's sort of not. Marcy goes away to camp, so most of the characters and relationships from the first book aren't really present in this one. Marcy's over-the-top evil Dad has mellowed a lot, and also had an off-screen heart attack which he survived, so now everyone dotes on him a bit more. Joel, who let's face it was one of the best bits of the first book, has just moved to a totally different state and is now nothing to do with Marcy's life, and Marcy herself is now a slim hot boy-magnet.

I don't know much about how Americans run summer camps still, but to a modern British readership having a pile of hormonal underage teenagers responsible for the welfare of a huge group of younger show more kids sounds like the sort of thing that just Wouldn't Be Allowed nowadays! Especially the (very mild) flirtatious banter between the kids in staff roles and the campers.

The most interesting bit of this book is the story of Ginger, who is outrageously caricaturishly awful to everyone, damaging their musical instruments, poisoning them so they need two days in the sick bay, being racist, etc etc. You sort of assume in an easy reading young adult book the plot is going to be 'actually it wasn't really Ginger doing all the bad stuff, you blamed her unfairly' or 'by being loved at summer camp Ginger grew as a person'. But actually we end up with 'Ginger is just unfixable, don't blame yourself too much, some people are just beyond the help we can offer', which, err, is probably true, but isn't the warm fuzzy end of book note I was expecting

The romance is a little uninspiring, they are all over each other when they've only known each other one day (although summer camp, things do move fast), and the chat up lines from the boys are totally cheesy verging into sleezy. I know 'communication is hard' is the staple of high school romance drama, but the total acceptance that you can make out in the uncomfortable front of the car, but if you go onto the back seat that is definitely consenting to sex is just ridiculous! Like, couldn't they use their words and say 'I'm really enjoying this, the back seat would be much more comfortable, but I don't want to go any further than this right now'?

It was interesting to realise that Ms Finney and Marcy are both in some ways the author writing parts of herself into characters, and when they talk about how they are similar that all felt very meta!

Also my copy has a hilarious introduction going 'hey! In England bats don't have rabies and it's illegal to kill them! Especially by hitting them with a broom!'
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This is the sequel to The Cat Ate My Gymsuit. I don't remember if I liked it the first time I read it as a kid, but as an adult, it lost me. Too much angst, too much self-flagellation on Marcy's part, and the romance angle felt forced (mostly because the author skips the details and just focuses on the highlights). There's a lot of exaggeration of the themes in an effort to have the maximum impact but it mostly backfired for adult me.

The setting was great though, and my favourite parts were the times Danzinger builds the scenes around the girls of bunk 5. They stole every scene they were in and saved the book from total insipidness.